Capitalist peace theory methodologically flawed- it ignores alt causes to peace, distributional effects, and has no concise definition of capitalism

Professor of International Politics, Capitalist Peace Theory: A Critical Appraisal, Oxford Encyclopedia of Politics, DOI: 10.1093/acrefore/9780190228637.013.314,

Classic definitions of capitalism stress along these lines the extent to which capital and other productive resources are owned by private people and the profits these “capitalists” try to reap. According to Weber (1958, p. 17), “[C]apitalism is identical with the pursuit of profit, and forever renewed profit, by means of continuous, rational, capitalistic enterprise [emphasis in original].” Current contributions to CPT do not, as indicated, rely on such a minimalist definition of capitalism, rendering it difficult to establish which facet of a country makes them more peaceful both internally and externally.1 A second problem with the extant literature boils down to the observation that extant theories do not sufficiently explore how the wealth possibly created through a capitalist organization of the political leaders renders political leaders reluctant to use armed force. Unless one adopts a crude Marxist approach and perceives governments to be the lackeys of the capitalist class, it is the government and not Wall Street or its functional equivalents around the world that calls the shots in this regard. The lack of proper micro-foundations of the approach is all the more severe as the riches that economic openness allegedly provokes can also be used for military purposes. The relationship between development and conflict is thus indefinite (Schneider, 2014a). A third and related criticism focuses on the incomplete nature of the approach. Advocates of the CPT approach often do not differentiate between the level of economic freedom and changes towards it. This has the consequence that capitalist peace theories shy away from addressing the distributional effects that transitions to economic openness create (Bussmann, Schneider, & Wiesehomeier, 2005; Bussmann & Schneider, 2007). This neglect is especially grave in light of the classic interpretations of capitalism by Marx (Kliman, 2015) and Schumpeter (1942) who both stressed risk taking and the alternation between economic expansion and contraction as defining features of capitalism. This article addresses these challenges after an introduction of the historical literature that has disputed whether capitalism is a source of conflict or of peace.