Let those who are actually concerned with peace observe that capitalism gave
mankind the longest period of peace in history—a period during which there
were no wars involving the entire civilized world—from the end of the
Napoleonic wars in 1815 to the outbreak of World War I in 1914.
It must be remembered that the political systems of the nineteenth century were
not pure capitalism, but mixed economies. The element of freedom, however, was
dominant; it was as close to a century of capitalism as mankind has come. But
the element of statism kept growing throughout the nineteenth century, and by
the time it blasted the world in 1914, the governments involved were dominated
by statist policies.
Just as, in domestic affairs, all the evils caused by statism and government
controls were blamed on capitalism and the free market—so, in foreign affairs,
all the evils of statist policies were blamed on and ascribed to capitalism.
Such myths as “capitalistic imperialism,” “war-profiteering,” or the notion
that capitalism has to win “markets” by military conquest are examples of the
superficiality or the unscrupulousness of statist commentators and historians.