War profiteering
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A war profiteer is any person or organization that makes profits from warfare or by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. The term has strongly negative implications.
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[edit] Types of war profiteers
Different types of war profiteers can be distinguished ranging from single persons, to whole companies or trusts, and nations.
During and after World War II enormous profits were made by persons selling rare goods like cigarettes, chocolate, coffee and butter on the black market.
In general, all companies selling weapons increase their profits when war starts.
Furthermore, one can distinguish passive war profiteers from active war profiteers:
- Passive war profiteers make profits from a war without influencing the duration and/or outcome of a war.
- Active war profiteers, in addition to making profits from a war, have a vital interest in starting and prolonging wars in order to make or increase their profits. Basil Zaharoff's Vickers Company sold weapons to all the parties involved in the Chaco War.
[edit] Anti-profiteering measures
Making unreasonable profits from war is widely considered unethical and is deeply unpopular, so attempts to prohibit excessive war profiteering, such as the imposition of an excess profits tax, receive much political support in wartime. Defining 'excessive' accurately is difficult, however, and such legislation frequently allows some instances of profiteering to go unchecked while reducing the income of others' war-related business to loss-making levels. One of the points of the Nazi Manifesto was the implementation of the death sentence to profiteers, especially war profiteers.
[edit] In the United States
Criticism of companies such as Halliburton in the context of the Iraq war draw heavily on the stereotype of the businessman profiteer. Slogans relating to 'blood for oil' have a similar implication.
Steve Clemons, a senior fellow at the New America Foundation think tank, has accused former CIA Director James Woolsey of both profiting from and promoting the Iraq War[1].
The Center for Public Integrity has reported that US Senator Dianne Feinstein and her husband, Richard Blum, are making millions of dollars from Iraq and Afghanistan contracts through his company, Perini [2]. Feinstein voted for the resolution giving President George W. Bush the authority to invade Iraq.
[edit] In popular culture
The term 'war profiteer' evokes two stereotypes in popular culture: the rich businessman who sells weapons to governments, and the semi-criminal black marketeer who sells goods to ordinary citizens. In English-speaking countries this is particularly associated with Britain during World War II.
The image of the 'businessman profiteer' carries the implication of influence and power used to actively cause wars for personal gain, rather than merely passively profit from them. In the aftermath of World War I, such profiteers were widely asserted to have existed by both the Left, and (fused with anti-Semitism) by the far Right.
The surname of the character 'Daddy Warbucks' in Little Orphan Annie carries an obvious implication. This character is interesting for being an example of the stereotype of a war profiteer applied to a 'good guy'.
The Tintin adventure The Broken Ear features an arms dealer called Basil Bazarov who sells arms to both sides in a war. He is a recognisable example of this 'type', and specifically based on Basil Zaharoff.
The character of Joe Walker in the sitcom Dad's Army is an example of the second stereotype of a war profiteer while the character Rick Pym in the novel A Perfect Spy is a more psychologically complex example.
The Suicide Machines released their 2005 album, entitled War Profiteering Is Killing Us All.
