How Adam Smith viewed war

AS THE WEALTH OF NATIONS MARKS 250 YEARS, SMITH'S OPINIONS ON WAR ARE CONSTANTLY BEING REINVENTED

- ATANU BISWAS

MID THE CONTINUING Iran War, this 9th of March marks the 250th anniversary of the publication of Adam Smith’s An Inquiry into the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations, which is widely regarded as the foundation of economics.

It’s rather interesting to note that the father of economics also had some very important views on the economics of war. Smith, in Book V of The Wealth of Nations, states that the cost of wars has been increasing along with the progress of economics and technology for three reasons: the expense of maintaining a standing army, the creation of costly but efficient warfare, and the prolonging of the wars. It would, however, have been unimaginable to Smith that 250 years later, the face of wars would be completely changed by the power of technology.

This militia question was a highly controversial issue in Scotland, particularly among the inner circle of Adam Smith’s close friends, during the 1750s to 1760s when he crafted his lectures. Of course, Smith referred to “the first duty of the sovereign” when he included a separate section on “arms” in his Lectures on Jurisprudence and even elaborated on this topic further in Book V of The Wealth of Nations, Chapter I, Of the expenses of the sovereign or commonwealth.