Who usually benefits from war?

[Sinister Intents]

I could probably figure this out myself, but not in great detail. Who specifically benefits from war such as the Vietnam war? Who calls the shots and what all happens behind the scenes? Imperialism and the falling rate of profit?

[ℂᵒиѕẗяᵤкт]

Any firms commissioned to equip the belligerent army benefits from war. When a state is defeated in war, compradores are typically appointed in positions responsible for resources, which allows them to open them up to extraction by foreign firms. Plus a lot of production can be outsourced to conquered countries, which allows the imperialist country to get around rights workers have won for themselves there. As for which specific firms benefit, that all depends on who bids what at the auction of the nation's human and natural capital.

[robbo203]

Well, according to Thomas Picketty in his new and much talked about book Capital in the 21st century, war is a force for equalisation. That is to say, the relative position of the poor improves vis-a-vis the rich. That primarily happens through the destruction of capital which is monopolised obviously by the rich. The narrowing of income differentials that occured in the period 1914-1974 was primarily the result of two devastating world wars. In the early post war period, it was postwar reconstruction that was the factor in rapid growth which benefitted the workers. So in a roundabout sort of way , the workers were beneftting from the consequences of war albeit in peacetime

There is something to be said for this argument. It is after all the capitalist class that bears the burden of general taxation, according to Marx - workers dont really pay taxes but only appear to - and, if that is the case, then the enormous sums of money involved in a war effort would certainly drain the profits of the capitalists to an extent. There are also other factors involved such as the motivational or incentive factor. It is no concidence that the so called Welfare State was dreamed up in the depths of World War Two in the guise of the 1942 Beveridge Report as an inducement to get workers to make further sacrifices in the prosecution of war.

All the same, in absolute terms, war hardly benefits anyone - apart from maybe the odd arms manufacturer. It is overwhemingly a net disbenefit - even to the capitalist class. Liberals of course would infer from this that the capitalists by and large have no material interests in waging war and that if we embrace free trade fully, wars would not happen.

That is a delusional argument which fails to see that wars happen despite the pursuit of profit as a general principle. As a general principle the capitalists would want to minimise their costs and war is certainly an enormous cost to bear from their point of view - not only in terms of increased taxation but also the enforced isolation from global markets etc etc. But this is to overlook that wars arise precisely as the inadvertent and unplanned outcome of different national groupings of capitalists each represented by a state - to put it simply - with each in pursuit of trades routes, markets, resources like oil etc etc . It is in the process of pursuing their sectional interests in the competitive market environment of capitalism, that they necessarily collide with each other at some time point.

To quote Clausewitz "War is a mere continuation of politics by other means"

[Average Joe]

All hate mongers benefit from war. Ultimately Capitalists would benefit the most but also the people in the government of the country that won the war.