8 Ways to Sunday

War being good for an economic boost is a persistent myth that’s repeated ad nauseam by war hawks, usually citing the end of the Great Depression with World War II as their “proof.”

Most of the genuine economic revitalization in the U.S. was post-war momentum from the increased production and employment during the war. That’s when the consumer economy really picked up again. During the war itself, it was massive government spending and regulation that applied defibrillator paddles to the manufacturing sector of the economy.

When America entered the conflict, the federal government basically grabbed auto companies and other major manufacturing industries by the throat and said “You WILL make war supplies.” Car factories were converted to produce tanks and military trucks, shipyards started turning out vessels to replace all those lost at Pearl Harbor, and civilian unemployment quickly dropped (overall unemployment positively plummeted because millions of men were drafted into the armed forces). The government was the top customer of the manufacturing sector, but people were getting paid and therefore had money to spend.

The ramp-up in production was a huge success, and within a couple of years the U.S. was out-producing all Axis forces combined. It definitely helped that we were isolated on a separate continent from Germany, which was merrily blitzkrieging the shit out of our European allies’ factories.

The unique conditions of World War II — a Great Depression, followed by huge government efforts to boost production — don’t seem likely to repeat themselves any time soon. Meanwhile, people who know more about economics than me have written at length about why “wars are good for the economy” is a myth:

• Joseph Stiglitz writes about it for The Guardian, in the context of the Iraq War. He points out that the uncertainty and volatility of war is harmful to economies that aren’t being artificially propped up like America’s was during WWII.
• About.com’s economics section has a fairly lengthy article that describes this myth as an example the broken window fallacy.
• Congressional representative and presidential candidate Ron Paul gave a libertarian perspective on the myth in a speech to the House in 2003.
• David R. Henderson wrote an informative article about the myth for Antiwar.com. Unfortunately, he falls victim to Godwin’s Law about 2/3 of the way through.