The State Is the Health of War

 

by Keith Knight 

Posted onJune 11, 2023

In 1918, Randolph Bourne made the case that “war is the heath of the state,” meaning that in a time of war, governments are able to use the existence of an external enemy to justify power grabs the population would not go along with in a time of peace.

The inverse is also true. The state is the health of war.

Wars are much more likely to occur when one group has a monopoly right to print money, issue taxes, compel schooling, conscript citizens into the military, and has a legal double standard which allows mass murder to go unpunished under the guise of “foreign policy.”

Keith Knight is Managing Editor at the Libertarian Institute, host of the Don’t Tread on Anyone podcast and editor of The Voluntaryist Handbook: A Collection of Essays, Excerpts, and Quotes.

https://www.antiwar.com/blog/2023/06/11/the-state-is-the-health-of-war/