Ron Paul

In his recent television address, Biden explained that as we transfer more weapons to Ukraine we then will build new weapons at home to replace them. That, explained Biden, means more American jobs and a stronger American economy.

So "Project Ukraine" is not really about foreign welfare, but rather domestic corporate welfare for the military-industrial complex. Should that make us feel any better?

There is no denying that this nearly two-year Ukraine/Russia war has been a boon for the US weapons industry. Profits at the military-industrial complex are back to record highs after a brief slump during the Covid scare. And the money that goes to the weapons manufactures also saturates Washington, DC: a little of it goes to the think-tanks promoting war, another little bit goes to the political campaigns of candidates who promote war, and so on.

As Connor O'Keeffe reminds us in a recent article at the Mises Institute, the arguments that more war spending is good for the economy ignore the "broken window fallacy" as first explained by French economist Frédéric Bastiat in his essay, "That Which Is Seen and That Which Is Not Seen." In the tale, a shopkeeper has a window broken and must pay to have it replaced. The locals view the mishap favorably, as they see the $50 for a new window to be a benefit to the glazier which he will then spend, thus improving the economy as a whole. What is not seen, however, is what the shopkeeper might have done with that same $50 had he not been forced to replace a broken window. Perhaps he would have invested it in a way that created far more wealth and more jobs.