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Comment by eezurr | Hacker News Reader

I read this book (or a good chunk of it) awhile ago and something was off about it. I didn't believe he knew what he was talking about. I dont recall any counter examples in his book, or him claiming he had direct experience with businesses matters. Perhaps he conflated correlation and causation. Some businesses are going to profit from war because demand for certain items will spike. But to claim WW I was pushed by business interests is a huge leap (with no other evidence than "hey look, people are profiting from this!!!")

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I have not read the book but what about the campaigns in China, the Philippines, and Latin America? I don't think it's controversial to say commercial interests were a significant (if not the main) driver in those cases.

Why does that specific war need to be the only piece of evidence? In the US we literally spend trillions on war in spite of not really openly fighting them.

WW1 was thought to have been impossible to happen ahead of time because of the losses in business and trade would have been too great. Claiming that it was pushed by business interests is an extraordinary claim which to my knowledge has never been substantiated with any extraordinary evidence.

>WW1 was thought to have been impossible to happen ahead of time because of the losses in business and trade would have been too great.

For conventional business and trade, that is true. We're talking about war profiteers, a different type of businessman who profits from the churn.

Do conventional businesses, of which there are far more than defense contractors, lack lobbying ability of their own?

They don't have a budget from a Trillion dollars per year of revenue at higher than average profit margins to defend.

Did the defense industry have this huge budget back in the pre-WW1 days, though?

(Genuine question, I honestly have no idea)

The Defense budget today is at a historic low [1], unmatched by just about any time other than before WW2.

[1]: https://foreignpolicy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/01/dod_cha...

The military budget is ~$700B and more than half of that is personnel costs going to your recruits and staff. About $300B goes to procurement annually, and not just weapons. There are uniforms, engines, paint, cleaning supplies, food, fuel, etc...

That's less revenue for an entire industry than Apple or Walmart does per year.

Defense spending has never been a majority of US GDP, at most representing just over 40% at the high of WW2, reaching at most 12% of GDP again during the Korean war, but remained below 6% over the past 40 years.

So how exactly are you proposing that less than 6% of the economy is directing the other 94%. Because that doesn't make any sense. For that matter, if war is so profitable and defense such a good market, why have so many companies which used to have major defense business exited that business? In WW2 just about every big business was partaking in the war effort. Companies like Ford Motors was producing aircraft and tanks. Ford has long left defense, and what remaining companies are in the sector have been consolidating or dying. Not exactly the sign of a booming industry.

Business interest didn't start WW1, but they were certainly pushing hard for the the entry of the US into the war.

Wall Street banks (especially JP Morgan) had loaned huge amounts of money to England and France. They stood to suffer masses losses if the war didn't turn out favorably for them. On April 24th, 1917, only 8 days after the US entered the war, congress passed the Emergency Loan Act which sent hundreds of millions of dollars to England and France. The lion's share of this money was used to immediately make interest payments to JP Morgan.

>Morgan brokered a deal that positioned his company as the sole munitions and supplies purchaser during World War I for the British and French governments, bringing his company a 1% commission on $3 billion ($30 million). He was also a banking broker for financing to foreign governments both during and after the war.

>Morgan played a prominent part in financing World War I. Following its outbreak, he made the first loan of $12,000,000 to Russia.[6] In 1915, a loan of $500,000,000 was made to France and Britain following negotiations by the Anglo-French Financial Commission.[7] The firm's involvement with British and French interests fueled charges the bank was conspiring to maneuver the United States into supporting the Allies in order to rescue its loans. By 1915, when it became apparent the war was not going to end quickly, the company decided to forge formal relationships with France.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J._P._Morgan_Jr.#World_War_I

Then there were the manufacturers and the farmers. Demand for goods, foodstuffs and merchandise of all kinds was a large part of what helped pull the moribund US economy out of a long period of economic distress that stretched all the way back to The Panic of 1907. England and French (borrowed) money was flooding into the coffers and US companies and US workers. A poor outcome for England and France would leave an uncertain future (at best) for the prospect of future exports for many companies.

There were other, non-economic factors to be sure, but much has been written about the influence that the banks and the business community had on pushing US entry into the war.

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