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Military Keynesianism


Military Keynesianism is the position that the government should increase military spending in order to increase economic growth. The term is often used pejoratively to refer to politicians who reject Keynesian economics except when arguing for the positive job creation of military spending.

Keynesians maintain that government spending should first be used for useful purposes such as infrastructure investment, but that even non-useful spending may be helpful during recessions. John Maynard Keynes advocated that government spending be used "in the interests of peace and prosperity" instead of "war and destruction". An example of such policies are the Public Works Administration in the 1930s in the United States.

In 1933, John Maynard Keynes wrote an open letter to President Franklin Roosevelt urging the new president to borrow money to be spent on public works programs.

The following forms of military Keynesianism may be differentiated:

Many economists have attempted to estimate the multiplier effect of military expenditures with mixed results. A meta-analysis of 42 primary studies with 243 estimates concluded that military expenditures tended to increase the economy in developed countries with military exports but decrease the economy in less developed countries with generally higher level of political corruption.

Externalities are rarely if ever considered in estimating a multiplier effect. This can be a serious issue for military expenditures. For example, the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) relies mostly on captured weapons. For example, in Mosul between 4 and 10 June 2014 a group of between 500 and 600 ISIL troops “were able to seize six divisions’ worth of strategic weaponry, all of it US-supplied” from a force with a paper strength of 120,000 men. In considering the multiplier effect of military expenditures, the people killed and property destroyed are not considered. The only things that are considered are the increased weapon sales to replace those stolen and the costs associated with combatting ISIL. Those are considered as increasing the Gross Domestic Product of the United States, and that is assumed to be good.


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