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Part I: War & Peace
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Definition(s) of war
Types of wars & warfare
Causes of war
Objectives of war
Normalization & naturalization of war
War as meaning & communication
Sources of social warfare
Definition(s) of war
• Organized violence among states or groups
• Collapse of social order within a society
• Sustained hostility among warring parties
(“Other”)
• “Continuation of politics by other means”
• Conflict between opposing principles
• An enduring condition upon which states are
founded
Types of wars & warfare
• World wars
• Interstate wars
• Intrastate wars (why increase in #?)
– Civil wars
– Social warfare
– Asymmetric warfare
• Invasions, interventions, pre-emptions
• Counter-terrorism as global war
• Africa’s “World War”
Causes of war
• War is “unnatural” & can be eliminated
– Theories of pacifism
– Institutional agreements & constraints
• War is “natural”
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Humans are inherently violent & aggressive
Social institutions are rooted in war (“social nature”)
States in anarchy are bound to fall into war
Technology emerges from war and fosters war
Geopolitics makes us do it (Heartland Pivot)
• General, permissive & proximate causes
• Each war is unique in combination of causes
Objectives of war
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Societal safety via elimination of threats
Occupation of lebensraum
Conquest of land & resources
Domination in social struggles
Ethnic cleansing
Cultural-ideological struggle
Economic growth & development
Normalization & naturalization of war
• War is normalized through
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Education
Media
Language
Civic rituals
• War appears to create social solidarity
– Solution to internal conflicts and fragmentation
– Protection of the nation and its culture & traditions
– Instill civic virtues in the people
• But war is uncontrollable (“fog of war”)
War as meaning & communication
• Hedges sees war in terms of its meanings
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War as myth is powerful belief system
It fills an ontological void in individuals & societies
It offers great crusades for great social goals
War fulfills deep psychological needs
• War & threat of war can be communicative
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Deterrence as signalling through threat
Military parades as indication of determination
Nuclear “Horror strategy”
Nuclear “Risk strategy”
Sources of social warfare
• Pits dominant groups against subordinate ones
– Ethnic or nation-based division of labor
– Limited opportunities for power & wealth
– Systematic discrimination
• Political & economic transitions challenge this
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Subordinate groups acquiring wealth & visibility
Cultural changes throughout society
Dominant group sees social threat
Social struggles break out & can turn violent
• Social warfare is neighborhood warfare
• Reasons for increase: end of Cold War; “ancient
hatreds”; rapid social & economic changes
Part II: The Global Economy
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Economy & political economy
Basic concepts in neoclassical economics
Production & commodity chains
Poverty & development
Money, trade & exchange
Economy & war
Economy & political economy
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Economy involves operation of markets
“Free markets” in capitalism
Direct intervention to control exchange
Markets require rules to operate
Political economy involves political power
Shaping rules governing markets
Indirect intervention to direct exchange
This can provide economic advantages
Basic concepts in neoclassical
economics
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Economic liberalism & capitalism
Supply & demand
Cost & price
Factors of production: materials, technology, labor, etc.
Division of labor
Comparative advantage
Individualism
Individual preferences
Regulation
Trade
Globalization
Production & commodity chains
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Commodity produced & sold in large quantities
Minimize costs, maximize profit
Low-cost labor & inputs, high value consumers
Intermediaries between producer & consumer
Uneven development in capitalism
World Systems: core & periphery
Reinvestment in production or accumulation?
Transfer of wealth from poor to rich
Travels of a T-Shirt & coffee as examples
Poverty & development
• Causes of poverty: individual or structural?
• Distribution of wealth
– Highly inequitable between “rich” and “poor”
– Global North compared to Global South
– Gini Coefficient measures distribution
• Theories of economic development
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According to Western model (Rostow’s “takeoff”)
Shock therapy
Escaping the “poverty trap” (Mill. Dev. Goals)
Independent trajectory of Asian economies
• Subsidies to agriculture as impediment
Money, trade, exchange
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Role of money: What is it worth? What is its value?
Use value, exchange value, labor value
Money supply, inflation, deflation, liquidity
Interest, investment, rate of return
Int’l unit of money (reserve currency), seigniorage
Hard & soft currencies in trade
Sovereign wealth funds
Speculative vs. real economies
Bonds, securities, shares (“share value”)
Asset bubbles & asset inflation
Economy & war
• Arms production & war as stimulus to economy
– Industrial production, employment, circulating money
– Arms production & export sales
– Electoral distribution of arms production
• Economic change as stimulus to war
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Cultural divisions of labor
Shifts in distribution of wealth & power
Challenges to state & economic elites
Efforts to stop change; control new income sources
• Global military spending
– More than $1 trillion/year
– U.S. spends more than rest of the world combined