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I always have a problem with this quote because I personally acknowledge a bit of the keynesian argument regarding military spending, that much of it is returne

I always have a problem with this quote because I personally acknowledge a bit of the keynesian argument regarding military spending, that much of it is returned back into the economy and is put to the productive uses listed in that quote.(I'm not saying that's a good reason to raise it) Also, if you are going to mention the opportunity cost of defense spending, then I think we should also carefully assess the opportunity cost of not securing the world with american power and returning to a world without a dominant unipolar power, as a multipolar world seems much more prone to conflict.

adamsea 7y ago
There is a broader point to the quote which I think your comment does not touch upon. Put simply, war is never good, it damages even the victors, and, the necessity of being prepared for it should not blind us to its costs. We all come from the same family, at the end of the day. Albeit a particularly contentious one ;).
- humanrebar 7y ago
  > We all come from the same family, at the end of the day. Of course, but I'll be damned if I let my brother sock my mother in the nose just because he's family. Not that I'm walking around looking for a fight. On the contrary. And if it were my specific responsibility to protect people, it would be foolish for me to become out of shape, unequipped, sloppy, and inattentive. Staying prepared has "costs", of course. That doesn't mean every minute of cardio, training session, or watchful minute is a waste. It would be if someone else already fulfilled that responsibility or if I were egregiously overpreparing or mispreparing somehow.
AndrewKemendo 7y ago
This is the broken glass fallacy perfectly described.
- humanrebar 7y ago
  Of course it isn't. Replacing a broken window with a new window is almost entirely a waste, perhaps other than making sure the window industry remains marginally more viable. Much military spending has direct value as surplus goods, scientific advancement, humanitarian support, and patronage for domestic skilled industry. Maybe those benefits, and others, do not justify the expenditures in all cases, but it's far from a "perfect" waste of economic output.
- imtringued 7y ago
  The benefit of a broken window is that you do not have to argue that it has to be replaced. If you have a superior replacement window then this can actually be a net positive but most things just haven't changed that much. It wouldn't surprise me though if war is the only thing that can counteract awful zoning policies.
AnthonyMouse 7y ago
John Maynard Keynes made his case at the heart of the Great Depression. At that time it was true -- it was a period of deflation and high unemployment, so what money people had they were hoarding because they expected its value to increase. People were willing to work but no one would pay to hire them. Having the government hire people to dig holes and fill them back in, in that specific context, was better than them being unemployed. Doing useless work wasn't productive, but neither was being unemployed, so that's a wash. Meanwhile having money in their pockets meant they had money to spend, and then they paid other people to do things that actually were useful. A net gain against the status quo. But even then it was a false dichotomy, and now it's even worse. The false dichotomy is that the options are to do nothing or to pay people to do something useless. There is a third option -- pay them to something useful. That's better than either of the other two. Today it's even worse, because unemployment is very low. People already have jobs. They're already getting paid, and most of the work they're doing is already productive. In that context make-work jobs don't just not help, they actively reduce productivity, because people get paid either way and you're just changing what kind of work they do. If they would have been doing productive work and you convert them to digging holes and filling them back in, you're making things worse, not better.
- viklove 7y ago
  It's frustrating to me that we would rather pay people to dig holes and refill them than just provide a UBI so they can spend more time actually enjoying their lives.
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    The assumption you make is that people extract more value from their lives from receiving "free" money than "earning" it from doing "useless" work,
    - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
      > The assumption you make is that people extract more value from their lives from receiving "free" money than "earning" it from doing "useless" work But of course they do, because if they didn't then they could just take the "free" money and still volunteer to do the useless work. Maybe some people like digging holes and filling them back in -- it's good exercise. But anybody who can think of anything more productive to do with their time is then given the option to choose that instead.
FpUser 7y ago
"I think we should also carefully assess the opportunity cost of not securing the world with american power and returning to a world without a dominant unipolar power, as a multipolar world seems much more prone to conflict." There is nothing good about unipolar power. If ran unchecked it becomes an fucking arm twisting thug ready to go to conflict every time it does not like something. Luckily while most powerful at the moment it is far from being unipolar (not for the lack of trying).
- FpUser 7y ago
  I see somebody does not like it. Lemme guess who ...
fiblye 7y ago
It depends. Loads of research finds its way back into civilian hands and does good for society, and it's hard to know what'll be useful and what won't. But churning out the same old missiles and tanks that we'll never use is money that could've been better invested in infrastructure or pretty much anything else.
onion2k 7y ago
Also, if you are going to mention the opportunity cost of defense spending, then I think we should also carefully assess the opportunity cost of not securing the world with american power and returning to a world without a dominant unipolar power, as a multipolar world seems much more prone to conflict. America had military teams operating in 134 different countries in 2014[1]. Does that really indicates a unipolar power that's less prone to conflict? https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-16/us-now-involved-134-wars-or-none-depending-your-definition-war https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-16/us-now-involved-134-w...
- DeonPenny 7y ago
  Yeh the amount of wars has declined a lot
ljm 7y ago
Maybe it depends on whether the US is actually securing the world or just creating a pipeline of fresh enemies to continue giving it a reason to be.
DeonPenny 7y ago
Agreed I think people don't know how much secure shipping lanes increase economic development and how fragile they are especially in this day and age.

adamsea 7y ago

There is a broader point to the quote which I think your comment does not touch upon. Put simply, war is never good, it damages even the victors, and, the necessity of being prepared for it should not blind us to its costs. We all come from the same family, at the end of the day. Albeit a particularly contentious one ;).

humanrebar 7y ago
> We all come from the same family, at the end of the day. Of course, but I'll be damned if I let my brother sock my mother in the nose just because he's family. Not that I'm walking around looking for a fight. On the contrary. And if it were my specific responsibility to protect people, it would be foolish for me to become out of shape, unequipped, sloppy, and inattentive. Staying prepared has "costs", of course. That doesn't mean every minute of cardio, training session, or watchful minute is a waste. It would be if someone else already fulfilled that responsibility or if I were egregiously overpreparing or mispreparing somehow.

AndrewKemendo 7y ago

This is the broken glass fallacy perfectly described.

humanrebar 7y ago
Of course it isn't. Replacing a broken window with a new window is almost entirely a waste, perhaps other than making sure the window industry remains marginally more viable. Much military spending has direct value as surplus goods, scientific advancement, humanitarian support, and patronage for domestic skilled industry. Maybe those benefits, and others, do not justify the expenditures in all cases, but it's far from a "perfect" waste of economic output.
imtringued 7y ago
The benefit of a broken window is that you do not have to argue that it has to be replaced. If you have a superior replacement window then this can actually be a net positive but most things just haven't changed that much. It wouldn't surprise me though if war is the only thing that can counteract awful zoning policies.

AnthonyMouse 7y ago

John Maynard Keynes made his case at the heart of the Great Depression. At that time it was true -- it was a period of deflation and high unemployment, so what money people had they were hoarding because they expected its value to increase. People were willing to work but no one would pay to hire them. Having the government hire people to dig holes and fill them back in, in that specific context, was better than them being unemployed. Doing useless work wasn't productive, but neither was being unemployed, so that's a wash. Meanwhile having money in their pockets meant they had money to spend, and then they paid other people to do things that actually were useful. A net gain against the status quo. But even then it was a false dichotomy, and now it's even worse. The false dichotomy is that the options are to do nothing or to pay people to do something useless. There is a third option -- pay them to something useful. That's better than either of the other two. Today it's even worse, because unemployment is very low. People already have jobs. They're already getting paid, and most of the work they're doing is already productive. In that context make-work jobs don't just not help, they actively reduce productivity, because people get paid either way and you're just changing what kind of work they do. If they would have been doing productive work and you convert them to digging holes and filling them back in, you're making things worse, not better.

viklove 7y ago
It's frustrating to me that we would rather pay people to dig holes and refill them than just provide a UBI so they can spend more time actually enjoying their lives.
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  The assumption you make is that people extract more value from their lives from receiving "free" money than "earning" it from doing "useless" work,
  - AnthonyMouse 7y ago
    > The assumption you make is that people extract more value from their lives from receiving "free" money than "earning" it from doing "useless" work But of course they do, because if they didn't then they could just take the "free" money and still volunteer to do the useless work. Maybe some people like digging holes and filling them back in -- it's good exercise. But anybody who can think of anything more productive to do with their time is then given the option to choose that instead.

FpUser 7y ago

"I think we should also carefully assess the opportunity cost of not securing the world with american power and returning to a world without a dominant unipolar power, as a multipolar world seems much more prone to conflict." There is nothing good about unipolar power. If ran unchecked it becomes an fucking arm twisting thug ready to go to conflict every time it does not like something. Luckily while most powerful at the moment it is far from being unipolar (not for the lack of trying).

FpUser 7y ago
I see somebody does not like it. Lemme guess who ...

fiblye 7y ago

It depends. Loads of research finds its way back into civilian hands and does good for society, and it's hard to know what'll be useful and what won't. But churning out the same old missiles and tanks that we'll never use is money that could've been better invested in infrastructure or pretty much anything else.

onion2k 7y ago

Also, if you are going to mention the opportunity cost of defense spending, then I think we should also carefully assess the opportunity cost of not securing the world with american power and returning to a world without a dominant unipolar power, as a multipolar world seems much more prone to conflict. America had military teams operating in 134 different countries in 2014[1]. Does that really indicates a unipolar power that's less prone to conflict? https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-16/us-now-involved-134-wars-or-none-depending-your-definition-war https://www.pri.org/stories/2014-09-16/us-now-involved-134-w...

DeonPenny 7y ago
Yeh the amount of wars has declined a lot

ljm 7y ago

Maybe it depends on whether the US is actually securing the world or just creating a pipeline of fresh enemies to continue giving it a reason to be.

DeonPenny 7y ago

Agreed I think people don't know how much secure shipping lanes increase economic development and how fragile they are especially in this day and age.