Clearly we need to slash government back to 19th century levels
The logical action to take as a result of this finding is not what The Observer would have us conclude:
But what was the effect of Franklin D Roosevelt’s New Deal, which saw US federal spending rise from 4% of GDP in 1933, to more than 9% by the end of the decade? Most answers to that question focus on its impact on unemployment and the economy. But an imaginative study has examined its impact on Second World War patriotism.
It turns out that what your country was willing to do for you had a significant link to what you were willing to do for your country. People in the areas of the US that benefited most from the New Deal were much more likely to engage in “patriotic” acts, such as buying war bonds. They also put their lives, not just their cash, on the line, being more likely to volunteer to fight and to do the kind of brave/dangerous things in battle that get you a medal.
The paper is here:
The rise of mass armies coincided with the coming of the social welfare state. Since the late 19th century, governments have added old age pensions, health care, and education to their primary tasks. Some of this expansion took place during wartime: governments have often made lavish promises of creating "homes fit for heroes", by expanding the welfare state after victory. A recent theoretical literature argues that the need for motivated soldiers and more manpower led to the big expansion of the welfare state, together with massive attempts by governments to spread nationalist ideology…
OK, the squaddie is willing to storm the machine gun nest because he knows that Granny will still get her pension.
Given that we all do think that mass armies going to war is a bad idea the conclusion is obvious. We must slash the cost of national government back down to that 3% or so in order to remove the willingness of people to undertake the task. Perhaps a little hard on Granny’s pension but better that than her flesh and blood left on some foreign field.
Government so minarchist that it’s not possible to have a war seems a pleasing method of not having war no more.