Searching on the internet I've come across different sources offering differing views on the role of capitalism in starting the first world war.
Socialist websites such wsws and world socialism state that capitalism was the main reason leading to the world war. However, the Economist writes that capitalism was not responsible.
It appears that both sources are fairly biased about this topic and I'm looking for unbiased sources.
This is my first post here so I apologize if I'm somehow breaking the rules. Also, English is not my first language so please excuse the grammatical errors.
Could you please specify what you mean by "capitalism"? It is a very loaded term; most people actually mean various things they associate with it when they use it.
the Economist writes that capitalism was not responsible.
From what I've noticed The Economist is often extremely apologetic for capitalism. They also have a clearly Neo-Liberal agenda. Doesn't matter if you agree with that outlook or not, because for historical purposes it means they are biased.
It really depends how you define capitalism, as /u/mumblemojo states. If you're talking about a purely market system, then I'd say it had little to do with starting the war. However, that's a pretty bad definition of capitalism since all economic systems are inherently tied into the social and political systems they're embedded within (interesting note, before the triumph of Liberals in the early 19th century no distinction was made between economics and social systems^1). Therefore, I think a better definition that fits about what you're asking for is the system of capitalism that encompasses the role of government and social systems in capitalist development.
By that definition we include the Imperialist policies of Britain, France, Germany, etc that sought new markets as well as the diplomatic conflicts that arose out of that. If we want to define capitalism this way, then yes I'd say capitalism had a great deal to do with driving Europe towards war. One example of that is the competitive arms race and competition between Britain and Germany navally. The whole reason for this race to build the largest navy was Germany's emerging industrial power, which brought them at odds with other Imperial Powers^2. That's basically the logic of capitalist competition being projected on the military and state (I guess one could argue that capitalist competition is a reflection of military competition).
However, that doesn't mean capitalism was entirely responsible or even mostly responsible for the war. The enmity between France and Germany that was the catalyst of war in the West had its roots in the Franco-Prussian War, with France being eager to avenge itself for its humiliation. And of course the main spark for the war was the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, which had its roots in hundreds of years of Balkan conflict caused by Ottoman and Austrian occupations of the region. S
Capitalism played some role if we go off of my definition, but isn't the whole picture.
^1. Polanyi, Karl. The Great Transformation. 1944. ^2. Ferguson, Niall. Empire. 2003. (Note on Empire, it is a very biased source that has a positive outlook on the British Empire. I completely disagree with the argument of the book, but the historical facts about the history of British Imperialism are reliable and provide a good picture of how Imperial competition caused conflict in Europe) 3. Hart, Peter. The Great War. 2013.