what is the marginal product of war?
Many anti-war criticisms cite the badness of current events without asking how much of that badness was due to happen anyway. To clarify, let us consider three arguments against the war: 1. U.S. behavior was wrong on deontological grounds, namely we should not kill innocents (and tax others to pay for this killing), even when the long-run consequences are good. Of course if this is true, the arguments stops there. Furthermore it would be irrelevant — at least for judging rightness — whether the war/reconstruction was going well or not. So I doubt if this is all of the anti-war critique; let us move on to the rest. 2. It is not worth killing innocents to overthrow a tyranny. This will also stop the argument, but most anti-war critics don’t hold this view. It would be hard to defend the rise of the West, or Allied participation in World War II, for instance. Now consider #3: 3. The war is going badly. The correct marginal question, however, compares the current badness to the badness whi
