Does an economic depression always lead to a rise in nationalism and then war?
It can and does lead to a rise of narrow nationalism but at the same time the left rises too. Look at the German revolution of 1918-1923. When the bosses system falls int crisis, which it always does, people start to look for alternatives. Unfortunately, some turn to backward, reactionary ideology’s such as the far right. It was the failure of the German left who, whilst being quite strong, were unable to unite against Hitlers nazis. As pointed out by Rosa Luxemburg, we were faced with a choice between socialism and barbarism. Sadly barbarism won out and the result was the horror of the death camps and millions dead through war and mass murder. In the UK we have a proud history of smashing far right nationalism when it raises its ugly head!
It certainly can do and that is the possibly the most concerning thing about the Worlds rapidly increasing crisis. The Nazi’s only got to power because of the window of opportunity that was left open to them by Germany’s dire economic state and it is possible that could happen again. Desperate times sometimes lead to desperate measures. We are already witnessing countries attempting to essentially close themselves off from the outside World, by reverting to economic protectionism. By that I mean they are attempting to become completely self sufficient and not in anyway inter grated or reliant on other countries. This kind of thing can of course invoke wars as each country essentially looks out for itself and therefore seeks to control the natural resources and raw materials essential for the daily running of their countries. What we need to do in order to avoid this rather unpleasant scenario is to unite. The way we can do that can be found on the following video:
