Achille Loria

The economic causes of war

W ar is a primitive human institution. From time immemorial men were eager to fight, to kill, and to rob one another. However, the acknowledgment of this fact does not lead to the conclusion that war is an indispensable form of interpersonal relations and that the endeavors to abolish war are against nature and therefore doomed to failure. We may, for the sake of argument, admit the militarist thesis that man is endowed with an innate instinct to fight and to destroy. However, it is not these instincts and primitive impulses that are the characteristic features of man. Man’s eminence lies in his reason and in the power to think, which distinguishes him from all other living creatures. And man’s reason teaches him that peaceful cooperation and collaboration under the division of labor is a more beneficial way to live than violent strife. I do not want to dwell on the history of warfare. It is enough to mention that in the eighteenth century, on the eve of modern capitalism, the nature of war was very different from what it had been in the age of barbarism. People no longer fought one another with the aim of exterminating or enslaving the defeated. Wars were a tool of the political rulers and were fought with comparatively small armies of professional soldiers, mostly made up of mercenaries. The objective of warfare was to determine which dynasty should rule a country or a province. The greatest European wars of the eighteenth century were wars of royal succession, for example, the wars of the Spanish, Polish, Austrian, and finally the Bavarian successions. Ordinary people were more or less indifferent about the outcomes of these conflicts. They were not much concerned about the question whether their ruling prince was a Habsburg or a Bourbon. Nevertheless, these continuous struggles placed a heavy burden upon mankind. They were a serious obstacle to the attempts to bring about greater prosperity. As a result, the philosophers and economists of the time turned their attention to the study of the causes of war. The result of their investigation was the following: Under a system of private ownership of the means of production and free enterprise, with the only function of government being to protect individuals against violent or fraudulent attacks on their lives, health or property, it is immaterial for the citizens of any nation where the frontiers of their country are drawn. It is of no concern for anyone whether his country is big or small, and whether it conquers a province or not. The individual citizens do not derive any profit from the conquest of a territory. Ludwig von Mises (1881–1973) was the foremost Austrian economist of the twentieth century, an adviser to FEE from the time of its founding in 1946, and the author of Human Action, Socialism, and The Theory of Money and Credit. This is the major part of a lecture delivered in Orange County, California, in October 1944.