War: Effect on the Economy Essay

People believe war can help the development of mankind and country. Stated by Emile Zola in her book The Origin of the First World War, “It is only warlike nations which have prospered; a nation dies as soon as it disarms. War is the school of discipline, sacrifice and courage” (Document 1). Zola’s point is very true. After years of war, the winning country can always gain some sort of profit.

War helps economies grow. For example, in 1929, the whole world faced a grim reality when the U.S. stock exchange collapsed. As a result, many people lost their life’s savings and many were out of work. After twelve years of extreme poverty, the U.S entered a new age of prosperity due to the U.S. entering into World War II. This is because the war required businesses to hire more workers in order to make ammunition and other war-related resources. This stimulated the American economy (McManus).

In the end, war can overcome a substantial issue that people have been dealing with for years. On the other hand, war can lead to humongous destruction. It can cause us to hate each other. War can cause us to become greedy animals. It all depends on the outcome of the war.

Throughout history there have been multiple armed conflicts that have affected people, countries and the living situation in those countries. Two wars that had a major impact on society were World War One and World War Two. There were many short term and long term factors that led to the start of both these World Wars.

War stimulates growth, especially for countries that participate in it, but aren't experiencing it on their soil. Not experiencing the war first hand allows for the major focus of war to be the production and mobilization of the nation. In many cases, surprisingly, it is healthy for the economy and production of a country that is mobilizing for war. For example, as America entered WWII, her “GNP rose 15%... the great depression… was thus resolved because the state ‘primed the pump’ of economic demand by means of huge order…” (Source B). Essentially, the war ended the Great Depression in America and boosted her to be the mighty manufacturer she is today. After WWII, many soldiers came back and continued to stimulate the economy and increase manufacturing and population. Women during wartime, gained more freedoms and rights, as they took over jobs men occupied before they left to fight. As well as women, African Americans gained more freedoms and they strived for Civil liberties following the war. Without the war, what would America look like today, would women and African-Americans have gained more

Politics can be defined as the practice of influencing people through the exercise of power. The main way to control a person or a group of people is to control their finances. This is why the economy of the United States is so important. Without control of its finances, the nation is unable to exercise control internally or over other nations. There have been vast doctrinal changes from the Vietnam War, to the Gulf War, to the War in Iraq that required the US to increase the amount of money fueled into the military. The US no longer fights proxy wars. It fights terrorism globally, which was because of doctrinal change. The economic cost of waging war in the 21st century has greatly increased as compared to the economic cost of waging war in the 20th century because of the domestic political state of the nation, technological advances, and doctrinal changes made by the nation.

It is a known fact that war causes inflation which makes the prices of everything go higher as well as taxes. After World War I instead of going back down the prices continued to rise which helped to contribute to the deep depression felt during the Great Depression.

     When Hazlitt wrote about how war affects economics, he wrote about this subject brilliantly. The best example Hazlitt used had to do with the broken window. He said that if a window breaks for a certain business, it is better for the economy. If a window is broken for a certain business and takes a few thousand dollars to fix, it would be a small price to pay to increase the economy. The economy would give jobs and pay wages to the repair the window. Hazlitt’s point is that sometimes there is a blessing that comes out of destruction. For example, the Civil War had a positive affect on economics. During and after the war, there was tremendous growth in industry, railroads, and others. But this came at the price of destroying land and life as well. “The war, in short, changed the postwar direction of effort; it changed the balance of industries; it changed the structure of industry” (Hazlitt p27). The reason for this growth is because it takes a lot of energy and a lot of stimulation to get the economy back where it was before the war, because the money that the government used to supply the war came from certain industries. A commodity had to be subtracted in order to supply the needs for the war. After the war, it is a great chance that

If the emotional effects of the war were not enough, the war also hit the US economy. All wars throughout history have had a transformative effect on the economies of the participating nations. The Vietnam War severely impacted the United States’ economy due to the amount of product that the war required. A factory that would normally produce a consumer good would instead be used to produce bullets, uniforms, artillery, etc. all for the war effort. The GDP of the United States was altered from it's growing state in the early 60’s. The change in factory production from consumer goods to military goods caused controversy in the eyes of the people over the government’s use of economic policy. Money was going out, but no money was coming in. The US progressively saw more and more change to its economy. War brings on, debt and bills in large

“The most widely accepted relationship between economic factors and civil war is that high-income nations are less likely to experience civil wars than low-income nations.” (Dixon 714). The disagreements over how to spend money and tax imported goods, and how territories should be distributed, cause this one nation to fight against each other.

The United States keeps sending troops to where they think we can help such a Korea, Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq and so forth. The cost of these wars in high and we have to change to wartime production for each one. After World War 2 the United States was at war with someone for the majority of the time, and if it wasn’t war we would occupy smaller countries to try to help. These drained our country’s resources and impacted our economy greatly, each president had to deal with some military campaign or another and that affected the civilians as well because important family members would be sent overseas and the majority of the time they were the providers for the house. This would impact work because people who normally work in business and factories are sent out of the country leaving their jobs behind. War has always put a drain on Americans resources and economy, and each war has had a different impact on the civilian populous sometimes positive sometimes

Total war breaks down the line separating combatants and non-combatants through a series of ideological and social justifications that allowed for barbaric acts to be committed. A war becomes total when the nation itself must dedicate every facet of its existence as a state to the war effort. The general population being brought into the war effort brings to question their innocence, thus making them targets for the enemy. The transition from a small scale war into a total war is a gradual process, as adjusting a nation’s economy and society to feed the war is a long and difficult process.

War is controversial, unfortunate, and certainly misunderstood; it is a transforming agent, a catalyst for change. Nonetheless, many people focus on war's negative consequences, while positive effects are downplayed. War is a necessary evil in the sense that it stabilizes population, encourages technological advances, and has a very high economic value. Without war, the overpopulation of the human race is inevitable. It is this reason that war is a useful tool by not only Mother Nature, but also humans themselves to institute population control.

International financial flows influence war and peace, the flows influence peace because bonds save countries from bankruptcy which reduces conflict between countries, but international financial flows influence war more than peace due to the mere fact that bonds finance wars- war would be impossible if there was no money to pay for it. Professor Ferguson states that ‘War is the father of the bond market’ because wars in Europe in the 14th and 15th Century were about bonds. International financial flows can influence war when different communities have different financial ideas which result in conflict, a minor example of this we see in early Venice whereby Jews were shunned upon for borrowing money at an interest rate because Christians did not allow it meanwhile a major example would be the war between communism (East) and capitalism (West) in the late 1900s which influenced other countries throughout the world, The cold war. Nevertheless the two(international

Hungary is another example of an economy disrupted by war. After WWII, Hungary became a satellite state for the Soviet Union. As Germany retreated, Nazi Hungarian sympathizers who had puppeted the country took the templates used to print money back to Germany. The new Hungarian government had no