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"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." Faramir,

"I do not love the bright sword for its sharpness, nor the arrow for its swiftness, nor the warrior for his glory. I love only that which they defend." Faramir, "The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers" "Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron." Eisenhower

globalise83 3y ago
Totally fair, and yet, the incidental fruits of WW2 such as radar, powerful long-range aircraft, all kinds of advances in electronics, radio communications, atomic energy etc. led to 60 years of incredible subsequent technological progress and economic development that without any question raised enormous numbers of people out of starvation, abject poverty and misery.
- DubiousPusher 3y ago
  I recommend checking out the fantastic, "The Rise and Fall of American Growth". The book provides very strong evidence that the era of American growth which produced our modern standard of living starts in 1870 and actually ends in 1940, though there was also an era of less important but still strong growth from 1940-1970. Furthermore, this is a bit of a counterfactual as we don't actually know the trajectory of technology without the war. Some thing we know for certain though, mass electrification and public health were well underway before the war and continued through it. These being probably the two most important developments that improved productivity and the quality of life for most people.
  - asdff 3y ago
    Its crazy how little this country has really changed since 1970, when you remove the superficial fluff like iphones or flat screen tv. Take a neighborhood in socal. It might be full of dingbat apartments. 50 years ago in 1973 it probably looked exactly the same since thats when those apartments where built. Go back another 50 years though, and you have a former spanish ranchero with cattle, oil derricks, or fruit orchards depending on what block of southern californian suburbia you are considering. The world was growing and changing rapidly then basically stalled out. much more restrictive zoning separating degrees of use (e.g. apartment versus a home) versus type of use (residential vs industrial) came in to replace redlining in effort to limit movement of the working poor into certain neighborhoods so as not to affect real estate valuations, and now we have our world today, full of 50+ year old apartments and 70+ year old single story "starter" californian homes going for over $1000 a square foot thanks to our inability to add more housing to an in demand area.
    - DubiousPusher 3y ago
      Yeah. I think that a lot of these changes after 1940 are much more to do with socio/political factors than growth. By 1940 you have the GDP to support a middle class. It's the collective experience of the Great Depression, WWII and the rheotric of the New Deal that produce a populace that just wouldn't put up with significant imbalance in the riches of society. People who fought in and justified WWII contrasted it with WWI. The claim being that WWI was a war fought on behalf of the old world system. And WWII was a true war for Democracy. I think it would've been very hard after that kind of mobilization, sacrifice and rhetoric to re-instute the Gilded Age ethos of a system which the rules of the game were sacred about the outcomes. In this way American Democracy is born of the FDR era. I don't mean this in the narrow sense of the size of the electorate though that is important. At every level, America's systems Democratized. From the way the Supreme Court interpreted the law, to the choices of industry in what to produce, to how the rewards of production were distributed. There was a broad transition from the notion that institutions existed to maintain rules towards a notion that these institutions in their largest sense needed to serve the people. I think a lot of what has happened since 1970 is a transition back to a way of looking at the world through the pre-democratic lense. The biggest difference being that now there is a plurality which is the upper half of the middle class who have some similar interests to the wealthy in protecting their wealth.
- asdff 3y ago
  A lot of that is from world governments adopting centrally planned economic and scientific goals. We could do this whenever. We don't need a war for it. Its just our leaders favor things like rugged individualism and privatizing what should be public works instead today, probably because that leads to outsized benefits to certain connected individuals.
  - toast0 3y ago
    Sure, we could adopt centrally planned goals and the will to carry them out (the goals are much easier than the carrying them out), but war, cold or hot seems to be just about the only means to generate that will.
    - mrguyorama 3y ago
      In some sense that's okay. We shouldn't bypass democratic means easily. It's similar to how democratic societies have "state of emergency" powers and just as dangerous, and also why armed pacifism should be a good default for democratic society. You should not cause war, but if someone brings war to your door, you have a duty to your people to protect them and prevent occupation. Important in this ideology is that flying a boeing into a building and killing 3000 people is not bringing war to your doorstep.
      - asdff 3y ago
        The thing that is bad about democracy as we experience it today, is that while in theory you get an equal choice at the ballot between different options, the sources of information you have to rely on to form an opinion to vote a certain way are not providing information on options at equivocal levels, or in an unbiased manner. It begs the question, is this really your vote, or did someone successfully convince you to vote in their interests thinking they are your own? Considering the massive incentives behind the ability to control voting in a democratic country, it should be expected various interests are working tirelessly to influence your voting behavior. It makes you wonder if the end product would be very different whether we bothered with the performance of elections or not. Certainly at least people believe they chose this government having cast the vote, so maybe that's the benefit of maintaining the system for elites: not to have the public shape government, but to have the public believe they have shaped government, and don't need to try and shape it through other means that might disrupt the order of things.
scrlk 3y ago
To add to the Eisenhower quote - I highly recommend watching his 1961 Farewell Address, where the term "military–industrial complex" was first used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU
chasd00 3y ago
Schools, homes, power plants etc are pretty meaningless if they're stolen or destroyed by a foreign power. I understand there's a balance to be made but spending on national defense is necessary. The money spent on the deadbolt on my front door could have bought me lunch but I still bought the deadbolt.
- paulddraper 3y ago
  No one will disagree with that. (Well, I guess there is Defund the Police...) There are, however, plenty of people who say with a straight face wAr Is GoOd FoR tHe EcOnOmY

globalise83 3y ago

Totally fair, and yet, the incidental fruits of WW2 such as radar, powerful long-range aircraft, all kinds of advances in electronics, radio communications, atomic energy etc. led to 60 years of incredible subsequent technological progress and economic development that without any question raised enormous numbers of people out of starvation, abject poverty and misery.

DubiousPusher 3y ago
I recommend checking out the fantastic, "The Rise and Fall of American Growth". The book provides very strong evidence that the era of American growth which produced our modern standard of living starts in 1870 and actually ends in 1940, though there was also an era of less important but still strong growth from 1940-1970. Furthermore, this is a bit of a counterfactual as we don't actually know the trajectory of technology without the war. Some thing we know for certain though, mass electrification and public health were well underway before the war and continued through it. These being probably the two most important developments that improved productivity and the quality of life for most people.
- asdff 3y ago
  Its crazy how little this country has really changed since 1970, when you remove the superficial fluff like iphones or flat screen tv. Take a neighborhood in socal. It might be full of dingbat apartments. 50 years ago in 1973 it probably looked exactly the same since thats when those apartments where built. Go back another 50 years though, and you have a former spanish ranchero with cattle, oil derricks, or fruit orchards depending on what block of southern californian suburbia you are considering. The world was growing and changing rapidly then basically stalled out. much more restrictive zoning separating degrees of use (e.g. apartment versus a home) versus type of use (residential vs industrial) came in to replace redlining in effort to limit movement of the working poor into certain neighborhoods so as not to affect real estate valuations, and now we have our world today, full of 50+ year old apartments and 70+ year old single story "starter" californian homes going for over $1000 a square foot thanks to our inability to add more housing to an in demand area.
  - DubiousPusher 3y ago
    Yeah. I think that a lot of these changes after 1940 are much more to do with socio/political factors than growth. By 1940 you have the GDP to support a middle class. It's the collective experience of the Great Depression, WWII and the rheotric of the New Deal that produce a populace that just wouldn't put up with significant imbalance in the riches of society. People who fought in and justified WWII contrasted it with WWI. The claim being that WWI was a war fought on behalf of the old world system. And WWII was a true war for Democracy. I think it would've been very hard after that kind of mobilization, sacrifice and rhetoric to re-instute the Gilded Age ethos of a system which the rules of the game were sacred about the outcomes. In this way American Democracy is born of the FDR era. I don't mean this in the narrow sense of the size of the electorate though that is important. At every level, America's systems Democratized. From the way the Supreme Court interpreted the law, to the choices of industry in what to produce, to how the rewards of production were distributed. There was a broad transition from the notion that institutions existed to maintain rules towards a notion that these institutions in their largest sense needed to serve the people. I think a lot of what has happened since 1970 is a transition back to a way of looking at the world through the pre-democratic lense. The biggest difference being that now there is a plurality which is the upper half of the middle class who have some similar interests to the wealthy in protecting their wealth.
asdff 3y ago
A lot of that is from world governments adopting centrally planned economic and scientific goals. We could do this whenever. We don't need a war for it. Its just our leaders favor things like rugged individualism and privatizing what should be public works instead today, probably because that leads to outsized benefits to certain connected individuals.
- toast0 3y ago
  Sure, we could adopt centrally planned goals and the will to carry them out (the goals are much easier than the carrying them out), but war, cold or hot seems to be just about the only means to generate that will.
  - mrguyorama 3y ago
    In some sense that's okay. We shouldn't bypass democratic means easily. It's similar to how democratic societies have "state of emergency" powers and just as dangerous, and also why armed pacifism should be a good default for democratic society. You should not cause war, but if someone brings war to your door, you have a duty to your people to protect them and prevent occupation. Important in this ideology is that flying a boeing into a building and killing 3000 people is not bringing war to your doorstep.
    - asdff 3y ago
      The thing that is bad about democracy as we experience it today, is that while in theory you get an equal choice at the ballot between different options, the sources of information you have to rely on to form an opinion to vote a certain way are not providing information on options at equivocal levels, or in an unbiased manner. It begs the question, is this really your vote, or did someone successfully convince you to vote in their interests thinking they are your own? Considering the massive incentives behind the ability to control voting in a democratic country, it should be expected various interests are working tirelessly to influence your voting behavior. It makes you wonder if the end product would be very different whether we bothered with the performance of elections or not. Certainly at least people believe they chose this government having cast the vote, so maybe that's the benefit of maintaining the system for elites: not to have the public shape government, but to have the public believe they have shaped government, and don't need to try and shape it through other means that might disrupt the order of things.

scrlk 3y ago

To add to the Eisenhower quote - I highly recommend watching his 1961 Farewell Address, where the term "military–industrial complex" was first used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OyBNmecVtdU

chasd00 3y ago

Schools, homes, power plants etc are pretty meaningless if they're stolen or destroyed by a foreign power. I understand there's a balance to be made but spending on national defense is necessary. The money spent on the deadbolt on my front door could have bought me lunch but I still bought the deadbolt.

paulddraper 3y ago
No one will disagree with that. (Well, I guess there is Defund the Police...) There are, however, plenty of people who say with a straight face wAr Is GoOd FoR tHe EcOnOmY