Does War Make Us Richer? | Economics Explained

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As a swiss I have to add that war IS good for the economy, as long as you are not the one fighting it.

Last time I was this early the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter program was on budget.

Every time you hear "it's good for the economy" I think we should always wonder whose economy we are talking about.

In a time when YouTubers chase trends and prioritize monetization, I would to like to express my respect to you for choosing genuinely interesting topics, even when they straddle the thin line of YouTube demonetization. I applaud you sir. Great video, keep up the good work!

I'm not sure where this quote comes from, but I've heard something to the effect of; "In a fight between two, the winner is the third." That's pretty much what happened with the US economy by the end of the war. It wasn't great for the US, but everywhere else suffered much more so the US became a super power in the post war world, a status it used to draw more power and establish the hegemony we live in now.

"Military is giant form of welfare" Consul Gaius Marius likes that comment.

EE on march: did a global pandemic affect economy? EE on april: did a war affect economy? EE on may(?): did apocalypse affect economy?

Sun Tzu - There is no instance of a nation benefiting from prolonged warfare. USA - I accept your challenge!

"War is good for economy if you are seller of war related goods and equipments." - #UncleSam

8:43 Historically military jobs did add value to an economy (in certain situations). The specific example I'm thinking of was with the British Royal Navy from about the time of the Tudors onwards to the end of world war 2. The more sailors they RN (and it's independent contractors, aka privateers) had, the more ships it could sail, the more Spanish treasure ships and ports they could raid, the more money was circulated in the economy, the more need for overseas bases to expand their raids was needed, required the establishment of anchorages, which turned into colonies that started producing commodities like sugar and tobacco (that became more profitable than the raiding and priacy), which needed more sailors to protect their own trade ships from pirates and privateers, and those trader sailing the trade ships wanted to expand their opportunities to trade, so the navy needed to protect them further a field and overawe some of the locals with demonstrations of fire power, which lead to more bases and more colonies, The British military became a service for the insuring the safety of British business overseas and a means of expanding through the overt threat of fire power. In much the same way that was what determined why the Americans were the leading western allied power at the end of world war 2, they had the most military power to shape a geopolitical position that was favourable to themselves and they could use that to ensure their alliance (which would become NATO) had free reign to trade as much as they wanted across the oceans as the US Navy ensured their safety across the ocean. This protection for trade was damn near a bribe to those countries to act as the front line in any world war 3 scenario against the USSR (to contain a potential threat to the US).

In the words of anyone that got richer through war: "Less talking, more raiding!"

How many wars are you planning to have? US: yes

This channel has the best usage of stock footage I have ever seen.

I think this misses some major points. Throughout most of human history, warfare was extraordinarily lucrative. Victory on the battlefield was a major source of raw material, capital, land and cheap manpower. In the modern age, military hardware is exceedingly expensive. Moreover, a great deal of wealth is formed of intangible assets which cannot be seized through martial means. War is simply not a profitable prospect in the current era. However, that is not to say that warfare could not become lucrative again, if our conditions radically alter. We are living in a uniquely peaceful period and it would be naïve to think that this will continue in perpetuity.

The American economy did well post war as it had everyone's gold*, the only industrial country without bombed out factories and a huge global post war need for what it could sell. On top of the huge investment in modern infrastructure that facilitated further growth and improved efficiency.

Bro I have no idea how the hell are you only still at 333k subscribers when you churn out such high quality content at such regular basis. God damn I salute you bro. Please keep the contents coming

10:50 I agree with the general point here but it's really important what you consider innovation. Our current society is spending vast amounts of resources on producing essentially useless goods. Like another competing mail app, another competing social media platform or a 700$ sold-at-loss juice squeezer. All just slightly better, but maybe not even that. These fit under the optimistic view of innovation that you see many take. But these are ultimately very small steps. Even though spending is higher (as you've asserted) you've got more wasted effort because the purpose of that competition is usually to eliminate your opposition or to just win over your competition. The consumer doesn't require a step that's on a scale where it'd significantly improve mankind to actually change who they buy from. Just good enough, which means that every company reaches for all the easy to reach steps instead of finding a way to jump forward. When I've argued with people who think war is good for technological advancement they usually don't point to these trivial innovations you include here. They point to the big advancements you saw during the cold war like advanced material science and basically the countless advantages we now have due to the space race. And when addressing that it's obvious that usually people in peacetime don't try for these ambitious projects. Governments (see: voters) aren't willing to spend. Companies have too much short term focus because they'll likely die otherwise. Even those we consider ambitious companies like Tesla don't really make the large innovations you saw during the cold war. Reusable rockets are of course a strong step. It's far greater than most companies I can think of. But even so it's just one company. In that sense a "slightly better fighter jet" can still be much better money spent because it did something substantial most likely. Even if its target isn't aligned with improving things for people. But undeniably the cost of war or even just international disunity is a large enough cost that it doesn't make sense to strive for that over the status quo. There needs to be a way to generate interest for this kind of project organically because they're so much more important. Now it's not necessarily the case that external pressures like you had in the cold war was the primary reason we see less of what I'd consider genuine innovation now. It's very possible that the resources that are spent just don't reach as far because the problems are harder. Either way I think the first step to solving this (if it is a problem) is to try and measure. Something like where theoretical physics is at in contrast to leading tech in relevant areas would be a measure. edit:formatting

I think you're missing one of the key aspects of the military technology research. It's government funded, so the resulting technology is more freely available to be exploited by the economy. Private research tends to be kept from general use. Wars also push technology. Yes, it's first case is to win the war, but once a concept is proven then it can be used in other areas. And yes, it would be better if that money could be spent directly on R+D, then the results given away as public goods. But it's more politically acceptable to spend on defense.

1:35 Those wires though, that disorganization hurt