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| The cost of peace |
"This boundless greed after riches,
this passionate chase after exchange value, is common to the capitalist and the
miser; but while the miser is merely a capitalist gone mad, the capitalist is a
rational miser. The never ending augmentation
of exchange value, which the miser strives after, by seeking to save his money
from circulation, is attained by the more acute capitalist, by constantly
throwing it afresh in to circulation." Karl Marx
By Richard Mellor
Afscme Local 444, retired
Somebody made the (very obvious) point to me the other day that the
privatization of prisons can only increase the US incarceration rate as being
profit driven, the industry has to expand, has to find new clients, "The system cannot help stop crime if it profits from it" she said to me.
Prisons are not rehabilitation or “correctional” centers or meant to deter crime and keep the public safe, even those that are state run are not meant to do that, although
experiences teach me that if I were to be in one I think I would rather it be a
state enterprise.
Prisons are in the incarceration business which is quite
profitable by all accounts and capitalism, having no use for millions of youth
and workers in society, provides the industry with a plentiful supply of new
clients. The poor, the disposed, the
youth with their potential for political and social unrest can be housed in
these institutions keeping them out of the public eye and under scrutiny. This is what prisons are, for profit
institutions for the warehousing of human beings.
It is not simply this industry that is incapable of
achieving the goals accredited to it by the spin doctors, in this case,
rehabilitation of lost souls and increased public safety. The
defense industry is the same. War is a
by-product of the capitalist mode of production, the rapacious thirst for
profits and the struggle for domination of the world market and the planet’s
dwindling natural resources. This drives them in to war and conflict regardless of their individual
will. The goal of investment of capital
is to get more money returned to you than you lay out, the capitalist is not a
miser, Marks asserts, he is not a capitalist gone mad.
Prisons will never eliminate crime, they’re not supposed to,
and a “defense” industry will never
bring peace because war is profitable.
Lockheed Martin is grateful for the world market and the
regional conflicts that never end. It
sells about two dozen F16’s a year and is thankful that the people of Iraq, Oman,
Israel and Saudi Arabia like their
products. “International is the business
that keeps the F-16 production lines open.” says Patrick Dewar, a Lockheed
executive whose department was “created
this year to boost foreign sales” says Bloomberg.
United Technologies which manufactures the Blackhawk attack
helicopter gets 15% of its sales from overseas and its VP of sales and
marketing, Robert Kokorda hopes that figure can double over the next year or
so. Peace is not a good thing for business.
Raytheon the world’s largest missile maker that provides
these peacemakers for the US drones that occasionally blow up a wedding party
or two in Pakistan or Yemen, is very optimistic that war and slaughter will
continue apace. The percentage of its
revenue from foreign markets has risen from 16% to 26% in a decade. All the producers of weapons of mass
destruction are “looking for
opportunities for growth at a time when the US defense budget is declining”
says a representative of the trade association representing the industry, a
sort of WMD producers’ union, “You go
where the money is” he adds. Imagine being in charge of sales and marketing at a weapons
of mass destruction factory. What do
these people tell their kids I wonder?
They’re making the world safe?
Despite these gains, the WMD producers are worried. China,
India and other countries are slowing defense spending which is pretty
inconsiderate of them when you come to think of it as defense spending globally
fell by .5% last year to $1.7 trillion. Not only that, the Chinese in particular
are entering the weapons market, threatening US domination of it. But the US is
still the leading purveyor of death machines and highly sophisticated ones at
that. We spend massive amounts of
taxpayer money on research and ensuring Lockheed and Raytheon and others’
profits keep rolling in. Obama also recently loosened restrictions of arms
exports which has pleased the industry; the drone king came though.
Lockheed’s latest gem, the F-35 joint strike fighter will
keep the few hundred workers needed to produce it employed for a while the
company says. The F-35 will be very popular with such egalitarian democratic
regimes like the House of Saud. In fact
it is anticipated with all the social unrest, tottering dictators and need to
keep US flunkies like Afghanistan’s Karzai in the drivers seat, half of the
F-35’s sold over the next five years will be abroad says Dewar---“The demand is there”.
“The demand is there!” Well, there you have it; thank “f*#k for
demand.
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