The Maker of Shortages
ing war we find that it is based on a general reluctance to foot the bill. Every war is fought with current production—there is no way of shooting off guns that have not yet been made or of feeding soldiers with food that will be raised by the next generation—and in a real sense every war is conducted on a pay-as-you-fight basis. But the producers of the means of war seem to put a lower value on it than do the management, for they demand receipts for what is taken from them to prosecute the war, receipts which become a claim on future production, not only as to their face value but also as to the interest which patriotism demands; it is possible that if the State raised all the costs of war by taxes, issued no bonds or even issued only non-interest-bearing bonds, the war might be called off, which would be proof enough that Society puts little worth on its political purposes. The economic conseqence of the most approved method of financing wars is that a lien on the future production of the nation is established, and nearly always it is a permanent lien. That is, for all time to come, or as long as the State stays in business, the housewives' pantries must contribute to the cost of a nation's past "protective" wars.
But war, and the preparations for it, is attended with a charge that has nothing to do with protection and is a load that increasingly hampers Society in its search for a better life. That is the power which the State acquires during war and does not relinquish when it is over. When the enemy is at the city gates, or there is a general fear that he is coming, the individual abdicates his self-reliance and places himself unreservedly under the direction of the captain; he gives up his freedom in order to attain freedom. Or so he thinks. But it is a matter of record that what he gives up is never fully returned to him, that he must fight his own captain to get
