By Smedley D. Butler
In this current moment where the specter of a new war with Iran looms, the searing critique of Major General Smedley D. Butler in War Is a Racket resonates with chilling relevance. Published in 1935, Butler’s work exposes war as a meticulously orchestrated "racket," where a small, organised minority—those "creatures that run the show from the shadows"—reap colossal profits while the masses bear the costs in blood, grief, and economic ruin. Drawing from his decades as a decorated Marine, Butler unveils the machinery of war profiteering, noting, “Out of war a few people make huge fortunes,” while soldiers and civilians shoulder “newly placed gravestones” and “shattered minds.” His revelations find echoes in Understanding Bankers’ Wars, which traces how financial elites, from the Napoleonic era to World War I, engineered conflicts to amass wealth, manipulating nations into debt and destruction. Yet, Butler’s indictment is not merely historical; it serves as a call to question the single minded ambition of those who, as Neema Parvini highlights are the "organised minority" in The Populist Delusion (2022), wield disproportionate power to shape global destinies.
Butler’s legacy extends beyond his written words to his courageous stand against a hidden chapter of American history: the 1933 Business Plot. As detailed in The Business Plot, a cabal of wealthy industrialists and bankers sought to overthrow President Franklin D. Roosevelt and install a fascist dictatorship, a scheme thwarted by Butler’s whistleblowing. This critical event, suppressed for decades, reveals the audacity of those “creatures” who, nearly a century ago, aimed to go “full fascist” in America, underscoring their persistent ambition to control from the shadows. Butler’s role in exposing this coup, referenced in You Knew What You Signed Up For during an interview with Chase Spears, highlights his moral clarity in confronting elite machinations.
Butler’s grim accounting—“mangled bodies,” “broken hearts and homes,” and “back-breaking taxation for generations”—lays bare the asymmetry between the few who profit and the many who pay. His proposed solutions, such as conscripting capital alongside soldiers and limiting military reach to defensive purposes, challenge the status quo with radical pragmatism. Yet, as Understanding Bankers’ Wars suggests, the entrenched power of financial elites often subverts such reforms, perpetuating cycles of conflict. This introduction frames Butler’s War Is a Racket as a timeless exposé, urging readers to interrogate the motives behind modern wars and the organised minority orchestrating them, lest history’s lessons remain unheeded.
With thanks to Smedley D. Butler1.
War is a Racket: Original 1935 Edition: Butler, Smedley D.
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