|
Dear Khalid
Thank you for your reply. I am very pleased to
be allowed to make contributions to the discussion. For you and any other
members who read these postings, let me lay my philosophical cards on the
table. I am an atheist and a capitalist. In most respects, I believe in
globalization. Broadly speaking, I am pro-American, though it may be more
fitting to stay that I despise American policies less than most other
people! I believe that there are many obstacles to progress in this world,
but the most glaring one is an entrenched refusal to abandon destructive
and sclerotic aspects of local culture. This is most easily noticed in
tribalism in parts of Africa and Asia.
Now, in response to your response...Many people
may respect Jimmy Carter, but I am not one of them. I think he has good
intentions, but can be naive and idealistic. As for the issue of religious
fundamentalism, I agree that the intensity of all kinds of fundamentalism
has increased in recent decades. However, your initial article mentioned
Christian and Islamic fundamentalism in the same breath as if they are
equal threats, and I still consider this an outrageous implication.
I would like to turn to another expression you
use, and that is America's
"war economy". The expression does have some pedigree; in World
War Two it was used in many countries, including my own, to refer to the
way all workers had to put their shoulders to the wheel of military
industry and to do without luxuries. However, you seem to mean something
very different. Please correct me if I'm wrong, but you seem to imply that
the American economy benefits from war: that it is, or can be, somehow
"war-based".
This is a common claim, so common that it is
heard everywhere and everywhere it goes unchallenged. There seems to be a
kind of tacit acceptance that war somehow "stimulates the
economy", providing contracts that keep companies afloat and thriving.
However, it seems to me totally false. I say "seems to me"
because economics is always something of a black art and the economics of
military matters is even blacker. I think it would take a very rare
specialist to analyze all the issues here. In the absence of such
information, all we laypeople can do is use common sense, the only tool we
have.
The American military machine is the biggest in
the world. However, this is not because America is necessarily a
militaristic country. Rather, its military economy is big because its
overall economy is big. What matters is the proportion of its total economy
which is military. According to the Economist magazine, America
ranks tenth in the world in this regard. The statistics did not include
those rogue nations for which no useful data are available, such as North Korea,
which would possibly come first. As it is, the two countries whose arms manufacturing
forms the greatest proportion of their total economies are...surprise,
surprise - the Czech Republic and Sweden. So, if any countries
would gain from war, those are the two best candidates.
But even they would not gain from war. The
reason for this is that every country (except perhaps North Korea)
has a much, much bigger peace economy than military economy. Except for
rogue states, every country gains economically from peace. In the case of
the USA,
countries wracked by war clearly will not buy its detested Nike sneakers,
McDonald's burgers and Chevvy pickups. Now, it is
certainly true that individual American companies have gained from war, and
in a most unethical way, notably war suppliers in Iraq.
However, the American economy in general does not gain from war at all. In
fact, most economists agree that the cost of the war in Iraq made a
large contribution to the economic meltdown; the expenses have been
enormous.
Here is another fact that seems to disprove the
"war economy" assumption. The best of America's weapons are, of
course, outrageously expensive. These are extremely high-tech munitions and
related devices. Because they give their holders a huge military advantage
over any adversaries, they are not for sale - in most cases, even to America's
closest allies. This means that, while they may be economically beneficial
to the companies who win US government contracts, they are a debit to the
national economy because the US
government, and only the US
government, buys them.
As I said, I am no expert on these matters, but
rather a mere layperson who does his best to keep up with what's happening
in the world, and to reflect on it in the most logical way I can. But where
is the expert who can prove me wrong?
Regards
Peter Joyce
|