Amount Quote by Marilyn Waring
“If a country develops an economic system that is based on how to pay for the war, and if the amounts of fixed capital investment that are apparent are tied up in armaments, and if that country is a major exporter of arms, and its industrial fabric is dependent on them, then it would be in that country's interests to ensure that it always had a market. It is not an exaggeration to say that it is clearly in the interests of the world's leading arms exporters to make sure that there is always a war going on somewhere.”
About This Quote
Source Book: The Politics of Women’s Liberation, Marilyn Waring, 1982
War economies thrive when they can sell weapons, so leading arms exporters benefit from perpetual conflict.
In simple terms: Arms sales drive war; exporters profit from ongoing conflict.
Key Takeaway
Recognize how profit motives can sustain conflict.
Themes
economics
war
industry
ethics
Mood
critical
concerned
Type
analytical
political
When to use this quote
- government budgeting
- defense contracting
- foreign policy
- peace advocacy
Key Concepts
military‑industrial complex
profit motive
geopolitics
Questions to Reflect On
- How do we redirect industrial capacity away from arms?
- What policies can break the profit‑war cycle?
A Different Perspective
Peaceful economies require alternatives to weapon‑based revenue.
![“80 percent of the export of armament in the world comes from the G8 countries. [The] United States alone exports about 50 percent of the world's armament, [for] which, of course, there has to be buyers, and the buyers are very terribly keen, very often military dictator[s] or sometimes not…” quote by Amartya Sen](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/cc9/amartya-sen-2518_armament_80-percent-of-the-export-of-armament-in_2619495.jpg)
![“Men won't easily give up a system in which half the world's population works for next to nothing...[and recognizes that]precisely because that half works for so little, it may have no energy left to fight for anything else.” quote by Marilyn Waring](https://sms4smile.com/quotes/img-quotes/f43/marilyn-waring-98108_beauty_men-won-t-easily-give-up-a-system-in-whi_538341.jpg)
