Prosperity is not a moral question and the justification of San Domingo was its prosperity.

Peter Heather, The Fall of the Roman Empire: A New History, (London: Macmillan, 2005)

One of history’s greatest mysteries, Peter Heather tells us in his new book, is “the strange death of the Roman Empire.” An up-to-date general study of the fall of the Roman Empire has long been needed. Heather is attempting to fill the gap. He draws on material previously only available in specialist publications to produce a synthesis that takes into account the last 40 years of research into late antiquity.

The article reproduced below takes its present form for several reasons, two of which I shall mention here, one immediately, the other towards the end of this introduction. The first would be revealed were the reader to ask why the article says so little about Germany and why I refer to the 20th century as if it were America’s. The second part of this first question will, I hope, be answered by the article itself –at least in part.

We shall start by looking at how much the economy has grown since capitalism took its first steps, i.e. when the so-called Industrial Revolution first got under way early in the 19th century.

Capitalism, where profit is the spur! Capitalist growth can be appreciated by the movement of its blood, i.e. what makes its system tick -its means of income, profit. While the aggregate figures for profit are not immediately available for most countries, they are for the United States, and since that economy was (and remains) the world’s largest for a single country, the figures are highly relevant.

The First World War is a convenient place to start because of its traumatizing effects and because it sets the stage for what happened throughout the 20th century. In 1917, some months before his death, the poet Wilfred Owen wrote:

“...But this morning at 8.20 we heard a boat torpedoed in the bay, about a mile out, they say who saw it. I think only ten lives were saved. I wish the Boche would have the pluck to come right in and make a clean sweep of the pleasure boats, and the promenaders on the Spa, and all the … Leeds and Bradford war profiteers now reading John Bull on Scarborough sands⁸.” (my emphasis)

Compared with World War I, American capitalist prosperity was even more clearly enhanced by World War II.

There appears to be evidence pointing to treachery by leading U.S. business groups during World War II.

Before we look at the post-War period in detail, I want to devote some time to looking at the changing structure of US profits during the period 1929-2000.

I have concentrated on the role of war in generating profits for US companies, although it is clear that much bigger profits were generated in America in the 1920s and 1930s, not due to war, but under conditions of relative peace.