When Trump ordered the first wave of strikes in this ongoing war with Iran last month, he did so while his administration was engaged in active negotiations with the Iranian government. That echoed the situation last June when Israel launched a bombing campaign days after Trump scheduled new talks with Iran—a move Trump later claimed was a deliberate deception to help make the Israeli strikes more effective.
Every year around the anniversary of the publication of The Wealth of Nations (1776), economists and commentators repeat a familiar story: Adam Smith—the Scottish moral philosopher—is celebrated as the father, or even the inventor, of economics. In this telling, Smith stands at the beginning of a scientific tradition, single-handedly discovering the principles of the market economy and the virtues of free trade.
But this story is less history than myth.
“War is the health of the state.” That phrase, coined by Randolph Bourne, explains why opposition to war is a priority of many libertarians.
War allows governments to increase spending, taxes, and regulations in order to feed the war machine. Wars can justify measures that remain in place long after the wars end. An example of this is income tax withholding that was created to fund World War Two.
