determined by the higher professional army, navy, and air
force personnel. The economist must therefore confine him-
self to determining how the means necessary for war can be
procured and what effects the war will have upon the eco-
nomic life of the nation. How can we minimize the dislo-
cation of our economic life during the war? Must we choose
between "butter and guns," or can we have both? What
methods should be adopted to finance the war? How can we
prevent inflation? What measures can we take to weaken the
enemy on the economic side? Such questions as these fall
within the province of war economics.

Economics is usually concerned with the problem of dis-
tributing our resources -- labor, capital, materials, land --
among various lines of production in order to provide con-
sumers with maximum satisfaction at minimum cost. We
usually view with pleasure the prospect of obtaining more
and better automobiles, clothing, housing, and food. Econ-
omists usually consider a higher standard of living to be a
desirable, if not the most important, goal of economic
activity.

In wartime, however, our goals may be radically changed
or even reversed. We may find it desirable to curtail the
production of automobiles, clothing, housing, and in general
to reduce our standard of living. Thus, war is often con-
sidered to be uneconomic. It is held to represent the antithesis
of economic activity, to exemplify waste rather than pro-
ductivity.

This last view overlooks the fact that people may change
their minds about the goods they consider to be important.
If in wartime they choose voluntarily to "consume" tanks,
guns, ships, and airplanes in enormous quantities to achieve a
sense of security about the future -- to forestall invasion, and
thereby to preserve their existing wealth and their way of life
-- then we can say that the importance of various types of
goods in our scale of wants has changed and that in conse-
quence the demand for instruments of war has increased.
Since we usually regard any activity which aids in satisfying
wants as productive, then so long as people by democratic
methods express a demand, through government, for the

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