Creating Tolerance and World Peace

Posts Tagged ‘Objectivism’

To understand the capitalism peace theory, it is first important to understand what capitalism is. Capitalism is when an economic system, which is based on means of production such as the machines, factories, and tools used to produce wealth are privately owned and are for private profit. In a capitalistic system the economic decisions are made by the private owners rather than a government system.

Ayn Rand, a Russian-American novelist, philosopher, playwright, and screen writer theorized that the largest wars of history have been waged by controlled economies against the freer ones. It is her theory that capitalism has allowed for the longest span of time throughout history in which there was peace. This time frame she has referred to in her theory included the period of time from the end of the Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the beginning of World War I in 1914. It is said that during this time period there were no wars throughout the entire civilized world. However, this theory has ignored many wars and conflicts that did take place during that time including several conflicts throughout Europe.

Ayn Rand was not the first to propose the idea of a capitalism peace theory. In fact, the idea of capitalism playing a part in theories rose by philosophers in the 1700s. In a more modern capitalism peace theory, capitalist peace has been combined with democratic peace theories. In his research, Stuart Bremer examined the relationship between capitalism and war. He found that capitalism seemed to be a more powerful force for peace than democracy. Although at the time of his research more notoriety seemed to be directed towards the idea of a democratic peace theory than in the capitalism peace theory. It is believed by modern theorists that a capitalistic peace theory includes the democratic peace theory in that capitalism is actually the cause of both peace and democracy.