Militarism and the Common Good

Wars used to be good for the economy. They no longer are. Invading countries and taking their common goods through plunder and tribute used to be a great way to assure that the folks at home were better and better off with the expenditure of a few of the more hot headed and “too dumb to duck” individuals being a small price to pay for financial gain.



The way that wars used to happen was quite profitable and quite simple. You found someone who was selling goods to the same people who were your customers and you put them out of business. Going further back in the history of warfare, you made war on people you could defeat who had something you wanted (farmland, iron ore, grapes, pretty women) who wouldn’t offer it to you at an unreasonably low price. Or, in the case of the Vikings, you just had an overwhelming urge to pillage and cause mayhem. No matter the motive, you always brought home more than you left with and, even in the case of the Vikings, exacted a tribute that would fill your state coffers on a regular basis without recourse to anything more than a little saber rattling.



From an economic point of view, the formula was quite simple: a) invest some of the common weal in training and maintaining fighters (beer, food, arrows, horses, camp followers, etc.), b) invade a country, take its common weal plus tribute, c) go home and put your feet up, d) arrange a marriage or two, e) after a while, start again at a).



Today, rather than adding to the common wealth, armies are an active drain and help to accelerate the bankrupting of the communal good. How, you may ask, has the process of war been subverted to usher in such a change? The answer lies in the increasing privatization of the military and war itself. If you want specific details, read Naomi Klein’s The Shock Doctrine; I don’t want to write a book - just make a point.



The modern military (and what could be more modern than the US military?) is a public/private android that is designed to wreak havoc and maximize profits for the private sector. Much of the internal support structure such as feeding and clothing the troops used to be performed by the military itself. No longer. Essential services such as laundry, provisioning, payroll accounting, and even purely military responsibilities such as close protection (making sure politicians and rich people are safe when visiting a war zone) have been given over to private, for profit, companies.



We now use public money to buy jets and ships, fuel and arm them from the public purse, pay the people who operate them from public moneys, send them off to fight, and give them pensions from the public good to compensate for lost limbs and things if they survive. Most of our soldiers survive. (The Gulf War cost about 50,000 Iraqi soldiers their lives; the US lost 294 - 114 by enemy fire, 145 in accidents, 35 to friendly fire. It's pretty sad when you lose more soldiers to 'oopsies' rather than combat.) After the Gulf war, according to Wikipedia, “as of the year 2000, 183,000 U.S. veterans of the Gulf War, more than a quarter of the U.S. troops who participated in War, have been declared permanently disabled by the Department of Veterans Affairs.” I'm sure Haliburton and Boeing were falling all over themselves to provide disability benefits for these people, almost one in three of every soldier who served in the Gulf War.



What did the Gulf War cost? According to the US Congress, about $60 billion (not counting disability pensions). What did the American people recoup in tribute and booty? Although it is difficult to calculate a precise amount, economic spin-offs from the arms industry and other “trickle down” benefits are probably nowhere near the expenditure. Almost all of the profits to be gained from the Gulf war accrued to private enterprise such as communication and cell phone companies, consulting firms, and other private businesses who make huge profits from rebuilding a country that has been razed for the PURPOSE of rebuilding it in a corporately friendly way. A standing army is an expensive proposition and, when its sole purpose is to plow the fields for the corporatist and private sector seeds, it becomes an extension of those corporate interests rather than the interests of the public at large.



Can you think of a better reason for Canada to spend $16 billion of public wealth (which could be reinvested in roads and infrastructure) than to beggar the public weal, our wealth, and give it over to the greed of the private sector?