In the last Canadian federal election, Paul Hellyer, former minister of
defence in the Trudeau cabinet, formed a party to argue exactly that: there
is always money to fight a war - why not fight a war on unemployment,
increase our tax base, and get prosperity going for the whole country,
increasing the level of services and benefits for all. It seemed so logical
that it had to be fringe. I was running for the Green Party in the same
riding, so I heard his speech at an all candidates meeting - made a lot of
sense. He had tried for years to get one of the main parties to listen, but
finally started his own (can't even remember the name). He lost, by a huge
margin, naturally.
At 10:20 AM 27/07/98 -0400, Michael Spencer wrote:
>Tom Walker quoted WF Hixson:
>
>> "The really important lesson of what happened between 1939 and 1946
>> is completely lost when economists repeatedly make statements that
>> imply, or at least leave the reader free to infer, that the war was a
>> necessary condition if the depression was to end.
>
>I've felt "free to infer" that war was the key feature because war is
>the only context in which we and the financial "power structure"
>[Hixson] find it acceptable to manufacture millions or hundreds of
>millions of tons of food, machinery, tools, fuel and weapons etc. and
>train 3 million men to methodically destroy it before it gets into the
>market.
>
>What do the Priests of the Market Ghod say about the competition
>offered by WW II and Korean military surplus goods, far better in
>quality and lower in price than any civilian products and available in
>good supply until about 1970? I still use a 1945 Bantam Jeep trailer
>that never made it to the war. What do the PotMG say about doing all
>that without a war? We'll make all those sleeping bags, planes,
>shells, can openers, khaki shoelaces and vastly expensive experiments
>that might become secret weapons and just dump them into the recycling
>bin (or the Mariana Trench if recycling them costs some corporation a
>profitable market). Talk about Future Work! Without the need to
>actually fight a war, we could put a little more emphasis in "defense"
>spending on creating niches for artists, performers, dreamers and such
>unmarketable products as character, parenthood or integrity. Paid
>work for all!
>
>Just what *do* the economists and PotMG say about depression (or
>recession or stagflation or bifurcation or whatever) recovery by
>simply throwing away (with or without a war) approximately a whole
>second GNP's worth of work and resources?
>
>(I know what Jay would say and he'd be right: totally insane to create
>fiat rivets to pay people to double the rate at which *real* rivets
>get pulled just so the rivet bookkeeping will stay in balance and crew
>will be able to "pay" for their eats instead of going on Ship's
>Welfare.)
>
> - Mike
>
>---
>Michael Spencer Nova Scotia, Canada
>[EMAIL PROTECTED]
>URL: http://www.mit.edu:8001/people/mspencer/home.html
>---
>
