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    War is a Racket (The Profit That Fuels Warfare): The Anti-war Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
    War is a Racket (The Profit That Fuels Warfare): The Anti-war Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
    War is a Racket (The Profit That Fuels Warfare): The Anti-war Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier
    Ebook27 pages19 minutes

    War is a Racket (The Profit That Fuels Warfare): The Anti-war Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier

    By Major General Smedley D. Butler

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    About this ebook

    War Is a Racket is written by the most decorated American soldier in U.S. history, Major General Smedley D. Butler. Butler frankly discusses from his experience as a career military officer how business interests commercially start and benefit from warfare. After his retirement from the Marine Corps, Gen. Butler made a nationwide tour giving his speech "War is a Racket". The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as this small book with the same title which helped popularize his message. Lowell Thomas praised Butler's "moral as well as physical courage" in telling the truth about war profiteering. This message has never been more relevant, as we see the war racket in full swing in recent history like never before in endless perpetual wars, i.e. Iraq and Afghanistan. 
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherReading Essentials
    Release dateDec 4, 2018
    ISBN9781773233567
    War is a Racket (The Profit That Fuels Warfare): The Anti-war Classic by America's Most Decorated Soldier

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    Reviews for War is a Racket (The Profit That Fuels Warfare)

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    • 5/5
      A very concise summation on the potential for corruption in the use of the military, particularly when military policy is wedded to corporate interests. Butler's statements are very powerful, particularly becuase of his personal experience on the subject.
    • 4/5
      A short condemnation of war by a man who spent his life fighting wars. Smedley demonstrates the high public cost and resultant high business profits of war, giving many examples of US companies which greatly increased their profits during WW1. He also describes the waste and corruption inherent in military spending.

      Smedley makes the amusing (from a detached perspective) observation that in WW1 the US cleverly replaced recruitment bonuses with medals. Giving soldiers medals for service was much cheaper than giving money, which was the norm in the US Civil War. He also points out that between taxes and bonds many enlisted soldiers effectively received no salary.

      Far less amusingly, Smedley describes how in 1916, a delegation from the allies visited President Wilson and bluntly told the president that the allies would lose the war, and thus no be able to repay the six billion dollars they owed to the USA. This was the galvanising motion for US involvement.

      War = $ is the message of this book.
    • 5/5
      The only book on antiwar that matters.
    • 5/5
      The pieces that make up this book were first published about 70 years ago. Butler was a highly decorated Marine Brigadier General who was involved in many military expeditions in the early 20th century to countries like Haiti, China and Cuba. After retiring, he exposed a corporate/fascist plot to seize the White House right after Franklin Roosevelt became President. After that, he began to speak out about the real motives behind America's military actions--profit.Just before World War I, the profit margin of the average American corporation was in the single digits (6%, 8%, perhaps 10% profit yearly). Then why, when the war came, did that same profit margin skyrocket to hundreds, or even thousands of percent? The author also mentions several cases of companies who sold the US Government totally useless items. One company sold Uncle Sam 12 dozen 48-inch wrenches. The problem is that there was only one nut large enough for those wrenches; it holds the turbines at Niagara Falls. The wrenches were put on freight cars and sent all around America to try and find a use for them. When the war ended, the wrench maker was about to make some nuts to fit the wrenches. The parallels with today are too numerous to mention.The next time war is declared, and conscription is on the horizon, Butler proposes a limited national plebiscite on whether or not America should go to war. But the voting should be limited only to those of conscription age, those who will do the actual fighting and dying. Also, one month before anyone is conscripted, all of American business and industry who profits from war should be conscripted, from weapons makers to international banks to uniform makers. All employees of those companies, from the CEO down to the assembly line worker, should have their salary cut to equal the base pay of the soldier who is fighting, and dying, to improve their bottom line. Let's see how long the war fever lasts. Also, go to a VA hospital to see the real aftermath of war.This isn't so much an antiwar book as it is an isolationist book. The separate pieces were published in a time when many Americans felt that getting involved in another European war that had nothing to do with America, was a terrible idea. The author certainly pulls no punches. This book is very highly recommended, especially for those who think that war is a clean videogame where no one really gets hurt. It gets two strong thumbs up.
    • 5/5
      A classic exposé of war profiteering written by the most decorated Marine of his time, Major General Smedley Butler. The author, through a highly qualified argument supported by facts, thoroughly discounts the moral and ideological justification for war and concentrates on the geopolitical factors that actually motivate the cause for war. He was one of the first Americans to really bring the economic implications of war to the forefront of the public conscience. In War is a Racket Butler “names names” and lays out in wonderfully blunt detail how the American “military machine” was used to the benefit of wealthy American industrialists. He noted how proponents of war typically call on God as a supporter of the cause and how they embellish the mission as one of liberation and the spreading of freedom, but that these people tend to shy away from discussing the economic details of military ventures. In short, this book, though small, is an inspirational foundation for all anti-war arguments in our current times, a firsthand account of a story that tragically keeps repeating itself.

    Book preview

    War is a Racket (The Profit That Fuels Warfare) - Major General Smedley D. Butler

    War Is A Racket

    (The Profit That

    Fuels Warfare) –

    The Anti-war Classic by America's

    Most Decorated Soldier

    Major General

    Smedley D. Butler

    Copyright 1935 Smedley D. Butler. 

    This edition published by Reading Essentials.

    All Rights Reserved.

    Contents

    Chapter 1: War Is A Racket

    Chapter 2: Who Makes The Profits?

    Chapter 3: Who Pays The Bills?

    Chapter 4: How To Smash This Racket!

    Chapter 5: To Hell With War!

    Smedley Darlington Butler Born: West Chester, Pa., July 30, 1881 Educated: Haverford School Married: Ethel C. Peters, of Philadelphia, June 30, 1905 Awarded two congressional medals of honor:

    1. capture of Vera Cruz, Mexico, 1914 2. capture of Ft. Riviere, Haiti, 1917 Distinguished service medal, 1919 Major General -United States Marine Corps Retired Oct. 1, 1931 On leave of absence to act as director of Dept. of Safety, Philadelphia, 1932 Lecturer --1930’s Republican Candidate for Senate, 1932 Died at Naval Hospital, Philadelphia, June 21, 1940 For more information about Major General Butler, contact the United States Marine Corps.

    CHAPTER ONE

    WAR IS A RACKET

    WAR is a racket. It always has been.

    It is possibly the oldest, easily the most profitable, surely the most vicious. It is the only one international in scope. It is the only one in which the profits are reckoned in dollars and the losses in lives.

    A racket is best described, I believe, as something that is not what it seems to the majority of the people. Only a small inside group knows what it is about. It is conducted for the benefit of the very few, at the expense of the very many. Out of war a few people make huge fortunes.

    In the World War [I] a mere handful garnered the profits of the conflict. At least 21,000 new millionaires and billionaires were made in the United States during the World War. That many admitted their huge blood gains in their income tax returns. How many other war millionaires

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