Money and Markets: Essays in Honor of Leland B. Yeager

16 The legacy of BismarckGordon TullockIt is not customary to begin an article by a brief summary of part of a previous bookby the same author. I must do this because I propose to go over much the sameground as several chapters in my earlier book The Economics of Income Redistribution(Tullock 1997).Since this was published quite some time ago it seems likely that most readers, ifthey read it, have forgotten it. Thus a review seems useful.Herr Bismarck, as he was then, went into politics and rose to be the primeminister of Prussia and then of the German Empire. Since he was the mostimportant single factor in the unification of Germany, it is not surprising that hewas awarded successively higher titles of nobility. Many intellectuals who haveheard of him think this unification of Germany is his principal legacy. Indeed manyof these intellectuals regard this as an undesirable accomplishment. The fact thathe united Germany through well-calculated wars, which he won with rather smallbutcher’s bills, I suspect, makes many intellectuals even more likely to feel that hewas a villain rather than a hero.He, of course, did other things than unite Germany and create the social welfaresystem which has been so widely copied. Indeed the book on his life, which Ichecked to make certain my memory was good, has only one chapter devoted to thesocial welfare project (Dawson 1973).His other legacies, however, have largely vanished. His anti-Catholic policiesended with a powerful Catholic political structure in Germany. Germany itself ismuch smaller than it was when he left it. His successors fought big, bloody wars,which were mainly unsuccessful. It should be said, however, that their opponents inthose wars were equally poor in calculating their objectives and equally willing tospend much blood to accomplish their ill-chosen objectives.If we consider the announced objectives of the United States and its allies in bothof the world wars, none of them were accomplished. We won the wars, of course,but the four freedoms were not established after World War II, and peace was notmade permanent after World War I. It today seems bizarre that American soldiersdied to get the Russians into Warsaw. The world is now a much more dangerousplace than it was before these two immense wars.Major international wars are rather unusual in human history. From Waterlooto the Marne, the only really big wars were internal. There was the American Civil