Is war really good for economies, historically? America's prosperity after WW2 really only lasted about 15 years before everything was bad again.
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Is war really good for economies, historically?
Depends? I don't think the wars in Afganistan helped the US or The Soviet Union very much.
War in general is bad for economies really.
Why don't we just build aircraft carries full of weapons and then sink them to improve the economy?
Don't give the Keynesians any more ideas.
This is already basically happening in many industries. Products are built specifically to break earlier than they could and be replaced regularly.
No, it isn't. It only helps with the rampant overproduction until all that was destroyed gets rebuilt. The core problem is capitalism, and the rampant overproduction that it causes.
It's not capitalism that causes overproduction, it's government involvement in markets. See the railroad subsidies as an example.
You're thinking logically, that's not what communism is about. If there's overproduction it's because of capitalism. If there's underproduction it's because of capitalism. If there's any externalities the government is faultless, it's capitalism that is to blame. Humans actually have no faults, everything that goes wrong is due to the existence of property rights.
If we don't confiscate everybody's wealth and let some homosexual bureaucrat give everybody marching orders the world is going to end. END! RIGHT NOW! I'M A HYSTERICAL LIBERAL
Since when has liberalism been about giving the government more power?
About 30 years ago.
You literally began this reply chain by demanding that the government "eat the rich".
Huh? My first post was
No one would give a frick about Marxism if colleges did not poison peoples' minds with lies about climate change.
It is. I guess it might work with a much dumber species, but people are way too good at fulfilling their needs, and run out of scarcity. Government involvement is needed to keep capitalism running in spite of that fact. It's sort of necessary to make it extremely inefficient, so that there is scarcity to fill.
>People are good at fulfilling their needs
In the case of government involvement, the fulfillment of the people is not the goal of the beneficiaries: it's their own. Had you looked at the case of the railroad monopolies and grants, you would've seen what I meant; railroad developers built not with efficiency in mind, but amount of track, leading to inefficient laying and the wasting of scarce resources and irrecoverable labour hours. In an entirely capitalist market, they would have built with efficiency in mind.
>and run out of scarcity
You're telling me that the government can somehow magically generate scarce resources out of thin air? People will have their needs fulfilled anyways, with the injection of tax-payer money only accelerating the use of resources... paying people NOT to make things leads to economic stagnation and impedes further development. Anon, are you moronic? All you have to do in order to realize that you're wrong is look at the military-industrial complex, in which bizarre amounts of scarce resource and countless skilled labour hours are used up in order to generate inefficient, overpriced machines.
Finally a good thread.
Good parts
> Allows confiscation of bourgeoise wealth to be converted to industrial production instead of champagne, foreign cars and lavish ballroom dances
> Lowers demand for imported luxuries
> Strengthens heavy industry
Cons: everything else.
If your nation is a agricultural nation on the cusp of an industrial revolution stalled by the elites simply not investing in it instead of their social capital, it might be good. Examples can include France in late 18th century, Finland in 1930s, Mexico in 1900s and Italy in 1800s.
This is simply wrong. You can't throw all your brainpower at technological innovations, because now you have a disintegrated society where actually capable people have been cast out. Not only that further progress is impossible, but a regresssion is now likely.
Correct,also a country or tribe or nation or society which stays out of war is far more likely to survive and prosper than a country that did not.
> Society is disintegrated if the bourgeoise have to pay taxes on luxury exports
yeah no. Did Finland regress? Did South Korea? Eating the rich is necessary.
South Korea was pretty regressed right after the ceasefire in the 50s
Communism has failed every single time it was tried.
>Eating the rich is necessary
>Finland
Finland is rich because it killed off its communists, moron.
That's not what I wrote. You mixed up multiple posts.
War made money for weapon makers, in Europe most of those were and became big in the automobile industry.
After the war, it's construction companies that make big bucks. Especially when they get an excuse to employ low demanding cheap labor.
War stimulates demand and reduces unemployment thus line goes up
Pretty much everyone in this thread is wrong. The anomaly of world war 2 was the amount of technological advancement.
Technology is an economic multiplier and we made more technological breakthroughs in those 6 years than any other period in history. It just took 5-12 years for it all to filter through to civilians.
Aside from medicine, what technology has actually improved our lives lately. Our cities are cramped, polluted, and violent. Our government reads our emails and texts, there are cameras on every street corner. I think the average American would be disgusted if they saw modern America.
We're talking about the 50s. Communication, transportation, chemistry, physics, even genetics our understanding of all these fields took off because of the war. You're asking me how electronics, jet engines, microwaves or satellites improved your life let alone the economy? You know the answer. If I took you to the 20s you wouldn't recognise it.
I know you're just making some moronic unabomber-tier nostalgic argument but ww2 was objectively an explosion in technology.
Cities are safer, cleaner and more sparsely populated than ever in human history. A key driver of this is car, which is possible thanks to mass production adopted by military industries.
>Cities are safer
Not in America.
internet is big because data availability stimulates trade and enterprise
PCs are big because you can automate much of office work
genetic engineering could be big if not for luddites
>inb4 luddites
>internet is big because data availability stimulates trade and enterprise
Only for the ultra-wealthy. For normal people it has been catastrophic.
T.didnt get in on thr pitching train
The technology advancements are overrated. A lot of solutions military uses are very specific(tank engines) and often developed before the wars(German light metal pressing capabilities). The biggest thing in case of WW2 was increase in production capacity of antibiotics and that's about it.
America wasn’t getting bombed to shit
Nope. What can you do with a tank during peacetime? Which parts of tank manufacturing process is going to he useful tor civilians? In all cases - not much.
I agree.
Not them.
Houses are cheaper to build than ever before, but zoning laws and permits make it very expensive to build your own house. Cars are also cheaper than ever to build, so the government has to regulate and tax cars out the ass. Computers gave made large bureaucracies of humans obsolete but the government will never fire its drones. After all, they are a big voting base, once a party cuts those jobs it can kiss its ass for goodbye in the next election.
15 years a good little bit. Any chance to kick the can down the road is good when terms of rule are 4 years. Why do you think we spent the last 40 years loosening credit and printing money &c &c, consequences be damned? Why do you think we borrow 8% of GDP and get 3% growth? Every one wants to be able to say 'well it was alright on my watch!' and get the frick out of dodge.
America was prosperous because it hadn't been devastated by the war which led to a very unique economic condition that began fading as Europe's industrial base was rebuilt. War is generally very, very fricking bad for the economy if your country is directly affected by the war beyond just sending men overseas.
The USSR abolished unemployment, homelessness and gave everyone free healthcare.
The "scarcity" of capitalists is completely artificial and only exists because of the profit motive.