Citation

Handman M. Am. J. Sociol. 1939; 44(5): 629-648.

Copyright

(Copyright © 1939, University of Chicago Press)

DOI

10.1086/218116

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Contrary to a naive conception of what is economic, a struggle to obtain control over goods and services may have nothing economic about it. Economic motives have nothing to do with the contents of human action, but only with the means by which these actions are accomplished. A course of action is economic if the actor weighs costs and returns against each other and chooses that line of action which is believed to offer the greatest returns in proportion to the expenditure involved. What constitutes costs and returns depends upon the value-scheme of the individual and of the group. Economic motivation should be tested in terms of the manner in which objects desired are obtained, and not in terms of objects of desire. Evidence is cited to show that all the economic arguments for war are arguments, not motives. War or preparation for war needs justification because our moral system has not provided a scheme of values which will enable nations to obtain the satisfaction of power prestige by conflict and domination, while at the same time they must offer moral or justifiable reasons for such aggression-economic reasons. Most objects are desired not because of their nature but because in the world of culture these things are symbols of certain values. We use war to obtain whatever our culture makes us want, and use war to obtain the satisfaction of wants that have nothing to do with control over goods and services. The illusion has arisen that it is economic control which the state desires and to which it is driven by an inevitable urge. War is made more inevitable by being made economic, unless we learn to distinghish between economic motives and economic symbols.