War and the Market (original) (raw)

The essay examines the place of war in the work of the original theoreticians of neo-liberalism. The reigning dogmas proclaim that the free market and economic competition offer a way in which irrational and destructive violence between states can be transmuted into rational and productive forms from which all parties stand to benefit. Von Mises and Hayek, however, show clearly that the destruction that war brings has its place in the market system, freeing up natural resources and even labor. It is above all the wasteful and irrational social orders outside of