.

Editorial note: Jack Schwartzman was a lifelong opponent of war. This article, reprinted from the July-September 1981 issue of Fragments, explains his views. Approximately ten years after the article was published he voiced his opposition to the Gulf War and ten years after that, in the last weeks of his life, to the war in Afghanistan.

We were discussing war poetry in class. One student, rather bright, remarked:

"I know that war is destructive, but you must admit that it provides jobs, good jobs."

As he started to talk about the many "good" jobs that war "provided," I noticed that the heads of his peers were happily nodding in agreement. It struck me that theirs was the generation that would, in a few short years, "inherit the earth." I had to speak up, to refute their views before it was too late, before their bland acceptance of war cliche's became too deeply embedded in their philosophy. Grimly, desperately, I commenced my refutation.

***
To begin with, a "war job" is "a piece of work of specific character undertaken to assure the success of a particular war." There are many wonderful war jobs: soldier rapist, executioner munitions maker bombardier torturer, construction worker destruction worker lamp-shade maker [ed. note: a reference to lampshades that the Nazis made from human skin], ambulance driver inferior-race exterminator nurse, informer undertaker spy, surgeon, propaganda minister war prisoner prison-camp guard, draft-board official, chaplain, and prostitute (who sets up her headquarters near the military base). This delightful group keeps the war effort going.

Morality sanctifies all war jobs except those which create destruction presently considered "unsportsmanlike," such as poison gas, dum-dum bullets, and (possibly) nuclear arms. "Traditional" means of slaughter on the other hand, are fully approved. (How is scalping regarded these days?) The agitation is almost never against war itself but only against some currently "unpopular" methods of obliteration.

However I must not digress, or dwell on such trivia as groaning, moaning, and maiming, but concentrate strictly on "economic" issues. Let me launch this charming dissertation, therefore, with the assumption that, during wartime, one-third of the population is totally employed in the war effort. (The actual figures are unimportant; the formula would work with whatever statistics are used.) In such a case, the remaining two-thirds of the people are compelled to feed, shelter and clothe not only themselves but the basically parasitic holders of the war jobs. Yet in spite of shortages, and despite the bombings and the killings, not only is a part of the total population able to provide for all, but production is actually booming.

Compare this situation with the one that prevails when "peace" finally arrives. Most of the surviving holders of the old war jobs now find themselves unemployed. With the entire population available for civilian production, only a proportion of the potential labor force is working, and millions barely survive. Production seems to be exhausted.

Why should this contrast exist? The question suggests a paradox that is seemingly insoluble.

No wonder then, that my observant student, noting the economic disparities in times of war and peace, should yearn for a nice little war when jobs are plentiful and employment is secure! No wonder likewise, that those who advocate socialism should point to the apparent paradox as a contradiction "inherent in capitalism and seek total government control so that the economy would simulate wartime conditions and provide jobs for all!

Is there an answer to the problem?

The answer is there for all to see, especially in time of peace. Does it not become painfully clear when farmers are paid not to produce, when supplies are dumped overboard, when tariffs prevent the importation of cheaper better goods, and when unions prohibit the installation of labor-saving devices, that deliberately-devised "blockage" exists somewhere in pipes of the economic machinery? Does it not become evident, when most people are in desperate need, that this blockage effectively stops supply from reaching demand shutting off access to much of land and its produce?

The problem, therefore, lies in the inability to produce, but in refusal to produce or distribute.

In time of war, the powers-that-be merely suspend their own rules against unlimited production and temporarily rescind their own regulations against the availability of natural resources, thus spurring on total economic activity. In time of peace, however, much of the source of all production (Nature) is fenced off by speculative monopoly, and unemployment and poverty result.

The paradox is solved (or, more correctly, disappears) when it is realized that cessation of production is artificially induced. The so-called paradox turns out to be only a contrived illusion.

It is not "necessary" to wage war in order to obtain jobs. On the contrary war destroys jobs (not to speak of job-holders). There is no production in destruction. All that is needed in order to restore full productivity (in war or in peace), is to open the gates to Mother Nature, who always bountiful, and who always provides sustenance -- and jobs.

This is the answer to the problem.

And this economic exposition does not even begin to touch, in its intensity the mania known as war. Not only does war kill, shatter, and enslave human beings; not on does it eliminate goods, factories, and cities; but it also obstructs the vision of the eternal values of life. Each conflict sets back the advances toward Light; each conflict plunges the world further into Darkness; each conflict gives birth to barbarians, illiterates, and murderers. War feeds on itself.

My student's use of the word "good," as an adjective to describe war jobs, brings to mind a passage from Stephen Crane's bitterly ironic poem:

Do not weep, babe, for war is kind.
Because yur father tumbled in the yellow trenches,
Raged at his breast, gulped and died,
Do not weep.
War is kind.

Yes, indeed, dear student. War jobs are good - and war is kind.