The Invisible Hand of Peace
Capitalism, the War Machine, and International Relations Theory

This book shows that the domestic institutions associated with capitalism have promoted peace between states over the past two centuries.

Patrick J. McDonald (Author)

9780521744126, Cambridge University Press

Paperback, published 2 March 2009

354 pages, 1 b/w illus. 17 tables
22.9 x 15.2 x 2.3 cm, 0.54 kg

'Patrick McDonald argues forcefully that Adam Smith's invisible hand promotes not only wealth but international peace as well. Going beyond commercial liberalism, McDonald demonstrates that private property and competitive markets constrain the political rent-seeking of leaders and make them more responsive to popular demands. Deftly using both data analysis and historical materials, he advances a challenging new domestic political economy explanation of the erroneously labeled democratic peace.' David A. Lake, University of California, San Diego

The Invisible Hand of Peace shows that the domestic institutions associated with capitalism, namely private property and competitive market structures, have promoted peace between states over the past two centuries. It employs a wide range of historical and statistical evidence to illustrate both the broad applicability of these claims and their capacity to generate new explanations of critical historical events, such as the emergence of the Anglo-American friendship at the end of the nineteenth century, the outbreak of World War I, and the evolution of the recent conflict across the Taiwan Strait. By showing that this capitalist peace has historically been stronger than the peace among democratic states, these findings also suggest that contemporary American foreign policy should be geared toward promoting economic liberalization rather than democracy in the post-9/11 world.

1. American grand strategy and the liberal peace
2. Liberal international relations theory on war
3. Releasing the invisible hand
4. Liberal economic institutions and peace in the twentieth century
5. Free trade and peace in the first era of globalization
6. From rivalry to friendship
7. The Achilles' heel of liberal international relations theory?
8. Peace across the Taiwan Strait?
9. The invisible hand or the ballot box?
10. Capitalism and America's peaceful market power.

Subject Areas: Political economy [KCP], Economics [KC], International relations [JPS]