Readings In The Economics Of War (Paperback)

MATERIALS FOR THE STUDY OF ECONOMICS READINGS IN THE ECONOMICS OF WAR READINGS IN THE ECONOMICS OF WAR EDITED BY J. MAURICE CLARK WALTON H. HAMILTON HAROLD G. MOULTON THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS CHICAGO, ILLINOIS COPYRIGHT 1918 BY THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO All Rights Reserved Published September 1918 Second Impression June IQI Composed and Printed By Ihe University of Chicago Press Chicago, Illinois, U. S. A. TO M W F FOREWORD When this war comes to be reviewed in proper per spective its social and economic aspects will be found at least as remarkable as the military events, and perhaps more instructive. And among them the influence of war on industry and the converse influence of industry on war will take a prominent place. We are indeed witnessing a phe nomenon so extraordinary and unexpected that we can see only its surface as we pass, and are hardly able to comprehend even that. There has not been time to look beneath and try to read the deeper meaning of it all. But some lessons present themselves which he who runs may read. Never before has the supreme concerted effort demanded by war been so fully brought out and the inscrutable mystery of human conduct been so clearly posed as in this prodigious conflict of industrial nations. SHADWELL PREFACE This volume aims to throw light upon the various economic questions which arise in connection with the war. It falls roughly into three divisions, which are concerned with the economic back ground of war in general, the economic reorganization required in view of the necessities of a world-war, and the economic questions involved in the reorganization of the industrial system at the end of the present conflict. The first of these threedivisions grows out of the necessity for a proper understanding of what is involved in the struggle. The theory of the economic interpretation of history has lost vogue and no longer suffices to give a full explanation . Yet however numerous and complicated are the factors that merge themselves into the psychological matrix out of which war springs, few indeed would deny that commercial rivalry, concessions, imperial exploitation, and a conviction on the part of certain political groups that war is a sound business venture, are factors of the first magnitude in explaining the present struggle. A consideration of questions such as these is of use, not only in answering the question of what the struggle is about, but also in pointing to the economic factors which deserve special consideration in the peace which is some time to come. The second of these divisions that concerned with the proper organization of the industrial system for war is of primary impor tance. While military efficiency depends upon generalship, upon the numbers and quality of our troops and other factors, primarily military, these are inefficient unless the industrial system is made subservient to the military purpose. The importance of this cannot be overstated. Here it deserves even more than a word of explanation. In their readiness to meet an armed enemy nations may be divided into two groups those whose governments, industrial systems, and habits and customs have been arranged into a unified and coherent whole directed largely to military ends, and those which without thought for military strength have allowed these things to develop to xii PREFACE meet the needs of a peopleat peace. Germany belongs to the firstgroup, the United States to the second. In Germany the whole industrial system farms, mines, factories, banks, railroads, commercial agencies, what not had been arranged so that the whole could very quickly be converted into a gigantic engine of war. Railroads, for instance, were placed with a view to their strategic importance, phonograph factories were built with an eye to their conversion into munition plants, and science was whipped into subservience to the requirements of war...