The New World Order by H.G. Wells

The New World Order by H.G. Wells is a short text discussing the need for world peace given the devastation of WWI and, at the time of publishing in 1940, WWII.

As mentioned in other reviews of his work, it should be noted that Wells studied under Thomas Henry Huxley, grandfather of Aldous Huxley. T.H. Huxley was a strong supporter of Charles Darwin’s theory of evolution and is known for his materialist and irreligious views. Wells later introduced Aldous Huxley to satanist and occultist Aleister Crowley. Wells was a socialist who joined the Fabian Society in 1903.

The New World Order is organized into 12 chapters. The author spends the first two chapters discussing what he thinks are some people’s views regarding peace, that big wars between major powers would be unrealistic until the shock of WWI, and the importance of open discussion and debate regarding what world peace should look like.

It is highly generalized waffle similar to The Open Conspiracy (1928). In this work, Wells seems to like the word “revolution” but it is initially unclear what type he is referring to.

World peace means all that much revolution. More and more of us begin to realise that it cannot mean less.

And later:

The war [WWII] is incidental; the need for revolutionary reconstruction is fundamental.

He then points out that even without modern warfare, the world is being gradually disrupted or destroyed—for example, social life and the environment—due to the expanding scale of “human operations” made possible by modern technology. He is at least generally aware of the problem of finance.

Whilst he is not wrong when pointing out the problems, his solution (or at least the vague idea of one) is revealed by the third chapter.

Political federation, we have to realise, without a concurrent economic collectivisation, is bound to fail. The task of the peace-maker who really desires peace in a new world, involves not merely a political but a profound social revolution, profounder even than the revolution attempted by the Communists in Russia. The Russian Revolution failed not by its extremism but through the impatience, violence and intolerance of its onset, through lack of foresight and intellectual insufficiency. The cosmopolitan revolution to a world collectivism, which is the only alternative to chaos and degeneration before mankind, has to go much further than the Russian; it has to be more thorough and better conceived and its achievement demands a much more heroic and more steadfast thrust.

Wells thinks the world is heading toward some sort of revolution either way and that it is important that it be done rightly. He does not necessarily approve of what happened in Russia.

We do not deplore the Russian Revolution as a Revolution. We complain that it is not a good enough Revolution and we want a better one.

A “better” revolution. Right. He does in effect highlight the attacks on the so-called Rights of Man and the killing. Well, apart from all that… I mean, there was not much else in that revolution, so what was good about it that should have been done “better”?

He then conveniently criticizes the Vatican and Christianity although he does not seem to understand what either of them is. He is all for “good” people who may or may not be Christian but he only seems to be a fan of those who are “not very fastidious about the exact use of the words”. In other words, he sounds like a typical modernist: “good” is a nice idea as long as one is vague and doesn’t involve religion or God.

Here is an example of the author’s disapproval of the Church’s power:

It is to the influence of the Church that we must ascribe the foolish support by the British Foreign Office of Franco, that murderous little “Christian gentleman”, in his overthrow of the staggering liberal renascence of Spain.

The slaughter in Russia was bad but the communists going around killing people in Spain was its “liberal renascence”. And Franco is a bad guy for killing them back. Well, of course, a Catholic killing commies—we can’t have that.

One can only give the author the benefit of the doubt for so long. By halfway, if it even takes this long, one can see the author is just waffling.

To be fair, he is clear enough that he is deliberately not elaborating on what revolution should take place for the sake of world peace, that he is just making some observations. His solution or the idea of one begins in chapter 8.

First, Wells highlights two types of revolutions. The first is “Catholic” because he thinks Catholic rule led to a dissatisfied mob and violent revolt. How convenient to blame the Church again. The second is the “revolution conspiracy” which is exactly what the term suggests, a revolution planned and executed by an inner circle.

It is interesting that it does not seem to occur to the author that if an institution such as the Church is even half-good, it follows that those who aren’t will want to attack it; hence a conspiracy that foments dissatisfaction.

In any case, the author does not agree with either type of revolution but rather a third type. He in effect suggests that people get together and talk about this “new world order” and spread the idea even if they don’t know what it is.

And to begin with they will do all they can to spread and perfect this conception of a new world order, which they will regard as the only working frame for their activities, while at the same time they will set themselves to discover and associate with themselves, everyone, everywhere, who is intellectually able to grasp the same broad ideas and morally disposed to realise them. The distribution of this essential conception one may call propaganda, but in reality it is education. The opening phase of this new type of Revolution must involve therefore a campaign for re-invigorated and modernised education throughout the world, an education that will have the same ratio to the education of a couple of hundred years ago, as the electric lighting of a contemporary city has to the chandeliers and oil lamps of the same period.

“Education” will fix everything. Right. And education in this context does really sound like propaganda (in the negative sense). Like The Open Conspiracy, he at least tacitly thinks scientific research will solve the issue. Anyway, in case one is unclear what the goal of this education is, the author goes on…

This new and complete Revolution we contemplate can be defined in a very few words. It is (a) outright world-socialism, scientifically planned and directed, plus (b) a sustained insistence upon law, law based on a fuller, more jealously conceived resentment of the personal Rights of Man, plus (c) the completest freedom of speech, criticism and publication, and sedulous expansion of the educational organisation to the ever-growing demands of the new order. What we may call the eastern or Bolshevik Collectivism, the Revolution of the Internationale, has failed to achieve even the first of these three items and it has never even attempted the other two.

He emphasizes the need for “a universal law based on a re-declaration of the rights of man, and wherein there is the utmost liberty of thought, criticism and suggestion, is the plain, rational objective before us now”.

He lists 10 points that should in this human rights declaration. Whilst these points are generally not wrong in themselves, they are materialistic and divorced from God and morality.

Setting aside that “human rights” as we know it is derived from modern humanism and is self-contradictory, let us not forget that such a declaration was central to the French Revolution and how well that went down.

For the sake of argument, just because the French couldn’t do it nicely doesn’t mean others can’t in the future. But it does beg the question of how this new world order is to be enforced. With weapons?

And on that note, Wells takes an idealistic view that no one should have weapons… except for those who do the enforcing. Right.

Armament should be an illegality everywhere, and some sort of international force should patrol a treaty-bound world. Partial armament is one of those absurdities dear to moderate-minded “reasonable” men. Armament itself is making war. Making a gun, pointing a gun and firing it, are all acts of the same order. It should be illegal to construct anywhere upon earth, any mechanism for the specific purpose of killing men. When you see a gun it is reasonable to ask: “Whom is that intended to kill?”

The above could arguably work in a half-perfect world. But in such a world, allowing everyone to have guns is no less valid—after all, everyone who wants a gun could have one and would only use it for self-defense. There’s no problem there, so why disarm anyone?

So, Wells is in favor of a “world police” for disarmament with air power since he assumes “criminals” have that ability. This is not surprising; in his novel The Shape of Things to Come (1933), there is an “Air Dictatorship”.

That is the problem with materialist socialist/communist thought: since it is merely materialistic and excludes the supernatural and God, it follows that morals don’t mean much and raw power rules. This so-called new world order can seem very nice but who is going to implement and maintain it? Only the “sane” people of good will, blah blah blah. And who are these people? A socialist and his friends with guns and air power, apparently.

Whilst the author makes some correct (enough) criticisms of the world, the text is ultimately more self-indulgent, vague drivel like his other works.

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