Whatever Happened to the Merchants of Death? Normal Supply Versus Catastrophic Demand

The Romans were hemmed in and slaughtered standing up. So they continued to fight with their swords.

Anthony Sampson. The Arms Bazaar (London: Hodder and Stoughton, 1977). pp. 251-9,291, 295.

James S. Duesenberry. Income. Saving and the Theory of Consumer Behaviour (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press , 1959). pp. 27-52.

I owe this entirely to Mark Schaffer. For a simple political exposition of the Prisoner's Dilemma see Robert Axelrod, The Evolution of Cooperation (New York: Basic Books, 1984), pp. 8-11; for a biological one see Jon Elster, Explaining Technical Change ( Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1983). pp. 53-4: for an economic one see Amartya Sen, 'Behaviour and the Concept of Preference', Economica (Vol. 40, No. 159, August 1973), pp. 249-52.

This it does, of course, by virtue of its monopsony powers, but maybe also through the law. On the other hand, the Ministry has to fight pantouflage, the regular migration of the Ministry's middle rank officials in the procurement branch into the employ of weapons firms when they retire early. This ensures a conflict of interest before they retire. It also reduces the Ministry's monopsony power.

Actually there is more competition than among civilian suppliers, especially between R&D organisations; and the MOD, as the single, immense, prestigious consumer, has infinitely more sovereignty than its opposite number, the ideologically disregarded housewife.

I say this at such length because I am sure that in such a sensible country as Brazil, where arms are simply the manufacture in which we happen to have developed a comparative advantage, rational commercial principles apply. In Britain, however, it seems that the MOD agonises over issuing licences to arms exporters who have used the Ministry's R&D, and so owe it money, but often need to keep their labour force together by accepting contracts that promise no contribution to that debt. But licensing should be on moral, not economic, principles; for the rest the manufacturer should be presumed to know his business, and to wish to pay his debt to the Ministry somehow.

(A beaver appears on the emblem of the London School of Economics - Eds.)

He himself admitted this publicly, in the Sunday Chronicle , 29 November 1936, cited in Anthony Sampson , op. cit, p. 50.

To these we should add the Lebanese quasi-states, the active territorially based rehcl movements like UNITA and the major terrorist organisations. Of course a state, using forces as it does on other states and its own citizens too, is almost indistinguishable from a terrorist organisation, and the latter, collecting tribute and administering justice as it often does, is often almost indistinguishable from a state.

Peru also bought Mirages in 1968, but this seems to be an unconnected matter (see Augusto Varas , Militarization and the International Arms Race in Latin America (Boulder, CO: Westview, 1985), p. 93). Sampson , op. cit, pp. 187-8, seems to have confused the dates. The Contadora group pursues buyers' restraint in Central America, for instance ( Armando Toledano Laredo , ' Processes of Integration in Latin America', The Federalist (Pavia) (Vol. 27, No. 2, October 1985), p. 123). But in this area, as opposed to further south, the US is opposed to it.

Sir Basil was in fact a Greek from the Ukraine. He was very pro-Greek and gave much money to the Venizelos government later in life. One of his first great sales was of a submarine - then a new major weapon - to Greece. Within one year he sold two to Turkey too! ( H.C. Engelbrecht and F.C. Hanighen , Merchants of Death (London: Routledge, 1935). pp. 98, 202-3.) His predecessor Alfred Dupont (sone of Ircnenee, the founder) was of very different metal, a practitioner of sellers' restraint all on his own. In 1846 he turned down a Mexican order for gunpowder: 'However unjust our proceedings may be, and however shameful our invasion of Mexican territory, we cannot make powder to be used against our own country.' Ibid, p. 30.

Anthony Sampson , op. cit., pp. 302-8. The Direcleur des Affaires Internationales, General Rene Audran, was assassinated by Action Directe on 25 January 1985; but their given reason was that he was ' responsible for arms sales to NATO ... the heart of NATO's strategy of imperialism to homogenise European states under its control'. Contrast our own attitude to inter-allied deliveries below.

'Not trading in war but waging it' - Ennius. I never knew what that meant before!

But not only so: Israel also buys South Africa's diamonds. And it just happens that neither diamonds nor arms are reported in the trade statistics of either party. Allegedly, if we add in these items, Israel and South Africa are each the major trading partner of the other. This of course excludes US aid to Israel.

Note that the prohibition of all arms exports was the subject of a Swiss referendum on 24 September 1972. Mindful as ever of the stability of their foreign exchange rate, the Swiss people turned this initiative down.