War Collectivism in World War I

Tags: Cronyism and Corporatism, U.S. History, War and Foreign Policy

10/12/2026 Murray N. Rothbard

Rothbard’s account of the war economy as a cartel run by the men it regulated. He traces the Council of National Defense and the War Industries Board, whose committees were staffed by the executives of the industries they governed; price-fixing set to guarantee a “fair profit” to high-cost producers and windfalls to everyone below them; railroads nationalized under a Railroad Administration run by railroad executives; and the veterans of war collectivism who carried the model forward into the New Deal. First published in A New History of Leviathan, 1972.

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