What caused the war? Why did the Union defeat the Confederacy? What were the consequences of the War? The premise of the book is that historians have a comparative advantage in describing such events, but economists have the tools to help explain these events. This book does so, and marvelously.
The authors use Austrian and Public Choice analysis to address these principal questions and our conclusions generally run counter to the interpretations of historians. In contrast to historians who emphasize the land war and military strategy, the authors show that the most important battle took place at sea. One side, the blockade runners, did not wear uniforms or fire weapons at their opponents. The other side, the blockading fleet, was composed of sailors who had weapons and guns but they rarely fired their cannons in hopes of damaging their opponents. Their pay was based on the value of captured ships. Historians often have argued that the Confederacy lost because it was overly reluctant to use government power and economic controls, but we show the exact opposite. Big Confederate government brought the Confederacy to its knees.
Some now teach that slavery was the sole cause of the Civil War –- an explanation that historians have developed in the twentieth century. However, this analysis does not explain why the war started in 1861 (rather than 1851 or 1841) and it fails to explain why slavery was abolished elsewhere without such horrendous carnage.
The authors emphasize economics and politics as major factors leading to war. The Republicans who came to power in 1860 supported a mercantilist economic agenda of protectionism, inflation, public works, and big government. High tariffs would have been a boon to manufacturing and mining in the north, but would have been paid largely by those in the export-oriented agriculture economy.
Mark Thornton is the Peterson-Luddy Chair in Austrian Economics and a Senior Fellow at the Mises Institute. He is the book review editor of the Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, and has authored seven books and is a frequent guest on national radio shows.
Kevin Warsh may talk tough, but Mark Thornton argues the Fed’s real mandate hasn’t changed: finance Washington, protect Wall Street, and let inflation grind down everyone else.
Mark Thornton reviews John Mearsheimer’s Why Do Politicians Lie? and connects political deception abroad to the Fed-driven distortions now warping markets, money, and the working class.
Taxes and spending don’t “balance out.” Mark Thornton channels Rothbard: taxes compound the damage—distorting markets, rewarding the political class, and grinding down real living standards.
Robert Ekelund (1940–2023) was Eminent Scholar and Professor of Economics Emeritus in the Department of Economics at Auburn University. He is author of The Marketplace of Christianity (2006) and Economic Origins of Roman Christianity (2011), and co-author (with Mark Thornton) of Tariffs, Blockades, and Inflation: The Economics of the Civil War. In addition to economic research, he maintained work on lifelong hobbies of classical piano, painting and gardening. BobEkelund.com
"Our welfare spending is probably the highest in the world. It is only “laissez-faire” in the sense that we have ... a very large charitable sector as well."
It is important to note that the economic theory of war does not necessarily displace the historical explanations that rest on such factors as internal dissension, a failure of leadership or diplomacy
