What a Real Civil War Would Do to the U.S. Economy

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A new film focuses on politics, but the economic impact would be huge.

By Cameron Abadi, a deputy editor at Foreign Policy, and Adam Tooze, a columnist at Foreign Policy and director of the European Institute at Columbia University. Sign up for Adam’s Chartbook newsletter here.

A scene from the movie Civil War.

A scene from the movie Civil War. A24

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The No. 1 film in the United States for the past several weeks has been Civil War, which tells the story of a domestic conflict that breaks out in the contemporary United States. The film is focused on the fighting itself. But the war it depicts—which begins with the secession of several states—would have enormous economic implications for the states themselves and the country as a whole.

Cameron Abadi is a deputy editor at Foreign Policy. Twitter: @CameronAbadi

Adam Tooze is a columnist at Foreign Policy and a history professor and the director of the European Institute at Columbia University. He is the author of Chartbook, a newsletter on economics, geopolitics, and history. Twitter: @adam_tooze

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