3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 277at the base of economic activity are very powerful also,’ depending in part
on emotions that are as deeply rooted as those which give rise to nation-
alism: the instinct of self-preservation which is the ‘first law of nature.’^122
Condliffe noted that some educational doctrines had ‘sacrificed the
apparently too matter-of-fact and egoistic aspect of economic activity to
the more romantic, and apparently less egocentric, patriotism,’ adding
that rational economic organisation had always battled with this obstacle.
Yet Condliffe stated that it would be ‘premature to affirm that the State
had succeeded at breaking the industrial forces tending to expansion on
a world scale,’ as it was equally possible that in the long term such forces
might destroy the state. As an alternative to either extreme, Condliffe
pointed to the possibility that a way might be found to reconcile ‘legit-
imate national aspirations with the advantages of world organisation of
industry and commerce in educating future generations with a view to
a larger comprehension of the human problems’ that extend from ‘the
home to the neighbour, from the nation to humanity.’^123
Here, Condliffe was suggesting that not all assertions of nationalism
or state sovereignty were based in irrational impulses and equally that
unrestrained economic expansion was not an unalloyed good. He sought
to illustrate this by drawing on psychoanalytical symbolism: that the con-
flict between nationalism and industrialism could be viewed as a conflict
between the ‘maternal principle of political organisation which seeks to
protect, shelter and conserve and the paternal principle of enterprise,
unstable and adventurous.’^124
Condliffe contended that the case for economic liberalism was not
‘quite clear-cut’ and that he was ‘not going to re-state the case from the
nineteenth century, the “laissez-faire” theory.’ Rather, he argued that the
case for international economic liberalism had to be ‘re-stated in terms of
modern conditions’.^125 These conditions included not only the trend of
economic development but of the ‘the whole way of living in the modern
world, of increasing speed and efficiency of communication,’ all of which,
he suggested, was ‘driving us towards a world economic organisation.’^126
(^122) Ibid.
(^123) Ibid., 6.
(^124) Ibid.
(^125) International Studies Conference, Twelfth Session, Economic Policies in Relation
to World Peace: A Record of the Study Meetings Held in Bergen from August 26 to 29,
1939, 115, IICI/9/23, UA.
(^126) Ibid., 64.