War Is a Racket

We do conscript capital to fund military spending, through taxation. It’s levied across the whole society according to ability to pay. There are always arguments about who should pay what, but thats what democratic politics is there to mediate.

Of course there is an argument that since individuals face conscription into the military, so why not conscript industry? But of course the US government had already laid down the legal basis for this by 1935 when this book was published. In fact they did so during WW2 in the form of commandeering, the power to compel any producer in the country to accept war orders, along with the imposition of price controls.

landemva• 3 years ago

It’s levied across the whole society according to ability to pay.

In US, sales tax is not based on ability to pay. The very rich often have minimal W-2 income, so they often opt out of progressive income taxes.

simonh2• 3 years ago

No idea, I’m a Brit so not familiar with the details of the US tax system. I’m mostly talking generally about free societies, as the sentiment in the book is broadly applicable. There are many forms of tax. If the system is unfair, sure, it should be fixed. Fundamentally though, my point is that the job of commandeering capital is taxation.

achates• 3 years ago

Sales taxes are state taxes, they don't pay for the military (except for the national guard, but they're tiny and the feds pay when they deploy abroad).

sharts• 3 years ago

Yes. And we all support it because life is easier that way.

lcnPylGDnU4H9OF• 3 years ago

  Politicians hide themselves away
  They only started the war
  Why should they go out to fight?
  They leave that role to the poor
  -- "War Pigs"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bc5Nk1DXyEY

syndicatedjelly• 3 years ago

Hot take: there should be more VC-backed war startups. Call it "wartech". We spend an epic shitton of money per second on the military industrial complex, it would be nice to see a few startups actually try to make things less expensive somehow.

wpwpwpw• 3 years ago

what about not engaging on wars to start with?

Sabinus• 3 years ago

Because groups of people sometimes come to intractable disagreements, where the cost of fighting is less than the perceived cost of backing down.

boffinAudio• 3 years ago

Hotter take: VC's should invest in diplomacy and cross-cultural pollination that promotes peace between neighboring states, and not war.

(Hint: they already do! That's why we haven't all died yet.)

1MachineElf• 3 years ago

The Ghost in the Shell: Stand Alone Complex anime touches upon this theme, although from an angle more akin to the cyberpunk genre versus 20th century military industrial complex.

SPOILER ALERT

The extremely skilled and elusive hacker which they're investigating, the one that has been plaguing/blackmailing corporations for 5 years, turns out to be mostly* an illusion. The corporations and ruling political party leadership worked together in a scheme to create fake cyber attacks, get them highly publicized, and then profit from government relief/bailout money. Regular people believe someone is terrorizing the country's multinational companies, when in reality, it's just a racket.

*The legendary hacker is actually out there, but their actual role in the story is somewhat of a plot twist.

tnecniv• 3 years ago

My memory is kind of sketchy due to its insane complexity, but that’s also the main story point of the Metal Gear (Solid) games.

Certain individuals gain massive wealth in the chaos of WW2. They use these resources to further enrich themselves and protect their fortune via manipulating political systems. Eventually these characters are basically all dead (…or are they?!) and the AIs they built to manipulate these systems continue to drive political conflicts on their own to the service of nobody.

AtomicOrbital• 3 years ago

Best preparation for real war is to continually war on something easier ... I hate the insurance business however low grade war is insurance against real war

euroderf• 3 years ago

War is Menstruation Envy

War Is a Racket

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