Introduction

Abstract

The essay introduces the new journal and points out that economists have a long-standing, albeit virtually unknown, history of thinking about questions of conflict, war, and peace. Prominent contributors include Kenneth Arrow, Kenneth Boulding, F.Y. Edgeworth, John Kenneth Galbraith, Jack Hirshleifer, John Maynard Keynes, Lawrence Klein, Wassily Leontief, V.I. Lenin, Friedrich List, Karl Marx, Jean Monnet, Mancur Olson, Vilfredo Pareto, A.C. Pigou, David Ricardo, Lionel Robbins, Joseph A. Schumpeter, Werner Sombart, Thomas Schelling, Adam Smith, Jan Tinbergen, Thorstein Veblen, and Knut Wicksell, a surprisingly diverse assembly. If one draws the net a bit wider and thinks about how societies constitute and regulate themselves, even thinkers such as James Buchanan and Douglass North would be included in this list. Members of society can produce and engage in voluntary exchange and grant-making, or they can produce and appropriate from each other. Clearly, economics as a discipline is intimately linked to issues of conflict, war, and peace.