Politics & Power Quote by Arthur Henderson

Henderson’s sentence is a warning disguised as a diagnosis: the real enemy of “civilization” isn’t some exotic barbarism abroad, but the self-inflicted chaos produced by two modern faiths the West likes to treat as natural law - nationalism and laissez-faire competition. The key verb is “survive.” He’s not arguing that democratic values are admirable; he’s arguing they’re fragile, contingent, and easily outcompeted by more primal incentives once states and markets turn predatory.

The phrase “world rent” does heavy lifting. It conjures a fabric torn open, not a polite policy disagreement. Henderson is writing in the long shadow of World War I and the shaky interwar settlement, when the League of Nations promised rules but delivered mostly paperwork, and when economic volatility made democratic restraint feel like a luxury. As a Labour politician and internationalist, he’s pushing against the comforting idea that you can keep liberal norms at home while tolerating ruthless competition abroad. His subtext: democracy can’t be a local brand; it has to be a system.

Notice the symmetry: “international anarchy” and “economic anarchy.” He’s collapsing the boundary between geopolitics and capitalism, implying they’re mirrors - each rewards escalation, each punishes cooperation, each turns principles into liabilities. That’s the rhetorical trap he sets for complacent liberals: if you celebrate democratic “values” but accept a world order built on winner-take-all rivalry, you’re betting on ethics without building institutions that make ethics viable.