Profits, wars, and taxes / by kevin murray

While wars typically necessitate some sort of sacrifice from the people, in regards to the cost of soldiers needed to fight such a war, or taxes raised to support such a war, or in absence of taxes being raised, national deficits so created in order to sustain such a war, infrastructure damaged or destroyed, and so on, all of that essentially addresses the monetary cost of war.  Besides that cost in money there is also the cost in the human harm, through injuries and hospitalizations, along with trauma and psychological scars, as well as deaths that war encompasses.  None of these things are good things, but if such is necessary in the defense of our republic or in the defense of our allies -- then many people basically buy into the justification for that war.

 

What many people do not seem to recognize is that wars, while being bad for certain businesses and quite harmful to certain people, can on the other hand, be very beneficial for certain businesses and quite beneficent to certain people.  Those people and businesses that are the beneficiaries of war are typically those that are employed peripherally or directly within the defense industry, and thereby through their wages, benefit; and those defense companies, through their additional revenues and profits, also benefit.

 

The question that needs to be raised within any war, and within any specific war effort, is whether or not, those institutions involved directly or indirectly in that war effort, should profit from it?  The only reasonable answer to that question is an unequivocal, no.  This signifies, that corporations that are part of the war effort, should be doing so, not for the profit that so ensues, but rather are committing their resources to such an effort, because it is the right thing to do on behalf of their country's needs.  Those that would argue, that without such a profit, corporations would therefore not perform their needful functions, make for a very interesting response, which is, if the salient reason why corporations do their part in the defense of their nation that actuates them, is profit -- and when called to be of service to their nation, they willingly refuse to do so, then such a corporation as that, is inimical to the values of that nation, and should be placed into the proper receivership of that nation.

 

Further to the point, all war profits, without exception, should never be permitted to reside in the private hands of corporations or other legal entities, but are by rights, profits that must be fairly returned as rightful compensation to the people of the nation, as a whole.  This signifies, that each year, all corporations that have conducted business with the defense department should be fully audited, and profits, so made directly or indirectly via war efforts of that defense department, must be forfeited in a timely manner to that government, of, by and for the people.

 

To, on the other hand, stipulate that corporations should be permitted to make money from the human misery of war, would signify that our soldiers don't fight and die for their country, but rather our soldiers fight and die so that some can profit upon the human sacrifice of others.