guns and butter

English

Alternative forms

  • guns or butter, guns versus butter

Noun

guns and butter pl (plural only)

  1. Defense and social government spending, especially when seen as a trade-off.
    • 2001 October 1, David Walker, “Guns or butter? A hard choice for Gordon Brown”, in The Guardian‎[1]:
      With colleagues clamouring for money, it suits him to say we cannot have both guns and butter.
    • 2022, Gary Gerstle, chapter 2, in The Rise and Fall of the Neoliberal Order […] , New York: Oxford University Press, →ISBN, Part I. The New Deal Order, 1930–1980:
      Having to service demands for both guns and butter, the US economy began to overheat; inflation ensued.
    • 2025 July 7, Shahin Vallée, Joseph de Weck, “Europe does not have to choose between guns and butter. There is another way”, in The Guardian‎[2], →ISSN:
      The experience of “military Keynesianism” globally, and across history, has never been about guns or butter, but guns and butter.

Further reading

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