Abstract

The economic process and war seem to share the same fate, i.e. a greater and greater gradual
degree of autonomy as the weakening and the neutralization of political rationalization due to
govern it grows. “Means without an end”, as Karl Marx would say; within the current phase of
economy being shaped by finance and of global spreading of new forms of conflict, economic
process and war seem to be the two face of the systemic chaos characterizing the complex
transition phase we are currently living in.
In order to find new interpretive categories being useful in understanding such a relationship,
it may very well be good to start taking those economists having first understood its
complexity and outcomes into account again.
It is possible to correlate war and economy within the framework of the competition between
States and of the construction of the international relations’ system, therefore considering the
dynamics connected with the systemic cycles of accumulation (as Arrighi posited them)
within the relationship between the conflicts underway to define an hegemony on the world
as a system. The competition between States featuring the struggle for mobile capital (as
Weber put it) is the best perspective to look at the relationship between economy and war.
Using the historical-deductive, the considerations and reflections carried out by both
Economists and Historical Economists provide the tools to understand the dynamics of the
“Great Divergence”, within a perspective linking the considerations on Western superiority in
warfare “toppling all great Chinese Walls down” and capitalist development being considered
in its expansionist and globalist dynamics. Therefore, both Imperialism and Mercantilism
could be seen as aspects of global competition and be integrated within models of systemic
accumulation, featuring the emergence of continuity and the constant growth in the
complexity of the system itself, therefore accumulation and war cannot be considered
separately. The “creative destruction” and the dynamics of the Economic Cycles intertwine
with each other during international crises however, they can be integrated with logistics
cycles (as Cameron defined them) and with the new approaches to studying all century-wide
trends trend and long waves (Goldstein). In such a perspective, the current phase we are
living in features the overturning of the von Clausewitz paradigm, since politics seem to be a
continuation of war, nowadays, as well as of finance, we might add. Furthermore, the moment
we are living in stands on a fork of the road between the possibility of a return to neo-
Mercantilism and the possibility of making Adam Smith’s wish about the fact that all the
peoples of the Earth may strive towards “equality of strength and courage that, inspiring them
mutual fear, may alone limit the injustice of independent nations, making them respect, by
some degree, their mutual rights”, through the social division of labor on the international
level. Considering the relevant dynamics in financial ( Kindleberger), this moment in history
coincides with a phase when the competition between States, and therefore the risk of actual
war, has reached paroxysm and, at the same time, considering a complex and unique
dialectics with the Free Market, itself the limit and the antidote to conflicts- despite its
relationship with the many unresolved contradictions within economy and war, truly is a
privileged field of study in order to understand the transition we are living in.