Mobilizing Resources for War by Economic Expansion: Contrasting Economic Visions

The pursuit of economic growth has come to be taken for granted as a policy goal with the motive commonly presumed to be improvement of human welfare. However, a historical perspective points to ulterior factors such as military upheaval threats as central motives for governments to pursue economic expansion. In societies as diverse as Qin and Han dynasty China, early modern Europe, Meiji era Japan, the Soviet Union in the early Stalinist years, and post-war United States and OEEC Europe, the desire to provide resources to support military activity was a central motive in setting economic expansion as an important policy goal.