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ANALYSIS OF EINSTEIN AND FREUD'S THOUGHT ON THE CAUSES OF
WARS AND THE SOLUTIONS TO AVOID THEM
Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to analyze the thinking of Albert Einstein, the father of the Theory of
Relativity, and Sigmund Freud, the father of Psychoanalysis, exposed in the letters
exchanged between them in 1932, in the interregnum between the 1st and 2nd World War
on the causes of wars and the solutions to avoid them. The content of these letters is
contained in the website
<https://moodle.ufsc.br/pluginfile.php/1033690/mod_resource/content/1/Aula%2B026
%2B-%2BFreud%2B%2BEinstein.pdf>. Albert Einstein asked Freud if there is any way
to rid humanity of the threat of war and if it is possible to control the evolution of man's
mind so as to make him proof of the psychoses of hatred and destructiveness? In his letter
to Freud, Einstein stated that all attempts to free humanity from the threat of war ended
in regrettable failure, which is why he asked the father of Psychoanalysis to elucidate the
problem with the help of his profound knowledge of man's instinctive life. When asking
Freud to analyze man's instinctive life, Einstein seems to admit that violent human
behavior results to a greater degree from his animal instinct and not from the social
environment in which he lives.
The questions posed by Einstein in a letter addressed to Freud were the following:
1. When dealing with the issue of wars, Einstein considered the need, through an
international agreement, to structure a legislative and judicial body that could arbitrate
any conflict. According to Einstein, “each nation would submit to obedience to the
orders issued by that legislative body, to resort to its decisions in all disputes, to
unrestrictedly accept its decisions and to put into practice all the measures that the
court considered necessary for the execution of his decrees”. Einstein stated that,
“Currently, however, we are far from having any competent supranational
organization to issue judgments of undisputed authority and guarantee absolute
compliance with the execution of its verdicts. Einstein considers that the pursuit of
international security involves the unconditional renunciation, by all nations, to a
certain extent, of their freedom of action, that is, their sovereignty. It is worth noting
that in 1932 there was a supranational body, the League of Nations, which was
supposed to mediate in international conflicts and failed by not preventing the
outbreak of the 2nd World War.
Einstein's thesis that the pursuit of international security involves the renunciation of
national sovereignty is, however, mistaken because it could be possible to implement a
world government representative of all the peoples of the world that would deal only with
the mediation of international conflicts without interference in the internal affairs of each
country whose sovereignty would be respected. The preservation of peace would be the
first mission of every new form of world government. For this to happen, there must be a
democratic governance of the world with a world government elected by all countries in
the world. Its role would be to build the governance of the global economy and
environment and the maintenance of world peace. Through it, the defense of the general
interests of all the countries of the planet in terms of international relations would be
pursued. A democratic world government would ensure that the sovereignty of each
country is respected because it would act to prevent any country from intervening in the
internal affairs of others, especially with military interventions. Contrary to what many
people think, the existence of a world government would not be a threat to national

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sovereignty, on the contrary, it would guarantee that no country would intervene in the
internal affairs of other countries.
In order to permanently remove new risks of a new world war and for perpetual peace to
materialize on our planet, it would be necessary to reform the current international system,
which is incapable of guaranteeing world peace. The UN, which was constituted after the
2nd World War, has been as inoperative as the League of Nations in the mediation of
international conflicts that preceded it between the two Great Wars. The new international
system should work based on a Planetary Social Contract that would be the Constitution
of planet Earth in which the rules of international coexistence would be established. For
the preparation of the Planetary Social Contract, there should be a convening of a
Constituent World Assembly with the participation of representatives of all the countries
of the world elected for this purpose. The Planetary Social Contract should establish the
existence of a World Government whose president should be elected with more than 50%
of votes of the World Parliament to be, also, constituted with elected representatives in
the different countries of the world.
In addition to the World Government and the World Parliament, the World Supreme
Court should also be constituted, which should be composed of high-level jurists from
the world chosen by the World Parliament, who would act for a determined time. The
World Supreme Court should judge cases that involve disputes between countries, crimes
against humanity and against nature committed by national States and by rulers in the
light of the Planetary Social Contract, judge conflicts that exist between the World
Government and the World Parliament and act as guardian of the Planetary Social
Contract. The new rule of international law would be enforced by the three constituted
powers: World Government, World Parliament, and World Supreme Court. World power
would rest with the World Government, the World Parliament and the World Supreme
Court. The World Government will not have its own Armed Forces, having to rely on the
support of the Armed Forces of the countries that would be summoned when necessary.
With this proposed configuration for the democratic governance of the international
system, no country would be a vassal, therefore, of the world government.
The World Government would act only to make the international system evolve in an
environment of peace among nations. Each country must be sovereign to act within the
limits of its territory and not to intervene in the internal affairs of other countries. What
would not be accepted is any country intervening with the use of force in the internal
affairs of other countries, as has happened throughout history. The World Government
would be the guarantee of respect for the sovereignty of the countries of the world,
especially the weakest ones. The absence of a World Government is what would pose a
threat to the national sovereignty of most countries because they would be at the mercy
of the strongest as has been the case throughout history. If any country jeopardizes the
environment of peace between nations, intervening in the internal affairs of another
country, the World Government would act to prevent the aggressor from consummating
his purposes through diplomatic action or, in case of failure, even with the use of force.
To this end, the World Government would summon the armed forces of certain countries
to fulfill the role of preventing any country from intervening in another using force.
2. Einstein stated that there is no room for doubt that important psychological factors
are at play that paralyze efforts aimed at ending wars. Some of these factors, according
to Einstein, are easier to detect because the intense desire for power, which
characterizes the ruling class in every nation, is hostile to any limitation of its national
sovereignty.

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Einstein is absolutely correct, because the great powers oppose any limitation of their
national sovereignty in order to be able to act without limitations in their imperialist
actions on weaker countries. Einstein is correct in stating that a small but determined
group existing in each nation, composed of individuals, are indifferent to social conditions
and controls, because they consider war, the manufacture and sale of weapons simply as
an opportunity to expand their personal interests and expand your personal authority. This
is the case of the United States, which benefits most economically from armed
confrontations, since the largest arms exporters in the world are North American. In
addition to the sale of ammunition and weapons, the United States also monetizes with
security contracts and military training, which makes many members of the US Congress
understand wars as a job and money machine for the country. Peace, for the United States,
could cost it dearly.
3. Einstein asks: how is it possible for the small flock that governs a country to bend the
will of the majority, who are resigned to losing and suffering in a war situation, at the
service of the ambition of a few? When speaking of the majority, Einstein does not
exclude soldiers, of all graduations, who chose war as a profession, in the belief that
they are serving the defense of the highest interests of their race and that the attack is
often the best means of defense. According to Einstein, it seems that an obvious
answer to this question would be that the minority, the current ruling class, has the
schools, the press and, generally, also the Church, under its power that makes it
possible to organize and dominate the emotions of the masses and make them
instrument of the same minority. Einstein also asks: how do these mechanisms
manage so well to awaken in men an extreme enthusiasm, to the point of sacrificing
their lives? Einstein thinks there can be only one answer because man contains within
himself a desire for hatred and destruction. In normal times this passion exists in a
latent state, it emerges only under abnormal circumstances; it is, however, relatively
easy to awaken it and raise it to the potency of collective psychosis. Einstein affirms
that, perhaps, this is the crux of the whole complex of factors that we are considering,
an enigma that only a specialist in the science of human instincts can solve, like Freud.
Einstein is right when he says that the current ruling class has schools, the press and,
generally, also the Church, under its power that makes it possible to organize and
dominate the emotions of the masses and make them an instrument of the same minority.
According to Althusser, in school, in addition to reading and writing, the rules of "good
behavior" are also learned, that is, one learns to be submissive to the prevailing order,
making people submissive in relation to the dominant ideology [ALTHUSSER, Louis.
Aparelhos ideológicos de estado (Ideological state apparatuses). 6th Ed. Rio de Janeiro:
Graal, 1985]. The state's ideological apparatus (school, press, church and the media in
general) work on people's minds. The system of different churches, the school system
(both public and private), the family system, the legal system, the political system, the
trade union system, the information system and the cultural system are integral parts of
the ideological state apparatuseso. Not only schools, the press and the Church collaborate
with the ruling classes to place the majority of the population at the service of war. In the
first half of the 20th century, radio played a fundamental role in the mystification of the
masses by political propaganda. Today, it is social networks and the media in general
that play the role of mystifying the masses through political propaganda.
Einstein asks Freud if it is possible to control the evolution of man's mind, in order to
make him proof of the psychoses of hate and destructiveness? Here, Einstein is not
referring only to the so-called uneducated masses. Einstein claims that experience proves
that it is rather the so-called 'Intelligentsia' that are most inclined to give in to these

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disastrous collective suggestions. Einstein asked Freud to present the problem of world
peace in the light of his most recent discoveries, as such a presentation could well pave
the way for new and fruitful methods of action.
Freud's responses in a letter addressed to Einstein were as follows:
1. Freud states that wars will only be avoided with certainty if humanity unites to
establish a central authority, which will be given the right to arbitrate all conflicts of
interest. Two distinct requirements are clearly involved in this: creating a supreme
instance and endowing it with the necessary power. One without the other would be
useless. The League of Nations is intended to be an instance of this kind, but the
second condition has not been fulfilled: the League of Nations has no power of its
own, and can acquire it only if the members of the new union, the different states, are
willing to give it away. And there is currently no idea that one hopes will exercise
such unifying authority. In reality, it is all too evident that the national ideals, by which
nations govern themselves today, act in the opposite direction.
Freud defends the existence of a supreme body endowed with the necessary power, that
is, a world government that would be given the right to arbitrate all international conflicts.
The criticism he made of the League of Nations that existed between the 1st and 2nd
World War also applies to the UN created after the 2nd World War and which is powerless
to deal with international conflicts.
2. Freud states that inflaming men's enthusiasm for war introduces the suspicion that
there is an instinct for hatred and destruction in them that cooperates with the efforts
of war merchants. Freud believes in the existence of an instinct of this nature which,
during the last few years, has really been occupied with studying its manifestations.
Freud claims that human instincts are of only two kinds: those that tend to preserve
and unite — which we call 'erotic', in exactly the same sense in which Plato uses the
word 'Eros' in his Symposium, or 'sexuals', with a deliberate broadening of the popular
conception of 'sexuality'—; and those who tend to destroy and kill, which he grouped
together as an aggressive or destructive instinct when human beings are incited to
war, may have a whole range of motives for getting carried away - some noble, some
vile, some frankly declared, others never mentioned. This instinct is at work in every
living creature and seeks to bring it to annihilation, to reduce life to its original
condition of inanimate matter. Therefore, for Freud, it deserves, in all seriousness, to
be called the death instinct, while the erotic instincts represent the effort to live. The
death instinct becomes the destructive instinct when, with the help of special organs,
it is directed outward towards objects. The organism preserves its own life, so to
speak, by destroying the life of others. According to Freud, a part of the death instinct,
however, remains active within the organism, which he has tried to attribute numerous
normal and pathological phenomena to this internalization of the destruction instinct.
This would serve as a biological justification for all the damnable and dangerous
impulses we fight against.
Freud's view is that violence represents the dominance of the animal instinct that we
possess. This is not the opinion of eminent thinkers such as Raymond Aron (French
philosopher and sociologist), Henry Bergson (French philosopher and diplomat, Carl
Rogers (American precursor of humanistic psychology), Jean-Jaques Rousseau (Swiss
writer and philosopher) and Karl Marx (German economist, philosopher, historian and
political scientist) who consider that the aggressive behavior of human beings results from
the social context. This would explain the escalation of criminality and wars in all times

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around the world. For millennia, scientists and philosophers have raised the following
question: Is it genetically determined as Freud admits or by the society where the human
being lives or both? Why does the world become more violent every year? there is an
increase in the number of armed conflicts on the globe, as people themselves are more
violent. What is the explanation for this? It is not uncommon to affirm that since the world
began, there has always been violence between human beings. It will be difficult to find
anyone today who does not believe this statement. And yet it is false. In the beginnings
of humanity there was no violence that manifests itself today in relations between
individuals and between human communities.
According to Raymond Aron, no human being, no people from that distant time would
have had the idea of attacking their fellow man [ARON, Raymond. Paz e Guerra entre
as Nações (Peace and War among Nations). Editora Universidade de Brasília, 1962]. Nor
would they be able, for example, to annex their neighbor's land against their will, through
brute force. It is difficult to try to establish a parallel between the way of life of human
beings back then and humanity today. At that time, living in peace and harmony with
your fellow human beings was something as natural to human beings as breathing, eating
and sleeping. Human beings once lived on Earth, without offending or mistreating each
other, much less warring with each other. That, however, was a long, long time ago. No
record from that time has come down to the present day, so it is assumed that this situation
did not exist.
According to Raymond Aron, as man's life is organized into families and bands, the less
probable conducts that are properly bellicose might seem to us. Most animals fight, but
rare are the species that practice war, understood as collective and organized action. Aron
claims that homo sapiens appeared about 600,000 years ago. The Neolithic revolution,
regular agriculture and animal husbandry date back some 10,000 years. Complex
civilizations or societies emerged about 6,000 years ago. This means that the so-called
historical period represents one hundredth of the total duration of humanity's existence
on planet Earth. According to Aron, no anthropologist has ever found any evidence that
men developed an organization or combat tactics before the Bronze Age (3300 BC to
1300-700 BC). It is not surprising, therefore, that the first indisputable signs of armies
and war date back to the Bronze Age, which is a period of civilization in which the
development of this metal alloy resulting from the mixture of copper and tin took place.
Aron states that, in the human species, manifestations of aggressiveness are inseparable
from collective life. Even when it comes to the reaction of one individual against another,
aggressiveness is influenced in many ways by the social context. The emergence of a
properly social existence was not the only cause of the new dimensions that the
phenomenon of aggressiveness assumed: the frustration and inadaptation that lead the
individual to an aggressive reaction constitute the most important fact in human
relationships. Aron defends the thesis that frustration is a psychic experience, revealed by
consciousness. All individuals feel frustrations from childhood. Frustration is first and
foremost the experience of deprivation, that is, a good desired and not achieved, an
oppression painfully felt. The chain of causality that leads to emotions or aggressive acts
always originates in an external phenomenon and not internally to the individual. There
is no physiological proof that there is a spontaneous incitement to fight, originating in the
individual's own organism, as stated by Freud. Physical aggression and the desire to
destroy is not the only possible reaction to frustration. The difficulty in maintaining peace
is more related to man's humanity than to his animality.

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Just as for the first human beings the idea of causing any harm to your fellow man would
be inconceivable, today, it sounds like an illusion, fantasy, the idea of a world without
conflicts, because we consider violence as an inherent characteristic of human beings.
One can speculate whether there might not have been an intermediate phase between the
many millennia during which man lived under the threat of wild beasts and the much
shorter period in which the threat to his safety began to originate in other men. It would
be a time when men had sufficient technical means for defense against wild beasts and
without engagement in the pursuit of riches and class struggles, conquests and dominions.
It has been demonstrated that small societies, without metallic instruments, isolated, still
do not show characteristic traits of bellicose societies. Raymond Aron states in his work
Peace and War among Nations that biologists call aggressiveness the propensity of an
animal to attack another of the same or different species. In most (but not all) species,
individuals fight each other. Some are not aggressive (that is, they do not take the
initiative to attack), but will defend themselves when attacked. Among primates, humans
are at the bottom of the aggressiveness scale.
Henry Bergson, in turn, states that the origin of violence and war is the existence of
property, individual or collective, and since humanity is predestined to property, by its
structure, violence and war would be natural (BERGSON, Henry. Les Deux Sources de
la Morale et de la Religion. French & European Pubns, 1976). The article by Sonia Maria
Lima de Gusmão under the title A natureza humana segundo Freud e Rogers (Human
nature according to Freud and Rogers) posted on the website
<https://encontroacp.com.br/textos/a-natureza-humana-segundo-freud-e-rogers/> shows
that Carl Rogers has an opposite view to that of Freud, because he believes that it is
precisely in a coercive context, where the individual cannot expand, or better, update his
potential, that makes him hostile or antisocial, otherwise, nothing we have to fear, because
his behavior will tend to be constructive. Rogers observes that when man is truly free to
become what he is in the depths of his being, when he is free to act according to his nature,
as a being capable of perceiving the things that surround him, then he , is clearly heading
towards globality and integration.
Dalva's article by Fatima Fulgeri under the title Conceito de natureza em Rousseau
(Concept of nature in Rousseau) posted on the website
<http://www.paradigmas.com.br/parad12/p12.6.htm> shows that J.J. Rousseau thought
that wars arise, or at least expand, with the expansion of collectivities and that class
inequality and individual property are linked to wars of conquest and domination by
warriors. It could not be otherwise, since political units were forged for combat and the
price of victory was always land, slaves and precious metals. For Marx, what
characterizes man is not just rationality, but the fact that he is the architect of his own
development. Humans are capable of changing the world around them, and in doing so,
they change themselves. The article A Natureza do Homem Segundo Karl Marx (The
Nature of Man According to Karl Marx), posted on the website
<http://nomosofia.blogspot.com.br/2011/10/natureza-do-homem-segundo-karl-
marx.html>) informs that Marx presented a definition of the essence of human nature in
the Philosophical Manuscripts, characterizing human beings as free and conscious
activity, in contrast to the nature of the animal. Marx states that social conflicts result
from the division of society into classes with the emergence of private property replacing
the collective ownership of the means of production prevailing in primitive societies. It
appears, from the above, that the great thinkers analyzed are opposed to Freud's thesis
that the destructive animal instinct, the death instinct, is the cause of violent behavior in
human beings.

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3. Freud states that there is no point in trying to eliminate men's aggressive inclinations.
If the desire to join the war is an effect of the destructive instinct, the most obvious
recommendation will be to oppose its antagonist, Eros. An example of men's innate
and irremovable inequality is their tendency to classify themselves into two types,
leaders and followers. The latter constitute the vast majority; they need an authority
to make decisions for them and to which, for the most part, they devote unlimited
submission. This suggests that more attention should be given than has hitherto been
given to the education of the upper stratum of men who are independent-minded, not
amenable to intimidation, and desirous of holding true to the truth, whose concern is
to direct the dependent masses.
Freud considers that men's aggressive inclinations cannot be eliminated. He only suggests
the education of leaders to the exclusion of followers. To make human beings have
constructive behavior and be able to change the world around them, it is necessary to
educate everyone with the culture of peace and promote changes in the social context that
contribute to satisfy human needs, given that acts of man's aggressiveness always
originate in an external phenomenon and not internally to the individual. Kant, the
philosopher, thus understands education: to develop in the individual all the perfection of
which he is susceptible, such is the finality of education. Pestalozzi, the pedagogue, says:
to educate is to progressively develop man's spiritual faculties. John Locke, a great
preceptor, expressed himself in this way on the subject: to educate is to make spirits
straight, disposed, at all times, not to practice anything that is not in accordance with the
dignity and excellence of a sensible creature. Lessing, no less illustrious authority,
compares the work of education to the work of revelation, and says: education determines
and accelerates the progress and perfection of man.
For the above, Einstein and Freud defend the existence of a world government to mediate
international conflicts. Einstein admits it and Freud defends the thesis that there is an
animal instinct in human beings that contributes to their aggressiveness. Unlike Einstein
and Freud, Raymond Aron (French philosopher and sociologist), Henry Bergson (French
philosopher and diplomat, Carl Rogers (American forerunner of humanistic psychology),
Jean-Jaques Rousseau (Swiss writer and philosopher) and Karl Marx (economist, German
philosopher and political scientist) defend the thesis that human aggressiveness results
from the social environment in which human beings live. In order for human beings to
behave constructively and be able to change the world around them, it is necessary to
educate everyone with a culture of peace and promote changes in the social environment
that contribute to satisfying human needs, given that acts of man's aggressiveness always
originate in an external phenomenon and not internally to the individual.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member
of the Bahia Academy of Education, of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science and of
IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development
from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economy and Administration) and
consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and
energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric
power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia
Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning
of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC-
O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil
(Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de
doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização
e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século
XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions
of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller

8. 8
Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária
(Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o
progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo,
São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV,
Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI
(Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o
Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba,
2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como
inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as
estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da
tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba,
2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022) and
How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis
Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău, 2023).