Capitalism Is War: How To Stop Nuclear Armageddon
Ted Reese
Abstract
This article presents a Marxist analysis of the structural connection between capitalism, imperialist war, and the threat of nuclear annihilation, arguing that capitalism itself — not merely individual leaders or ideologies — is the root cause of global conflict. Ted Reese refutes liberal and idealist explanations of militarism by grounding the drive toward war in Marx’s law of the tendency of the rate of profit to fall. As surplus capital accumulates and profitability declines, capital must seek new markets, resources, and outlets for investment — inevitably producing imperial rivalry, militarization, and global war. Reese traces this logic through the historical trajectory of capitalist crises, showing how automation and technological development now accelerate capital’s exhaustion and make war less regenerative and more self-destructive. The paper concludes that capitalism’s internal contradictions, combined with the unsustainable costs of perpetual militarization, lead inevitably toward either nuclear catastrophe or socialism. To avert the former, Reese proposes a global communist transition based on peaceful expropriation, state monopoly socialism, and international unity of workers and progressive capitalists. The article situates this argument within the broader Marxist tradition of anti-imperialism and critiques reformist illusions that capitalism can be restrained through moral appeals or policy adjustments.
Keywords
Marxism, imperialism, rate of profit, nuclear war, automation, socialism
