Story of International Relations

3 CONFERENCES AT PRAGUE AND BERGEN AND THE LOOMING WAR 281

economy must always be in arms.’^138 Baudin then described the atmos-
phere created by a policy of autarky and why such a policy conduces to war.

[T]he desire for autarky which animates the totalitarian States creates an

atmosphere comparable to that which exists in a time of war. It has been

observed that this tends to stimulate the spirit of invention. This is offset

by the fact that the permanent mobilisation entails a drop in the stand-

ard of life. To constrain a people to live as though a war were in progress

not only gives the government the possibility of passing instantaneously

from a state of peace to an actual state of war, but also incites the gov-

ernment to take that step in justification of its methods. An attitude of

perpetual tension necessitates the conquest of results which legitimate the

sacrifices imposed. If these results are obtained peacefully, the tension is

not removed but is merely prolonged.^139

Like Heilperin, Baudin maintained that economic interdependence
helped foster peace, yet he too thought that it was not a sufficient con-
dition for it. Indeed, Baudin pointed out that interdependence can only
flourish where there is confidence that there would be no ‘theft and con-
quest’ and that this required that certain legal and political conditions
must be satisfied.^140 In this regard, Baudin noted an observation made
by Lionel Robbins in Economic Planning and International Order in the
context of discussing the deficiencies of nineteenth century economic
liberalism: ‘It is not by the demonstration that burglary and gangster-
dom do not pay that we restrain the activities of burglars and gangsters;
it is by the maintenance of a mechanism of restraint.’^141
Having considered at its administrative meeting on August 29 the
ideas solicited by the executive committee prior to the conference con-
cerning what should be the focus of the ISC’s 1939–1941 study cycle,
the Bergen conference determined that the next subject of its the inquir-
ies would be as follows: ‘International Organisation: its foundation, its
forms, its possibilities, its limitations, with special reference to conditions
essential for successful international co-operation, moral, spiritual, social,

(^138) Baudin, Free Trade and Peace, 57n.
(^139) Ibid., 57.
(^140) Ibid., 30–3, 77–8.
(^141) Lionel Robbins, Economic Planning and International Order (London: Macmillan,
1937), 240–42. See also Baudin, Free Trade and Peace, 32.