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Article: The worldly philosophers and the war economy *.(Part II: wordly philosophy and twenty-first-century capitalism)
- Article from:
- Social Research
- Article date:
- June 22, 2004
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2004 New School for Social Research. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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DOES WAR PRESENT DISTINCTIVE PROBLEMS FOR THE WORLDLY philosophy? Does empire? Do economists have any particular insight into these topics? Do we have any professional obligations when faced with the threats and circumstances of wartime or the rise of imperial pretension?
The topic receives little enough attention, yet the philosophical tradition of our discipline is broadly antiwar. This is not, as some suppose, because commerce is inherently a pursuit of the peace loving. Quite to the contrary. As Kunibert Rafter (1987) has shown, trade between the strong and the weak was through history generally forced by the former on the latter--typically when the option of ...