Is War Good for the Economy?

[Sixties Spidey]

No freaking way. Look at what happened to Europe and Germany post World War 1 and World War II.

 

[Veylon]

No. In the case of the United States in World War 2, the war encouraged government to borrow money and make a lot of capital investment in factories. The US took very little damage in the war, and everyone else took a lot, so afterwards there wasn't much competition when the military factories converted back to civilian use. The debt incurred could be paid off with the newly booming economy.

This whole scenario worked out this way only because all other industrial countries were effectively destroyed, and it worked only for the US. So the answer in general is no.

 

[thevegetarianzombie]

USA's economy was saved from a depression by WWII, so....yeah

The truth of that statement is questionable, as the Depression may have ended anyway. Significant as WWII was, it was not the only thing that happened in all the world during that time period, and there had been a lot of programs in place to kickstart the US economy. It would be naiive to assume that the war was the only acting factor. Furthermore, it is uncertain to what extent the various spoils of war contributed to the economic upturn.

More importantly, that fact that it helped one time is no indication whatsoever of a general trend. We've been at war for over 5 years now, and we went from the height of our economic power to the lowest it's been in more than 50 years.

yea, but those programs were proven to have little to no effect, even FDR's people admitted that it was the war that did it in the end. Besides that was WW2 jobs became abundant and this war is no where near the scale WW2 was. Other countries were buying our goods because we were one of the few countries that had an intact industry. Everywhere else was bombed to dust.

also the economy (IF PEOPLE DON'T MUCK WITH IT) naturally restarts and its an animal that's best left alone by the government unless extreme circumstances arise. what we have now would have been more average but I think the politicians and the media whipped up such a freaking tizzy about it on an election year that it ended up screwing with peoples minds.

I think the concept of laissez faire is somehwat overrated. Adam Smith conceived those theories in a different time. But getting back to the point: It seems you are suggesting that the big impact of WWII was that everything else was in ruins but the US had suffered minimal damage to its physical infrastructure, and so we had a competitive advantage.

In that sense, then yes, war is good for the economy, but only to the extent that your competition is severely damaged by the war, and you are not. In today's age of global economic competition, the statement loses virtually all of its meaning. In theory, if there were a third world war, and we sustained significantly less damage than all the people who might compete with us economically, then it is *possible* that we could reap an economic benefit under this principle, however highly unlikely.

Realistically speaking, war does create jobs. However, it also costs an enormous amount of money. It is possible for a war to have a positive effect, but it is far more common for a war to devastate an economy that to revitalize one.

 

[sharks9]

Winning a war is good for the economy, losing is not.