“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed. This is a world in arms. This world in arms is not spending money alone; it is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children… . This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.”
Eisenhower in “Chance for Peace,” his first major address as President, on April 16, 1953. Eight years later, on January 17, 1963, the departing President Eisenhower gave a televised farewell speech, in which he gave a straight and outright warning against the growing might of the military-industrial complex.
It occurred to me that the 8 Billion City doesn’t need a military-industrial complex, since there are no outside enemies to fight. (Or do law enforcement agencies also need industrial back-up to bring order to a city as fast and complex as this one? Or will you need a military-industrial complex just to keep all the neighborhoods, wards and boroughs from fighting each other?)
Let’s say, for arguments sake, a military-industrial complex is rendered useless in the 8 Billion City. Then, in theory, all that creative, logistic and productive power can be redirected into bettering the city and the lives of it’s inhabitants. Although, one must wonder, if lofty goals could inspire the same kind of creative fury as the production of safety and / or destruction can…
More thoughts on the relationship between growth, the measurement of GDP, and the military industrial complex see this article of Rutger Bregman in De Correspondent (NL).
