War Breeds War, Peace Breeds Prosperity
"Having seen the people of all other nations bowed down to the earth under the wars and prodigalities of their rulers, I have cherished their opposites, peace, economy, and riddance of public debt, believing that these were the high road to public as well as private prosperity and happiness."
– Thomas Jefferson
by R. Lee Wrights
War breeds war. That is all it can do. War does nothing but devour valuable resources and destroy precious lives for the sole purpose of perpetuating itself. As Randolph Bourne wrote, "War is the health of the State." War is a mechanism used by the ruling elites of the State to coerce and control the people, so it becomes essential that whenever one war is complete, another is instigated elsewhere so that the mechanism keeps running.
On the other hand, peace breeds prosperity. If War is indeed the “health of the State,” then Peace can be nothing less than the “health of the People.” Being at peace means valuable natural resources can be preserved and used at home where we need them most. Being at peace means young fathers and mothers can live and enjoy free trade, not only among themselves but with the world, instead of dying capriciously and unnecessarily, for political gain or to line the pockets of those who profit from their sacrifice.
With the Internet, the world today is literally our marketplace. War shuts down part of that marketplace, but peace allows that marketplace to thrive. The War on Terror declared after the tragic events on September 11, 2001 has led to one war right after another. This caravan of conflict has plunged us deeper into debt as we sacrifice our precious natural resources, not the least of which are our brave men and women. In fact, those who volunteer to defend and protect the Constitution are those we should be most concerned about. They should be working in America, not dying in Afghanistan or Iraq or Libya, or wherever the warmongers who control our government care to send them!
We have tried war, over and over again. We never prosper from war, and the problems caused by war only make things worse. As the old ’60s song goes: “…all we are saying is, give peace a chance.” Even a quick review of history reveals, when there is no war people prosper. There have been economic booms, scientific advancements, and cultural progress after every conflict America has fought, beginning with our War of Independence.
History also teaches us that the key elements to prosperity are freedom and peace. You do not go to war with people you like, or with people you know, or with people with whom you are trading and doing business. Even after our fledgling republic was nearly torn asunder by civil war which literally pitted brother against brother and nearly destroyed the South, our reunited nation and all of her people advanced and prospered after peace was restored.
Despite common belief, World War II did not end the Great Depression, but in fact delayed the recovery. “Tanks, bombs, and helicopters have limited uses outside of military applications,” writes Art Carden, assistant professor of economics and business at Rhodes College in Memphis, Tenn. and an adjunct fellow with the Oakland, California–based Independent Institute. “The labor that was used to produce them was not available to produce consumer goods and services; in fact, people went without consumer goods.” The boom began after the war, when the troops came home.
Instead of teaching our young people to kill, we should be teaching them about commerce and trade. In a word: business. But because war has become America’s business, some would even say its chief industry, all other business suffers. Now any good accountant will tell you, in order to have a successful business you must be able to show a profit, and the bottom line is — war doesn’t pay. That is what makes it such a lousy business for our nation to get into. With the one exception of defending the country from foreign attack, war only takes, giving nothing in return, save economic ruin and human heartaches. The natural resources and manpower eaten up by an imperialistic war machine are lost forever to starving job markets and industry at home.
The young people who have volunteered to serve in our military, for what they were told and believed was a noble cause, have sacrificed more than enough. It’s time for America to end the deceit engineered to gain their loyalty and trust and to stop dishonoring their sacrifice by wasting their lives in dishonorable, futile, and endless conflict. Bring them home where they can work for themselves and their families, prospering in a peaceful country. The biggest favor we could do for most of our troops would be to retire them so they can come home and go to work. We need prosperous patriots more than we need hallowed heroes. We can make this country great again, but it will require peace. Peace breeds plentiful production, while war can only breed devastating destruction.
You say you want to do something about jobs? Stop occupying everything from public streets to private parks. Occupy Congress and tell them to stop killing people all over the world, stop making new enemies every chance they get, and get out of the way of creative and productive entrepreneurs so that Americans can once again start producing the best goods and services on the planet! Bring our job force home, America! Open the world to trade by declaring peace! Maybe — just maybe — once again the "Made in America" tags you see will begin to rival the number of tags that read "Made in China."
The world needs the goods and services Americans can potentially produce more than it needs some planetary protection from evil that America can’t possibly provide. War is waste. Peace is production. War breeds war. Peace breeds prosperity. What do you believe America needs more of right now? Which could you use more of right now?
"Everything that is really great and inspiring is created by the individual who can labor in freedom."
– Albert Einstein
Read more by Lee Wrights
- If Killing Is Wrong, Then War Is Too – March 11th, 2012
- Why Peace? Why Not! – February 15th, 2012
- Gitmo’s Gotta Go – February 6th, 2012
- The Myth of Defense Cuts – January 22nd, 2012
- The Sun Never Sets on the US Military – October 21st, 2011
skulz fontaine
October 14th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Bravo bravo and bravo! Well said R. Lee Wrights. Where has Antiwar.com been hiding you?
mickperry
October 14th, 2011 at 11:38 pm
"Of all the enemies to public liberty war is, perhaps, the most to be dreaded because it comprises and develops the germ of every other. War is the parent of armies; from these proceed debts and taxes. And armies, and debts, and taxes are the known instruments for bringing the many under the domination of the few. In war, too, the discretionary power of the Executive is extended. Its influence in dealing out offices, honors, and emoluments is multiplied; and all the means of seducing the minds, are added to those of subduing the force of the people. The same malignant aspect in republicanism may be traced in the inequality of fortunes, and the opportunities of fraud, growing out of a state of war. . . and in the degeneracy of manners and morals, engendered by both. No nation could preserve its freedom in the midst of continual warfare."
- James Madison, April 20, 1795
@tmana
October 14th, 2011 at 11:57 pm
There's a flip side to the argument, viewed through a longer-term historical lens. The visible prosperity of the few must needs depend on the labor of the many (even small-business owners, while they put in their own labor, profit off the labor of their employees). The keeping of these laborers, both in terms of basic needs and psychological peace, often requires procuring greater resources than are available to either them or their employers under normal premises of trade. These requirements incite wars of conquest and discovery, wars of enslavement of other peoples, wars to capture the territories need to feed one's own group. In short, war waged by some of the population is a requirement for peace and prosperity for the remainder of the population — and the larger the nation gets, the more it must rely on war to supply the needs of its citizens. The wars stop only when the nation becomes too large to administer centrally, the median standard of living of the "citizens" (who are generally of the upper-middle-class and wealthier) decreases (whether due to debt or lack of resources may be irrelevant), the military machine is too weak and thinly-spread to counter armed attack from just outside its borders or antigovernmental collusion from within (e.g., the Roman Empire), and/or the strong charismatic leader who held the country together and its people prosperous, dies.
@tmana
October 15th, 2011 at 12:11 am
(continued) War is also said to be one of the primary drivers of technological development. Roads are designed and built to move armies, not commuters; secure communications technologies are developed to keep battle plans away from the enemy, not to encourage online shopping and banking. (Well, maybe not so much the latter, considering one of the other technological drivers is pornography.) Even much of our emergency medical technology and procedures derive from the need to transport and treat wounded soldiers efficiently and effectively.
This is not to say that these technologies would not have developed in the absence of military need, nor that there are not technological needs that many reasonable people would consider to have higher priority, nor that the war imperative keeps more citizens employed than might be otherwise, nor that it the theft, aggression, and violence of war are moral and ethical (for any reason other than self-defense).
MvGuy
October 15th, 2011 at 6:53 am
tmana….!! Ahhh…. Yesss… The canard of the efficiency of war as a tool of theft and production…. BUT without a SINGLE example…. Let me humbly offer the fuel price the military pays in Afghanistan……… $4OO.OO to $1OOO.OO a gallon!!! "$400 per gallon gas to drive debate over cost of war in Afghanistan" http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/63407-….
"The keeping of these laborers, both in terms of basic needs and psychological peace, often requires procuring greater resources…. [than are available to either them or their employers under normal premises of trade"]……. "under normal premises of trade"] WHAT DOES THAT MEAN..???
and AGAIN…. Where can we FIND an example of WAR being a better provider of…"procuring greater resources than are available to either them or their employers under normal premises of trade"…??? War feeds the FEW in the country that wages it…at the cost to the many… It even costs them their LIVES…!!!
Nobel Prize winner Joseph E. Stiglitz and Harvard professor Linda J. Bilmes casts a spotlight on expense items that have been hidden from the U.S. taxpayer, including not only big-ticket items like replacing military equipment (being used up at six times the peacetime rate) but also the cost of caring for thousands of wounded veterans—for the rest of their lives " The Three Trillion Dollar War: The True Cost of the Iraq Conflict" http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/2590869-the-th….
What about all the broken troops, no eyesight, NO…ARMS, NO LEGS… not to mention the psychotic..!!!
Where did you get these CRAZY delusions…??????
Debbie(aussie)
October 15th, 2011 at 7:56 pm
A great article…… BUT 'and the bottom line is — war doesn’t pay.',it is most definitely paying for some, and they are getting richer and richer. The so-called free markets have a lot to blame for this due to lack of regulation in the financial and business areas. ( i know this is probably sacrilegious on this site ;))