Absorbed By the State

[NVMojo]

by Lew Rockwell

If you have read the Screwtape Letters by C.S. Lewis, you know that the Devil is an expert in turning good impulses toward evil ends, and in leading people to misapply virtues in ways that serve the cause of evil.

Well, so it is with the state. In every age, it takes the intellectual and political fashions alive in the culture, and turns them toward power for itself, money for itself, authority and affection for itself. The end is always and everywhere the same and as predictable as the tides. However, the means the state uses to achieve this end are forever changing in ways that surprise us.

This tendency takes peculiar turns in the course of Republican administrations, when the rhetoric of freedom, free markets, and limited government is used for the paradoxical purpose of expanding state power.

Let us begin with the most obvious point.

Most people are ready to concede that defense is one function that government should provide. The first act of a Republican administration is to vastly expand military spending, always with the assumption that unless hundreds of billions more is spent, the country will be left undefended. When Republicans are running the show, it seems that there is no limit to how far this racket can be carried. We proceed as if the need to drink means that we should shove the water hose down our throat.

At the height of World War II, before spending plummeted after the war ended, the federal government spent less than $90 billion on defense (in current dollars), which was the same spent as late as 1961. Today it spends five times that amount in real terms, meaning that these figures factor in inflation. Do we really need five times the annual spending of the height of World War II or might the excuse of defense serve as a convenient way to slather money on military contractors and to otherwise feed the friends of the government?

more...

http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/absorbed.html

[UL_Approved]

1. OOOOHHHHHH, you got a good one here

This gets to the heart of rampant tax-not-and-spend-out-your-ass economics of the RW, starting with Reagan.

This puts some spending issues into perspective. Why is it that we need over one third of one trillion dollars to support under 200,000 troops, who had no conventional military opposition after one month of fighting?

Why is the occupation so expensive if we haven't even supplied all our troop needs?

What about light vehicle armor? What about body armor? And why is our spending not translating into a subsiding of violence?

These issues need to be addressed.

[punpirate]

4. Indeed, these issues count...

... but I wish they'd gotten some of the background costs correct. I've checked on these for another project, and while they're mostly correct about military spending immediately post-WWII (it was about $90 billion in 1996 dollars), the truth is that it was $90 billion in 1961 dollars in 1961, not 1996 dollars.

Defense spending went up dramatically beginning with the Korean conflict and never came down to immediately post-WWII figures. The Brookings Institution did a good study of defense spending, with all years' spending adjusted to 1996 dollars.

We've been spending huge amounts on defense for more than 50 years. And that's just the formal, as authorized by Congress numbers. Doesn't include the intelligence services, black projects or defense spending hidden in other agencies, such as the Dept. of Agriculture.

But, still they have a point, which is, reductively, where the hell is all the money going?

Cheers.

[UL_Approved]

6. Did you find any adjusted figures for 2004-2005 dollar amounts?

That would be the telling item right there.

I know you worked to present a good article, and I appreciate that.

I just HATE it when our facts aren't solid or complete. It turns us into a LW version of the FR...

[punpirate]

7. I'm afraid I misspoke...

... when I went back to check my notes, it was not Brookings, but, rather, the Center for Defense Information:

http://www.cdi.org/Issues/milspend.html

But, it generally backs up what I was saying. As you can see, in 1996 adjusted dollars, spending was ~$94 billion in 1948, and was $291 billion in 1961 (in 1996 dollars).

I suppose I could have found an inflation calculator to change the numbers from 1996 dollars to 2004 dollars, but I'd rather keep the data intact from the source. What it generally shows is that defense spending accelerated during and after the Korean war and never again returned to post-WWII levels. There are swellings here and there for various wars, and for post-WWII demobilization costs, but, in general, the military budget stayed high during the Cold War.

Cheers.

[HysteryDiagnosis]

2. It's not easy nor cheap doing God's work. eom.

[LondonAmerican]

3. www.lewrockwell.com is one of my favoirite sites on the net

his article on 'the reality fo red-state fascism' (http://www.lewrockwell.com/rockwell/red-state-fascism.html) was a real eye-opener for a lot of libertarians who formerly leaned republican. great stuff.

[leftyandproud]

5. good article

thanks

[tom_paine]

8. Wow. Incredible writing.

So, the center-right HAS come over to our side, indeed this is the case also with guys like Charley Reese and even to a certain degree Pat Buchanan (who seems like a centrist now, don't he? :crazy: )

And yet the Busheviks keep "winning".