Nation, State, and Economy

The Economy’s War Costs and the Inflation

Nation, State, and Economy
Ludwig von Mises

An accounting of what war actually costs an economy: goods destroyed, material consumed, productive labor lost, workers killed or impaired. Mises then dissects wartime inflation and the illusion it creates—prices rose both from demand for labor and from the increased supply of money, which is not rising wealth but a shifting of it.