THE POLITICAL ECONOMY OF AMERICAN WARFARE, PART ONE

Paul A. C. Koistinen, Beating Plowshares Into Swords: The Political Economy of American Warfare, 1606-1865 (Lawrence: University of Kansas Press, 1996) ("This volume constitutes the first of a five-volume study of the political economy of warfare in America--the means the nation has employed to mobilize its economic resources for defense and hostilities." Id. at xi. "I demonstrate the impact of the political economy of warfare upon domestic life and what economic mobilization for defense and war reveals about he nature and operations of society." Id. at xiii. "Four factors are essential in determining the method of mobilization. The first is economic--the level of maturity of the economy; the second is political--the size, strength, and scope of the federal government; the third, military--the character and structure of the military services and the relationship between them and civilian society and authority; and the fourth is the state of military technology." Id. at 1. "Economic mobilization has been carried out largely by political, economic, and, ultimately, military elites. Economic and political elites are closely related and comprise the nation's upper classes." Id. at 5. "Harnessing the economy for war has generated a great deal of political controversy in America. Much of the conflict grows from the fact that economic mobilization highlights the nation's most basic contradiction: an elitist reality in the context of a democratic ideology. During years of peace that dynamic contradiction tends to be obscured, during years of war it is magnified by elitist economic mobilization patterns. Excluded interest groups and classes inevitably challenge the legitimacy of mobilization systems run by the few as unrepresentative and as failing to protect larger public interests. This resentment is exaggerated by the widespread aversion to and fear of government at the national level. Moreover, economic mobilization for war elevates the armed services to positions of central importance, which intensifies the strong antimilitary strains in American thought. Opposition to war among nonelites also often leads to adverse critiques of economic mobilization policies. There is a close correlation between antiwar and antielite attitudes." Id. at 5-6. "Political parties, democratization, and elite interacted dynamically during the antebellum period.  Richard L. McCormick designates the years from the 1830s to the end of the nineteenth century as the 'party period in American history.' During those years, in contrast to the periods before and after, parties dominated the political process in terms of mobilizing voters and shaping government policy. Political parties, therefore, acted as a bridge between the electorate and government." Id. at 74. "Mass-based political parties acted to maintain rather than to threaten elite rule--no mean feat. The so-called Age of the Common Man saw sharpening class lines and probably the most extreme economic stratification the nation has ever experienced. [Blogger Note: Remember this book was published in 1996. It could not anticipate the growing stratification America is experiencing in the early twenty-first century.] Under these more challenging circumstances, the party system kept viable America's elitist-democratic duality by co-opting or marginalizing parties of dissent and allowing the two major parties to obscure basic issues, position themselves in the ideological center, and uphold the status quo. As a result, between 1815 and 1860 political parties and government from the local to the national level generally continued to be dominated by the wealthy and by individuals in prestigious occupation." Id. at 75. "Unlike the pattern unfolding in the states, at the federal level economic elites did not serve simultaneously in public and private capacities. [] The mixing of elites so common at the state level would not be duplicated at the national level during wartime until World Wars I and II." Id. at 132. "The way a nation mobilizes for war reflects the state of its society, and the Lincoln administration's mobilization methods mirrored the essentially decentralized nature of mid-nineteenth-century America almost perfectly." Id. at 188. "Without massive state relief and welfare programs, the Confederate home front would have collapsed long before it did. Besides extending a helping hand to the needy and desperate, state aid muted mounting class antagonism. The Southern population watched the elite benefit from the conscription laws; ignore the palpable wants around them; resist lending or hiring out their slaves, equipment, and tools for the war; place undue emphasis upon cotton and what it represented; and suffer at most the loss of luxuries. This gulf inevitably caused resentment among the common people toward a social system that tolerated such unequal sacrifice. Harsh deprivation and smoldering class resentments weakened enormously, perhaps fatally, the Confederate war effort despite the attempts of the states and communities to alleviate suffering." Id. at 213. "[T]here is a special irony in the fact that Lee's troops, who were fighting to preserve the prerogatives of an agrarian society, ended up with guns and ammunition but not always with enough food." Id. at 245. And, as a reminder of the value of dissent: "The lack of a two-party system badly weakened the Confederacy. [] Though parties would not have ensured victory, they would doubtless have checked the terrible fragmentation that occurred after mid-1863, by maintaining discipline within Congress and helping ameliorate the troubled relations between a temperamental president and the legislative branch. They would also have given the growing opposition the opportunity to advocate alternative wartime strategies and the leaders to implement them--whether dedicated to a more vigorous prosecution of the war or to a quicker and better peace. Political parties would furthermore have sanctioned and protected minority opinions, including not only advocates of ending slavery, seeking peace, and other unpopular causes but also talented former Yankees...., who did so much for their adopted homeland and yet were viewed with suspicion by Southerners who often did much less. In short, political parties would have legitimized, and thereby probably tempered, criticism of he war effort and the administration conducting it, making critiques less destructive and channeling them into more productive paths. Such creative tension would have acted to maintain Southern unity and sustain morale and commitment to the war. It is sobering, yet uplifting, to remember that a few months before the presidential election of 1864, Abraham Lincoln was preparing for defeat by Democrat George B. McClellan. That reality stands as a rare tribute to the high but necessary costs of an open political system." Id. at 275.).