Thank you for your recent piece drawing attention to the military industrial complex that Eisenhower warned us about. All Americans should be aware of it as an important part of how our country functions.
I suspect that those holding defense contractor stocks have enjoyed a nice bump in their portfolio coinciding with our attack on Iran (I’d bet several congress members have benefited), although the gains were probably not sufficient to offset the marked decline of most other stocks.
It’s worth pointing out that the use of war to generate bountiful profits has existed for centuries. There is nothing wrong with making money but the problem here is that war forms a key part of the lucrative formula which gives many powerful people a financial incentive to create wars.
The worst feature of this money-making system is that it includes a positive feedback loop that seems impossible to break. In simplified terms, the arms dealers pay politicians through campaign contributions to support a war so that the arms dealers are then paid to supply the war materials from our gargantuan defense budget.
It’s considered “good business” because defense contractors provide good jobs and support many ancillary businesses (various other suppliers and services) and it also tends to gain popular support through politicians’ propaganda promoting blind patriotism which serves to prolong the war and generate more profits for all involved.
Sure, we derive many benefits from military technology spin-offs such as new materials, various gadgets and even the internet itself. Even an unpopular war can leave our representatives unscathed because it likely was never approved by congress so their hands are “clean.”
In between wars, the defense contractors improve their products which, then of course, must be field-proven which calls for another war to both demonstrate the new deadly wonders as well as to top off the coffers of defense contractors and congressmen alike.
It is a vicious cycle perpetuated by very wealthy and well-connected entities. It seems to me that the best way to mitigate use of this war-to-wealth magic formula is to start by ridding ourselves of Citizens United where corporations are considered people and their money is equivalent to free speech. It’s what has converted politics into a multi-billion-dollar game.
This is becoming ever more urgent as AI starts to play a more central role in virtually all aspects of our lives. Imagine a scenario recently described by Yuval Harari: An AI entity can form a corporation, effectively making it a person according to Citizens United. The AI entity is also able to generate wealth and, as a corporation, it contributes funds to political campaigns.
The A I’s favored politicians get into office and, beholden to the AI’s contributions, support an AI-inspired war. Then AI optimizes and perpetuates the war-to-riches scheme and so it goes with the continued vicious cycle.
The minimum that we can do about this, short of running for office, is to inform ourselves, drive a national debate on the subject and vote for candidates that also understand the issue and adopt a position compatible with your own.
Rob Fox is a resident of Catheys Valley.
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