The Capitalist Peace: Why a Capitalist World Means a World At Peace

[BrentWil]

I posted this awhile back. I have some other thoughts on it. I still think that Capitalism, in general, does produce a general reduction in warfare. I also think that in general, it means a reduction in human suffering. However, the government does have a role. Extreme concentration of wealth, for example, is a problem that only the government can solve. In relation to world peace, concentration of wealth creates concentration of political power. I would suggest that while there is certainly benefits of liberal economic policies, the extreme behaviors and consequences must be regulated against. This should be done in a way that doesn't destroy the underlying system.

That being said, when nations have have economic relationships with one another, they share common interests. For example, China and The United States depend on each other economically that a war between them would produce a major disruption in both economies. These type of relationship can and do lead to a reduction in armed conflict. In The Capitalist Peace, Erik Gartzke out of Columbia provides an analysis of this. It is a very good paper and thought it would promote discussion here. The link is below:

http://dss.ucsd.edu/~egartzke/publications/gartzke_ajps_07.pdf

I think he is rather convincing in his argument and the methodology he uses to show his argument.

[mike_c]

1. I like the idea for discussion-- and I generally disagree with your premise...

...but DUDE it's 25 pages, so reading it will require longer than the average lifespan of a decent thread on DU, meaning that most responders either won't have read the paper, and will therefore be uninformed, or the discussion will commence for real sometime tomorrow or the next day. At present I'm on my way out the door to a central labor council meeting, where smashing capitalism is always faintly in the air.

Downloaded for later reading.

[BrentWil]

2. I will be happy to exchange ideas whenever you are back NT

[marmar]

3. Peace at the barrel of a gun......

I spent thirty-three years and four months in active military service as a member of this country's most agile military force, the Marine Corps. I served in all commissioned ranks from Second Lieutenant to Major-General. And during that period, I spent most of my time being a high class muscle-man for Big Business, for Wall Street and for the Bankers. In short, I was a racketeer, a gangster for capitalism.

I suspected I was just part of a racket at the time. Now I am sure of it. Like all the members of the military profession, I never had a thought of my own until I left the service. My mental faculties remained in suspended animation while I obeyed the orders of higher-ups. This is typical with everyone in the military service.

I helped make Mexico, especially Tampico, safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefits of Wall Street. The record of racketeering is long. I helped purify Nicaragua for the international banking house of Brown Brothers in 1909-1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for American sugar interests in 1916. In China I helped to see to it that Standard Oil went its way unmolested.

During those years, I had, as the boys in the back room would say, a swell racket. Looking back on it, I feel that I could have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

-- Gen. Smedley Butler

[BrentWil]

4. I would agree to somewhat..

Political interests can become the interests of a few that have a vast majority of the capital. That is one area that the government has a role. Profit motivation is good. However, when wealth inequality because extreme, it also creates political power. In those cases, they can influence the government for war.

However, the author is really speaking about two countries that have developed liberal economic policies and are part of the World economy. In other words, they are part of the system, not someone outside the system with resources. Two states that are "capitalist" are less likely to fight in a war or that is the argument at least.

[LooseWilly]

30. Two states that are "capitalist" are less likely to fight... like Germany and the UK in 1914?

The premise is bullshit.

Capitalist countries have fought, and fought again... and the US won. Now "our" imperialism is at the head of the "pecking order" of capitalist/imperialist nations... and just like there are no fights in a pack of wild dogs (until one seems to be weak), likewise there are no fights amongst capitalist nations.

(And, I would add... you seem to be glossing over the "profit motivation" amongst government officials... which leads them to behave in a selectively inefficient manner when it comes not only to regulation, but wholesale enforcement of the law, vz a viz those corporations from whom they expect to score plum executive employment opportunities.)

I'll get back to you in about a month with a more in-depth rebuttal to the article though... and then I'll submit my DU response as a thesis for an MA in economics and/or PEIS.

[alcibiades_mystery]

5. "Auferre trucidare rapere falsis nominis imperium, atque ubi solitudinem faciunt pacem appellant"

Plunder, slaughter, and rape they give the false name of empire, and wherever they make a desert, they call it peace.

-Tacitus

[BrentWil]

6. We have made some huge foreign policy mistakes... but what have we turned into a desert?

Does not the world in general continue to evolve towards greater prosperity? Has both China and India not made huge steps forward?

[Lydia Leftcoast]

7. Living standards in Iraq are worse than before the war

and they are less free in some ways, such as women's rights and being able to go out on the streets without worrying about getting blown up or shot.

[white_wolf]

11. Huge steps forward in some ways, yes.

But I'm willing to bet the people who tried to kill themselves at Foxconn or similar factories disagree that life is better.

[alcibiades_mystery]

15. Capitalism makes a desert

of every home, every consciousness, every community.

It tells us one thing and only one thing is worthwhile: growth, accumulation, growth, accumulation. Over all else. And in the midst of it, tens of millions starve each year, when we could easily feed every single person on the planet to bursting. It is a social catastrophe of unprecedented scale, four hundred years of massacre and murder.

[nadinbrzezinski]

27. Lemme see, according to Congressman Filner

You should research what Agent Orange has done in Nam...that be one example...

In a couple of decades I expect a similar speech on both Iraq and Afghanistan due to depleted Uranium.

[Selatius]

32. Don't forget the depleted uranium munitions we dropped all over Serbia during the Kosovo War. nt

[white_wolf]

8. Two World Wars disagree with your premise.

[BrentWil]

12. I think the author wouldn't argue that it makes more impossible, just less likely NT

[Odin2005]

9. LOL. Capitalism = Endless War.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. ignoring WWI, WWII, etc. just discard all the inconvenient conflicts.

We are in two or three wars right now, and cooking up another with capitalist Iran. What has prevented a major power war since WWII is Mutual Assured Destruction, and nothing else. Neocon/neolib capitalist triumphalism is so 1990.

[BrentWil]

13. The general argument is that war is less likely, not impossible NT

[alcibiades_mystery]

16. Less likely than what? Than feudalism?

Agreed. Indeed, even Marx agreed with that. Capitalism is better than feudalism in some respects, but worse in others: fewer wars, but far more destructive wars. Total industrialized war is a capitalist phenomenon. Congratulations.

[BrentWil]

19. Well, it looks at the years between 1950-92.

And basically says that wars during that period were less likely. Its independent variables are Democracy, "Open Markets" (measured by The IMF publication Annual Reports on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions
(AREAER)), Development, and "interest Similarity".

Basically, it finds that finically open markets were less likely to go to war, during that time period.

[white_wolf]

20. The capitalist powers were less likely to go to war, because they were united against a common foe

The USSR. However, the capitalist nations did a lot of really shitty things during the Cold War, the 1953 coup in Iran comes to mind.

[BrentWil]

22. But does it fall apart after 92? I mean, off hand, I can't think of many examples of two countries

with open markets going to war with one another.

[alcibiades_mystery]

21. Given your timeframe, it's just as legitimate

to argue that a non-capitalist alternative should exist to prevent the capitalists from waging war on the world.

The Soviet Union blocked capitalist warfare after the Second World War, is what you're saying. As soon as it ceased functioning as a serious block, the capitalists were right at it again, with nearly continuous imperialist war since the fall of the Soviet state.

Again, congratulations.

[Selatius]

31. There were no huge wars because both sides had nuclear weapons, not necessarily due to trade.

The presence of nuclear weapons made the costs of major wars between global powers so high as to make it pointless to intentionally start one without the extremely high risk of annihilation.

There were, on the other hand, plenty of bloody conflicts on a smaller scale throughout Latin America, Africa, Asia, and the Middle East. Several of those conflicts became proxy wars between the two superpowers, such as in Angola and Viet Nam. Other conflicts were very likely the result of a major superpower disapproving of the government a people elected, such as the overthrow of Iran's democratically elected government in 1953 for nationalizing its oil fields or Chile's 9/11/1973 coup that toppled its democratically elected government in favor of the pro-American dictator Augusto Pinochet, a champion of total law-of-the-jungle capitalism and total privatization of social services.

[LooseWilly]

33. There were plenty of wars between '50-'92... but the "variables" indicate previous surrender...

If one takes the variables

"Democracy"— obviously defined as a system of voting of which the US, and NATO, approves (hint: when Palestinians "Democratically" elect Hamas representatives, this is defined as "not democratic"... hence, "Democracy" is not a definition of process, but of results);

"Open Markets" — obviously an index of the openness of markets to privatized control (Bechtel semi-recently tried to privatize rainfall water in Bolivia: http://www.democracynow.org/2006/10/5/bolivian_activist_oscar_olivera_on_bechtels);

Development (an index of indebtedness to the WTO/IMF for development projects?);

and "interest similarity"— interests chosen by whom?...

One quickly sees that the reasons for a lower likelihood of war between powers that shared the dynamic, as defined, is not the result of any virtue of "capitalism", but rather simple truism— why would imperialist powers spend resources fighting with those who had already been conquered?

Democracies that vote as the "powers" like are good. Markets where it is conceivable that Bechtel, or some other corporation, can "copyright" rainwater ... is "good". Governments in debt to Halliburton for "Development" are good. Governments who are intent on keeping the population docile and hard-working in the effort to extract resources to export (to pay off the debt financing of the "Development" projects being carried out by Halliburton, et. al.) are good. Governments keeping their hard working populations working on the development of projects being carried out by Halliburton which are privatizeable (like rainwater collection) but funded by IMF development loans to be paid back with huge interest payments... are really really good governments in the context of these neo-imperialist analyses.

"Interest Similarity" is a handy synonym for Yale/Oxford educated officials of neo-colonized governments who... share the same development interests... and who will (once the "heroic" local service is complete) soon enough be working together in some capacity or other.

Basically... your article is spinning the fact that it would've been unprofitable for any capitalist imperialist governments to go to war with subservient neo-colonized governments during the time frame... and trying to spin that subservient relationship as being a positive for the neo-colonized... perhaps hoping that some of the newer neo-colony dwellers will swallow the bullshit and pretend that the privatization of their rainwater, among other things, is a good thing...

Keep up the good fight for the Neo Colonists BrentWil!!...

I'm sure there's as good a chance of your being rewarded for your efforts as there is a chance that Democratic elections of Hamas officials in Gaza will be respected by those who would like to believe your "Democracy breeds peace" propaganda spew...

[BrentWil]

54. This is what he uses and the rational

I bolded the parts that directly tell the reader what he used.


Democracy: Democracy: Researchers differ over how to measure democracy, both monadically and dyadically. I rely on three different datasets and three variable construc- tions to represent dyadic democracy. The standard in democratic peace research is the Gurr Polity IV data (Jaggers and Gurr 1995). I first prepared monadic val- ues by combining Polity democracy (DEMOC) and au- tocracy (AUTOC) scales as follows: [(DEMOCi – AUTOCi ) + 10]/2, (where i ∈ [A,B]). The variable differs mod- estly from Oneal and Russett in that I add 10 so that all values are nonnegative and divide by 2 to yield the 0–10 range of Polity variables. DEMOCRACY (LOW) and DEMOCRACY (HIGH), respectively, report the lower and higher of democracy values in the dyad. DEMOC- RACY A×B is the product of monadic values. BOTH DEMOC. (≥7) equals one (“1”) if each dyad member has a monadic score of at least seven and zero (“0”) otherwise.


Markets: Democratic peace research examines trade interdependence (Oneal et al. 1996, 2003; Oneal and Russett 1997, 1999a, 1999b, 1999c; Russett and Oneal 2001). Capital and monetary integration may be more relevant to conflict than trade (Gartzke and Li 2003; Gartzke, Li, and Boehmer 2001). Liberalization cre- ates valuable linkages and institutional constraints on a state’s ability to intervene in market processes. Be- cause states may be tempted to interfere with market responses to interstate crises, both robust markets and laissez-faire policies matter.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) pro- vides several indicators of market size, robustness, and liberalization. The IMF publication Annual Reports on Exchange Arrangements and Exchange Restrictions (AREAER) lists a series of variables measuring eco- nomic openness. I use an index evaluated in previous studies that takes the difference between eight and the sum of eight types of government restrictions on for- eign exchange, current, and capital accounts (Gartzke and Li 2003; Gartzke, Li, and Boehmer 2001). IMF FIN. OPEN. (LOW) reports the lower monadic score in the dyad.40 High values of IMF FIN. OPEN. (LOW) are thus expected to reduce the likelihood of militarized dis- putes. The IMF only reports data on member countries, systematically reducing variance and biasing against statistical significance.
I also include indicators of trade to assess whether trade influences militarized disputes independent of capital liberalization. I use both the trade data pro- vided by Oneal and Russett, and data from Gleditsch (2002).41 Again, I follow the Oneal and Russett op- erationalization. Monadic values are first constructed using a ratio of bilateral trade over GDP to measure the importance of trade relative to a state’s total economy. TRADE DEP. (LOW) denotes the lower trade dependence statistic in the dyad (Bliss and Russett 1998; Oneal and Russett 1997, 1999a, 1999b). Trade interdependence is expected to modestly decrease MID propensity.

Development:Economic development leads to a secular decline in the valuation of conquerable resources while intellectual and financial capital critical to productiv- ity in modern economies must be enticed rather than coerced. Conversely, wealth and the technology effect allow for greater power projection. Poor countries sel- dom fight abroad because they cannot, and becausetheir governments are preoccupied with existing terri- tory. Development brings with it the ability to project power, encouraging contests over both policy and re- sources, while the richest states lose much of their will- ingness to steal resources associated with territory.
Early quantitative studies of the democratic peace included GDP/pop (the consensus measure of develop- ment), but the variable was not found to be significant (Maoz and Russett 1992). I argue that per capita GDP has contrasting effects on disputes. Gartzke and Rohner (2006b) examine this argument directly by splitting the sample of disputes between territorial and nonterrito- rial conflicts, and by looking at initiators and targets. Here, however, I need to adhere to an established re- search design. To parse out the contrasting effects of development on war and peace, I include two variables. GDPPC (LOW) measures the lower of the two monadic population weighted gross domestic product statistics for a given dyad (Gleditsch 2002). I also examine the natural log of GDPPC (LOW) to limit multicollinearity among variables.42 A second variable isolates the effect of wealth on likely subjects of territorial aggression. GDPPC × CONTIG (LOW) interacts contiguity and the development variable. It is most likely that a decline in the value of conquest will manifest itself in relations with neighbors, where territorial claims are most com- mon and aggression most practical.43

Interest Similarity: Many students of international re- lations reject as excessively narrow the realist empha- sis on uniform, monolithic interests and argue instead that state objectives vary with a complex variety of factors (cf. Moravcsik 1997). Relations between the United States and Israel, and between the United States and India have been quite different in the post–World War II period, even accounting for capabilities, geog- raphy, regime type, and so on. National interests also change over time; elections in Bolivia and Germany re- sulted in two very different leaders, one who is moving her country closer to the United States, and one who is moving farther away.
Ideally, researchers in international relations would possess a model of state interests that would estimate the effects of a number of relevant causal variables. The same could be said for democracy, however, and for measures of national capabilities, economic devel- opment, alliance ties, and so on. There exists no consen-us theory of national preferences, nor is one likely to be constructed in a reasonable time. Empirical research on conflict must thus choose between measuring inter- ests imperfectly, and not measuring them at all. I have chosen the former, while being mindful of the many potential pitfalls involved in this approach. The argu- ment supplied here is consistent with other research in arguing that variable state interests are an impor- tant indicator of foreign policy behavior (cf. Bueno de Mesquita 1981; Voeten 2000). If we cannot know the myriad causes of preferences, we can at least go some way in measuring their manifestation and their effects.
Measuring interests provides a number of empiri- cal challenges. Preferences are not directly observable, so one must identify conditions that appear to reflect state preferences. Using data on United Nations Gen- eral Assembly voting available for the period covered by the Oneal and Russett (1999a) data (1946–96), I construct an AFFINITY index. Data on “revealed” pref- erences are an imperfect representation of an actor’s real ranking over outcomes. Still, UN voting arguably distorts preferences less than available alternatives such as alliance portfolios (Gartzke 1998, 2000). I examine other indicators in the appendix (I also use the residuals of AFFINITY as a proxy, after regressing the interest vari- able on democracy and other variables, and show that the residuals have similar effects). The Affinity index reports the similarity of dyadic UN voting patterns, us- ing the “S” coding (Signorino and Ritter 2001). Values range between one, “most similar,” and negative one, “least similar.” I expect a threshold effect of interests. AFFINITY should be negatively associated with disputes, with the more dissimilar values (closer to −1) being disproportionately likely to fight.44

[Warren Stupidity]

34. cherry pick much?

Exclude the two huge capitalist wars of that century, and then stop just before the US goes on a hegomonic rampage.

The argument is transparently dishonest.

[BrentWil]

56. He just uses the data set that most political scientist use:

Zeev Maoz’s construction of dyadic militarized interstate disputes (DYMID) is used as the dependent variable, with the standard dichotomous coding of “1” for the initial year of a MID in the dyad and “0” otherwise (Gochman and Maoz 1984; Jones, Bremer, and Singer 1996).38 The Maoz data are intentionally formatted in dyads. Maoz also corrects for coding errors in the MID 2.1 dataset.

[Warren Stupidity]

18. the general argument was made 20 years ago and was self-serving stupid then

and is just rebroiled stupid shit now.

We dont go to war with nuked up countries. We bully everybody else. We are edging into a global resource conflict that is likely to last for centuries, unless we blow each the fuck up. Greed centered systems are unlikely to resolve that conflict amicably.

[MadHound]

14. History says otherwise

Look at the great capitalist countries throughout history. Britain, where capitalist was born, based its capitalist empire on the suffering, death and enslavement of millions. The Spanish empire exploited the people of the New World in order to gain its fortune. The US has exploited slavery, caused death and destruction, and now aspires to imperial ambitions, all in the name of capitalism and free trade.

Not a good track record.

[DJ13]

17. When the machines for war are a commodity in a capitalist society,

there can be no peace.

[kestrel91316]

23. Mmmmmm.......how's that been workin' for ya so far?

[tiny elvis]

24. obvious that gov must be an adversary of criminal capitalism

capitalism is efficient
that is the only goodness in it
it is efficient for social democrats or imperialists
it will also never stop working to make itself supreme over any system
capitalist empires do not overtly attack strong competitors
capitalism efficiently aids and creates a cause for massacre and outrageous strife in weaker sovereigns
if one nation wants to attack another because of racism, religion or megalomania,
capitalists may or may not agree, depending on what is good for business

i do not know what your liberal economic policies are
less regulation or more?
radical or reactionary?
which extreme consequences?

[provis99]

25. imperialism is the highest stage of capitalism.

I don't think imperialism bodes well for peace.

[PowerToThePeople]

26. I do not agree.

n/t

[nadinbrzezinski]

28. Of course there is another problem with this argument

By capitalist, classical economics....what we have right now, monopoly economies of scale is not capitalism. Neither is the search for...cheap labor...as part of the wealth of nations are fair wages...but I will let you off into that illusion...

After all socialized private losses is not capitalism...

[JDPriestly]

29. Correlation is not causation.

"when nations have have economic relationships with one another, they share common interests."

We are assuming that, but we really don't yet know how many common interests nations that have economic relationships with each other will have as the resources in the world are stretched thinner and thinner to satisfy the needs and desires of the earth's growing population.

It may be that "when nations have have economic relationships with one another," one or the other assumes a position of dominance and that, when a subordinate nation threatens the dominance of the heretofore dominant member of the relationship, conflict will occur. That would not surprise me.

Waits to be seen.

One of the positive aspects of capitalism is that it is extremely flexible. Another is that it encourages creativity and new ideas.

I think that we have moved or are moving from a capitalist society to what should be called a corporatist society. I say that because I think that the dominance in our society of very large corporations is actually slowing the flow of capital to new ideas, impeding our creativity and making us rigid rather than flexible. I would like to see curbs on corporations and on their dominance over capital markets.

[libtodeath]

35. If capitalism is

defined by the existence of the usa then I cant see how it can bring peace as there has almost never been a state of that in our existance.
A few years here and there but for the most part we have been in some sort of conflict since 1776.

[GeorgeGist]

36. I think you are dead wrong.

I'll leave it to reality to prove otherwise.

[mdmc]

37. ..

[tledford]

38. If this assertion is true, then clearly the world is not now

and never has been capitalist, since it is perpetually at war.

[BrentWil]

40. Actually conflict is generally trending downwards... NT

[raouldukelives]

39. Totally! If it weren't for capitalism

The Native Americans might not be enjoying the world class casinos they do today.

[mmonk]

41. Huh?

We start wars for capitalism.

[Edweird]

42. Of course you have to willfully ignore the overwhelming abundance of evidence to the contrary.

The most recent being the occupations of Afghanistan and Iraq - both of which are centered around oil. In fact, it is easy to assert and prove that wars happen as a direct result of 'capitalism'. Read 'War is a racket'.

[fascisthunter]

43. lol... yeah, convincing

[TBF]

44. Now let's try some facts:

Maybe we can look at the dates and figure out when we're NOT at war because that sure would take less time.

Source: WIKI

2.1 Colonial wars (1620–1774)
2.2 War of Independence (1775–1783)
2.3 Early national period (1783–1812)
2.3.1 Barbary wars
2.4 War of 1812
2.5 War with Mexico (1846–48)
2.6 American Civil War (1861–1865)
2.7 Post-Civil War era (1865–1917)
2.7.1 Indian Wars (1865–1870)
2.7.2 Spanish-American War (1898)
2.7.3 Philippine-American War (1899–1902)
2.8 Modernization
2.9 Banana Wars (1898–1935)
2.10 Moro Rebellion (1899–1913)
2.11 Mexico (1910–1919)
2.12 World War I (1917–1918)
2.12.1 Russian Revolution
2.13 1920s: Naval disarmament
2.14 1930s: Neutrality Acts
2.15 World War II (1939–1945)
2.16 Cold War era (1945–1991)
2.16.1 Postwar Military Reorganization (1947)
2.16.2 Korean War (1950–1953)
2.16.3 Lebanon crisis of 1958
2.16.4 Dominican Intervention
2.16.5 Vietnam War (1955–1975)
2.16.6 Tehran hostage rescue
2.16.7 Grenada
2.16.8 Beirut
2.16.9 Libya
2.16.10 Panama
2.17 Post–Cold War era (1991–2001)
2.17.1 Persian Gulf War (1990–1991)
2.17.2 Somalia
2.17.3 Haiti
2.17.4 Yugoslavia
2.18 War on Terrorism (2001–present)
2.18.1 Afghanistan
2.18.2 Philippines
2.19 Iraq
2.20 Libyan intervention

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military_history_of_the_United_States

[BrentWil]

45. The argument is that two states with an open market are less likely to fight a war...

Not that states with open markets will never fight wars. Those wars are all included in the study, up to 1992.

[TBF]

48. We have been at war through our entire existence, which means the study is whack. nt

[girl gone mad]

49. "open markets" often being a tidy neoliberal euphemism..

for governments keeping the masses in line while the global parasite class is allowed to pillage and exploit resources and labor, engage in rent seeking and Ponzi schemes and generally accomplish an impoverishment of people similar to war, minus the bloodshed.

[BrentWil]

53. I think it just means generally free economic interactions between states.

[Creideiki]

46. The US ceased being Capitalist decades ago

Now we're just Extractionist.

[white_wolf]

47. How are we not capitalist?

The means of production are still in private hands, wage labor is still use. We are a capitalist country and that is the source of the vast majority of our problems.

[lunatica]

50. Capitalists wage war on countries all the time

If you read the Shock Doctrine it shows something that's been going on for decades, if not centuries. An example is wealthy nations like ours have managed to keep the rest of Central and South America mostly poor through economic and secret activity policies. There's no reason why they shouldn't be thriving wealthy countries except the US has never allowed that to happen. And Capitalists have been at the head of the line in exploiting the third world status of countries on our Continent for profit of corporations. They practice a form of warfare that isn't fought on any battleground but it's nonetheless warfare.

The recent spate of populist leaders being elected are trying to change that. They might in a few years.

[BrentWil]

52. I would disagree...

The path to wealth in today's world is clear and the US has done nothing but encourage it with its economic policies (Trade, WTO, etc). If you want to increase GDP, look to Brazil, China and India as the path for poorer nations.

[RB TexLa]

51. Trade, and open borders have always helped to lead to peace.