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The effects of the war

Talking about war might seem to be a very general attempt: wars have animated thehistory and have contributed to the development of civilizations; wars have led to the appearanceand delimitation of countries and have woken the national conscience in people’s minds. At a firstglance, when mentioning all these steps which have been followed in the flow of history, warsseem to be a necessary evil; but history itself is the one which can prove the contrary as well:millions of people killed, huge spendings, disappearance of civilizations and many undesiredevents.In my opinion, wars should not be studied and I have the possibility to bring twoarguments in favor of my statement: first of all, the war is an evil, a big evil, and, therefore,“studying it in the same framework with the economy and politics might seem to illus, illustrate anindifference towards the evil of the war”

. The second reason postulates the fact that the war should not exist, not only because it is immoral, but also because it is anachronic: it corresponds toa barbarian period, from which the humanity has gone out long time ago. The modern wars arethus the reminiscences of the facts of the barbarian peoples, or when they are leaded by civilized peoples, they symbolize a return to the barbarian period, which causes have to be identified; thisidea has predominated during the 18

and 19

centuries and has reappeared in the 20

century as amatter of great concern. Even though the means have changed, the causes of wars have basicallyremained the same: the need of expansion and of increasing the economic power of the states.Therefore, a tight relationship between economy and war has always existed, and, according toBenjamin Constant, “it is the main cause of the modern wars and modern wars are a means for developing the trade”

In a broader sense, “the war has occurred before trade did, the two being

Pierre MANENT “

A Political Philosophy for the citizen”,

Artheme Publishing House, Paris, 2001, pp. 119

Benjamin CONSTANT, “

About liberty at antique and modern people”

, Oxford University Press, 2000, pp. 86

only two means for acquiring the same purpose: entering in the possession of what you desire. Thetrade is nothing else but homage brought to the one who possesses the power, by the one whoaspires to that possession. It is an attempt to obtain through good understanding something thatyou cannot conquer through violence. The person who would remain the strongest would never have the idea of commerce. The experience is the one which, proving him that the war, exposeshim to all kinds of threats and failures. The war is related to impulses, the trade – to calculus”.Therefore, what it seems obvious from Constant’s essay is the fact that the commerce has occurredas a more peaceful alternative to war this being the main consequence on the peoples and onsociety itself: the chance given to it to follow another way.On the other hand, “One of the economic effects which affected almost all participantsto a certain degree was the increased participation of women in the workforce (where they hadtaken the place of many men during the war years), though this was somewhat reduced in thedecades following the war, as changing societal mores forced many to return to home and family”

.This has awakened in many minds the idea that men and women were equal and, as a consequence,they had to be treated in an equal manner.What should not be forgotten are the negative consequences of the wars which havealways occurred, no matter the length in time or the degree of participation of the people? It has been commonly assumed that an economy cannot function well in times of crisis. Let’s start bydeveloping the argument illustrated above: since women had started to be allowed to work, it isobvious that all countries which have been involved in the conflict of the World War II have beendeprived by an important part of their workforce, some of the soldiers being seriously injured andsome others even killed, a fact which had a great impact on the social sphere.

“

Effects

of World War II”

, atwww.wikipedia.org/wiki/Effects_of_World_War_II#Social_effects

Another consequence consisted in the fact that many private goods have beendestroyed, such as buildings, cars, lands, etc, and this has dramatically affected the economic statusof the owners. In addition the destruction of the public goods also had the greatest impact on thesociety, since its members had to stand for the spendings which occurred once with thereconstructions. Thus, the decisions of the governments of the nations which participated to theWorld War II had direct effects on the common people.This case is similar to that produced by the war in Iraq as well:

“

At the beginning of hisfirst term, George W. Bush had a surplus of 40 billion dollars in his budget; at the beginning of hissecond, a staggering deficit of 8 trillion and growing”

. The issue is not whether Bush was right or wrong in entering Iraq; The United States are fighting a war, and a national debt is to be expected.The issue is how they will pay off this debt once the war is over. Economists project that Americawill be well into the next century before the U.S.A. pays off it national debt, assuming there are nonational incidents between the exit of America from Iraq and the time the debt is paid. And this hasled to the loss of trust George Bush occurred from his co-nationals and to the lack of confidence of the American people in their officials, and this had as a main cause the costs this people had to bear because of the decisions of their elected representatives. To put it in another way, the moneyneeded to be involved in the war had been taken away from the people through the increase of thetaxation system.Joshua Goldstein, the author of “

The Real price of the War: How You Pay for the War on Terror”,

argues that “the average American household currently pays $500 each month tofinance war. Beyond the dollars and cents that finance military operations and increased securitywithin the United States, the War on Terror also costs America in less tangible ways, including lost

FELDMAN, Amy, "War, the Economy, and You",

Money

, 2002, pp. 213