Many do. Not the sectarian economists hired to develop capitalist theology, but the ones you take seriously when you need to run a real capitalist economy. Here's a lucid explanation:
"If you take an economics course, they’ll teach you, correctly, that if the government spends n dollars to stimulate the economy, it doesn’t really matter what it’s spent on: they can build jet planes, they can bury it in the sand and get people to dig for it, they can build roads and houses, they can do all sorts of things—in terms of stimulating the economy, the economic effects are not all that different.² In fact, it’s perfectly likely that military spending is actually a less efficient stimulus than social spending, for all kinds of reasons. But the problem is, spending for civilian purposes has negative side effects. For one thing, it interferes with managerial prerogatives. The money that’s funneled through the Pentagon system is just a straight gift to the corporate manager, it’s like saying, “I’ll buy anything you produce, and I’ll pay for the research and development, and if you can make any profits, fine.” From the point of view of the corporate manager, that’s optimal. But if the government started producing anything that business might be able to sell directly to the commercial market, then it would be interfering with corporate profit-making. Production of waste—of expensive, useless machinery—is not an interference: nobody else is going to produce B-2 bombers, right? So that’s one point."
I don't disagree with your point, but I think it's worth adding that journalist Naomi Klein wrote "The Shock Doctrine"[1], a book which outlines numerous examples in the past 100 years where government officials worldwide have chosen military actions specifically with economic goals in mind.
The book misrepresents capitalism somewhat, but the journalistic research and examples presented provide a compelling case that there are people who have a "sane" or "rational" (from their perspective) view that they (and maybe some others) could gain economically from war.
>Driving economic activity by having the military act as a major consumer is really just running on a treadmill.
I think you're missing my point. It's not that military spending drives manufacturing, service, and R&D industries (although it does), it's that direct military action has often been, and is often used to promote US economic interests. See the military's actions in Latin America in support of United Fruit, military support of right-wing (pro-US and pro-business) dictators everywhere, or the military-political interventions in the Middle East in support of energy interests.
My contention is not simply that making tanks is an economic activity that many people benefit from, but that those tanks are used to assert and defend economic dominance, which has a massive spillover effect for other industries.
The economy is not some game where millions of people needlessly do actions for no purpose. We don't hire people at great expense to purposelessly move mountains between states, or rip each others hair out. The economy allocates resources. The fact that some of the wasted dollars spent on needless militarism splashes back into producing food for some of the people that were taxed in the first place isn't a goal, its a pitiful side effect. The same resources could have been used to further spaceflight, AI, public health, peace, or the environment in or outside of public spending. Warfare is a hellish waste.
Most economists would say it does not matter what they build. The economic results would be the same if the Military Industrial complex were paid to dig holes and fill them in again.
You realize that the fiction of a coherent "Military Industrial Complex" has been debunked several times right? One by the General Accounting Office showed that military contractors actually had higher profits in peacetime than wartime because they got money for 'research' and didn't have to actually produce any product.
I don't think that's a fair response to the article - it's arguing something more nuanced. Right in the 4th paragraph is this:
> This view does not claim that fighting wars improves economies, as of course the actual conflict brings death and destruction. The claim is also distinct from the Keynesian argument that preparing for war lifts government spending and puts people to work. Rather, the very possibility of war focuses the attention of governments on getting some basic decisions right — whether investing in science or simply liberalizing the economy. Such focus ends up improving a nation’s longer-run prospects.
It's a bummer that we now live in an economy that is so inured to government spending that the very idea that war improves the economy would even occur to people.
In the USA, the military industrial complex, beyond the defense aspect, fulfills similar roles which subventions/economic policies fulfill in other nations. They direct tax money back into the local economy. This isn't even a bad thing as it strengthens social cohesion. The defense contractors want to eat out, buy cars, etc.
"If you add in the GDP component of the financial and defense industries, you are looking at a massive overhead of markets managed by implicit or explicit government enforcement (or lack of it) for the benefit of a small elite."
This is not true.
To construe 'finance' a just some arguably unnecessary or inefficient 'overhead' in the economy belies a basic lack understanding of what that industry actually does.
It's often opaque to outsiders, but banking is a real value creating part of the economy, and it's also right at the foundation of it.
Also, 'defence spending' is a normal part of every economy, and it has existential impact for all of us.
Consider for a moment that US forces keep most international waterways open for everyone to use, even economic rivals, and even military rivals (!) so long as there's no war. The Suez Canal, Panama Canal, and other critical areas would instantly be under the control of nefarious regional forces if there were a power vacuum.
This doesn't seem to refute any kind of point made by Ike or OP. It's quite possible for a military-industrial complex to exist and it only generates a bunch of little rich people(20-100M), since the government spreads its patronage out over a large section of the population instead of tech which concentrates wealth into single individuals. If one person is reaping most of the rewards, it's easy to knock down the system. If a lot of people are benefiting a little bit, you'll have far more supporters for your policies.
>As much as you might like to think differently war is alway negatively productive.
I never suggested that war has a positive influence on an economy, so I'm not sure where you got that impression. I was suggesting that one political party or the other might want to use war as an excuse for deficit spending to further their political agendas.
That being said, war can be positively productive if you are outside of it, selling to one or more of the belligerents. That's mainly how WWII was so positive for the U.S. economy: we were selling to the allies for several years before we got directly involved. The Russians made plenty of money selling to both sides of the Iran/Iraq war, and I'm sure that those are just two of many, many examples throughout history.
Sounds like something straight out of Orwell's 1984? The economy is based on ridiculous spending my the military, which enables companies to write paychecks to facilitate consumer spending at home. So basically, our way of life depends on finding excuses to go off and kill people, which in turn justifies our military-industrial complex.
"If you take an economics course, they’ll teach you, correctly, that if the government spends n dollars to stimulate the economy, it doesn’t really matter what it’s spent on: they can build jet planes, they can bury it in the sand and get people to dig for it, they can build roads and houses, they can do all sorts of things—in terms of stimulating the economy, the economic effects are not all that different.² In fact, it’s perfectly likely that military spending is actually a less efficient stimulus than social spending, for all kinds of reasons. But the problem is, spending for civilian purposes has negative side effects. For one thing, it interferes with managerial prerogatives. The money that’s funneled through the Pentagon system is just a straight gift to the corporate manager, it’s like saying, “I’ll buy anything you produce, and I’ll pay for the research and development, and if you can make any profits, fine.” From the point of view of the corporate manager, that’s optimal. But if the government started producing anything that business might be able to sell directly to the commercial market, then it would be interfering with corporate profit-making. Production of waste—of expensive, useless machinery—is not an interference: nobody else is going to produce B-2 bombers, right? So that’s one point."
— Noam Chomsky, "Understanding Power"
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