''War Is a Racket'' is a speech and a 1935 short book by Smedley D. Butler, a retired

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and two-time

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recipient. Based on his career military experience, Butler discusses how

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interests commercially benefit from

warfare War is an intense armed conflict between states, governments, societies, or paramilitary groups such as mercenaries, insurgents, and militias. It is generally characterized by extreme violence, destruction, and mortality, using regu ...

. He had been appointed commanding officer of the

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during the 1915–1934 United States occupation of Haiti. After Butler retired from the US Marine Corps in October 1931, he made a nationwide tour in the early 1930s giving his speech "War Is a Racket". The speech was so well received that he wrote a longer version as a short book published in 1935. His work was condensed in ''

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'' as a book supplement, which helped popularize his message. In an introduction to the ''Reader's Digest'' version,

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praised Butler's "moral as well as physical courage". Thomas had written Smedley Butler's oral autobiography. According to the

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online library, the book published in 1935 is in the

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. A scanned copy of the original 1935 printing is available for download, in part or in whole, on the HathiTrust website, along with a detailed description of the copyrights.

Book

In ''War Is a Racket'', Butler points to a variety of examples, mostly from

World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was List of wars and anthropogenic disasters by death toll, one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, ...

, where

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s, whose operations were subsidized by public funding, were able to generate substantial profits, making money from mass human suffering. The work is divided into five chapters: # War is a racket # Who makes the profits? # Who pays the bills? # How to smash this racket! # To hell with war! It contains this summary: Butler confesses that during his decades of service in the

Recommendations

In the booklet's penultimate chapter, Butler recommended three steps to disrupt the war racket: # Making war unprofitable. Butler suggests that the means for war should be " conscripted" before those who would fight the war:

It can be smashed effectively only by taking the profit out of war. The only way to smash this racket is to conscript capital and industry and labour before the nation's manhood can be conscripted. ��Let the officers and the directors and the high-powered executives of our armament factories and our steel companies and our munitions makers and our ship-builders and our airplane builders and the manufacturers of all other things that provide profit in war time as well as the bankers and the speculators, be conscripted — to get $30 a month, the same wage as the lads in the trenches get.

# Acts of war to be decided by those who fight it. He also suggests a limited

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to determine if the war is to be fought. Eligible to vote would be those who risk death on the front lines.
# Limitation of militaries to self-defense. For the United States, Butler recommends that the Navy be limited, by law, to operating within 200 miles of the coastline, and the Army restricted to the territorial limits of the country, ensuring that war, if fought, can never be one of aggression.

References

External links

* * {{IA, War_Is_A_Racket, ''War Is a Racket''
''War Is a Racket'' (online version)

"War Is A Racket" By Maj. Gen. Smedley D. Butler, Read By Jon Gold

"War is still 'a Racket' by David James
1935 non-fiction books Anti-war books Books about the military–industrial complex Causes of war Pacifism in the United States Pacifism 1930 speeches

Book

Recommendations

See also

References

External links