“The primary aim of modern warfare (in accordance with the principles of doublethink, this aim is simultaneously recognized and not recognized by the directing brains of the Inner Party) is to use up the products of the machine without raising the general standard of living.”
George Orwell, 1984
We “got” Osama BinLaden. Can we get out of Afghanistan now? There are teasing hints that we might, but we have been told of “light at the end of the tunnel” before. And as Libya proves, there is always another war. The military-industrial complex is indifferent to location—as long as it occurs elsewhere than the United States, lest Americans learn firsthand of war’s realities. It was a military operation that got BinLaden. And those heroes: smart, confident, competent, fit, hale and hardy, made it look easy. We forget the vain decade of slaughter and horror that preceded our moment of triumph. And just as the splendid Hollywood war on Grenada quickly neutralized our bad taste about Vietnam, we can once more believe that military operations will solve any problem. A state of war is so firmly embedded in our infrastructure, economy and national character that it cannot be removed without radical surgery. Eisenhower’s warnings about the military-industrial complex apparently went unheeded—at least by anyone in a position to make a difference: the ruling brains of the inner party. Despite Barack Obama’s sincerity about removing American troops from Afghanistan and Iraq, we will need to work to ensure the blessings of peace.
Another look at the foundations of the modern industrial state can be useful, though we risk exhuming Marxist thought from the memory hole. Human ingenuity toward increasing productivity while reducing workload seems boundless. Over time, the quantity of goods and services increases while the labour needed to produce them decreases. Supply always outpaces demand, demand signifying not want or need, but the ability of people to buy what is produced industrially. Since the Industrial Revolution hit its stride about a century ago, there have always been enough of the necessities, and many of the luxuries, to go around, and this is truer now than it was then. Society’s problem is to adequately distribute what is produced. As always happens, the supply of goods and services reaches a level that cannot be quickly consumed, causing those who control the supply to reduce production, which reduces workers. Since the unemployed consume less than those with jobs, the trend continues, until—actually we have never seen what would happen, because long before the inevitable conclusion, society ceases to extol the wonders of rugged individualism, and seeks instead some collective solutions.
Our race’s trials and errors over the last century have revealed some possible solutions to this ongoing difficulty of balancing production and consumption to the general benefit. The most logical solution would be to reduce work hours and increase wages, allowing more workers to buy what they produce. This method is enormously unpopular with those in control, however, because it reduces profits short-term, and in the long term people with more free time tend to become educated enough to question authority. Another solution is to find other work for people to do. Since humans are far more destructive of their environment than bears or feral hogs (and there are billions more of us), we can employ each other to maintain a livable environment. However, resistance to this solution reaches deep into human nature. We all have our preferences for public works. Schools, sewers, police, transport, energy…the list is endless. Not only can we argue over what is important, we can also disagree over what it should cost, and who pays. Besides, has the situation really reached problem stage yet? Couldn’t we put off any action until, say, next budget year?
Then there is war. As a public works project it is ideal. It blows up surplus production, employs many people (with the added bonus of high turnover) and holds out the tantalizing promise of a conclusive ending. Most importantly, in the mass communication age, it has an almost universal acceptance rate. We have no time for debate, and protests are easily ignored. If the leaders declare war, then to arms. In hindsight, some wars seem to have been fought under false pretenses. But dare we take the chance? Better to fight a wrong war than to not fight the right one.
Sticking with Orwell, in modern warfare only a small number of people actually fight (another result of industrialization), leaving the majority apparently unburdened. But we all do pay, starting by spending borrowed money. In the half-century since Eisenhower’s warning, how much progress and plenty might we be enjoying if we had not borrowed trillions of dollars for nearly uninterrupted war? Although most citizens of Oceania (and Eurasia and Eastasia too) do live better than the ones in Orwell’s horror story, many of us are far from comfortable, despite higher industrial productivity. And news headlines show virtually every government official claiming to be appalled at the public debt, to the point where paying it off requires drastic cuts in spending, throwing more of us into poverty. How much lower would the debt be if we had no wars? Most modern humans know about war’s horror and futility, and public figures everywhere deplore it, yet wars go on, a daily fact of life.
War is peace.
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