Ethical Aspects of War Economics

Abstract

AMERICAN ECONOMISTS are increasingly concerning themselves with the economics of war. It is generally recognized that a war economy is governed by somewhat different economic principles than a peace-time economy although an integrated theory of a war economy has not yet been constructed. The thesis of this article is that the construction of such a theory would involve a radical alteration in the value judgments of economists and has been delayed because of the reluctance of economists to make this change. The pressure of events, however, requires policy recommendations for a war economy; these, as will be demonstrated, sometimes indicate an unawareness of ethical considerations. The intellectual world of the American economist abhors war. Psychologically it rejects war. Although we may like to think of ourselves as dispassionate scientists, we are always also, to a greater or less degree, the product emotionally of our environment. Where logical analysis from given assumptions is required, the objective scholar may be relatively successful in developing his analysis uninfluenced by his cultural upbringing. But, in the making and especially in the subconscious accepting of the basic assumptions of a science, it is probably impossible so to divorce the preconditioning of the individual mind from these assumptions. A leading physicist has warned his colleagues that