This
demoralizing sense of 'no alternative' has impacted on the thinking of the
peace and women's movements too. Yet, we are resourced today with factual
evidence of the economic oppression and inequality at the root of war, data of
a scope and accuracy that the women of 1919 sorely lacked. The UN’s Human Development Report provides us
annually with a clear picture of who profits and who lives in poverty. The recent scandal of the so-called Global
Financial Crisis has brought to view hard evidence of the subsidy made
available to the financial institutions and individuals responsible, while a
hyper-capitalism is imposed upon populations through austerity measures that
attack public services, and on labour standards and conditions hard won over
decades.
Today,
given the palpable rivalry of corporate interests and their national backers
for control of resources and markets, peace activism can scarcely afford to
ignore the causality of capitalism in militarization and war.