The Living Reality Of Military-Economic Fascism

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The Living Reality Of Military-Economic Fascism



By Robert Higgs

"The concern of buying weapons that takes identify inwards the Pentagon is a corrupt concern — ethically together with morally corrupt from exceed to bottom. The physical care for is dominated yesteryear advocacy, with few, if any, checks together with balances. Most people inwards powerfulness similar this scheme of doing concern together with do non wish it changed." – Colonel James G. Burton (1993, 232)
In countries such as the United States, whose economies are commonly, though inaccurately, described as "capitalist" or "free-market," state of war together with training for state of war systematically corrupt both
parties to the state-private transactions yesteryear which the regime obtains the mass of its armed forces goods together with services.
On 1 side, concern interests seek to curvature the state's decisions inwards their favor yesteryear corrupting official decision-makers with outright together with de facto bribes. The onetime include cash, gifts inwards kind, loans, entertainment, transportation, lodging, prostitutes' services, within information almost personal investment opportunities, overly generous speaking fees, together with promises of hereafter work or "consulting" patronage for officials or their theater unit of measurement members, whereas the latter include displace contributions (sometimes legal, sometimes illegal), sponsorship of political fund-raising events, together with donations to charities or other causes favored yesteryear the relevant regime officials.
Reports of this sort of corruption appear from fourth dimension to fourth dimension inwards the press nether the rubric of "military scandal" (see, for example, Biddle 1985, Wines 1989, Hinds 1992, "National Briefing" 2003, Pasztor together with Karp 2004, Colarusso 2004, Calbreath together with Kammer 2005, Wood 2005, Babcock 2006, Ross 2006, together with "Defense Contractor Guilty inwards Bribe Case" 2006). On the other, much to a greater extent than of import side, the province corrupts concern people yesteryear effectively turning them into co-conspirators inwards together with beneficiaries of its most key activity — plundering the full general public.
Participants inwards the military-industrial-congressional complex (MICC) are routinely blamed for "mismanagement," non infrequently they are defendant of "waste, fraud, together with abuse," together with from fourth dimension to fourth dimension a few of them are indicted for criminal offenses (Higgs 1988, 1990, xx-xxiii, 2004; Fitzgerald 1989; Kovacic 1990a, 1990b).
All of these unsavory actions, however, are typically viewed as aberrations — misfeasances to live rectified or malfeasances to live punished spell retaining the basic scheme of state-private cooperation inwards the production of armed forces goods together with services (for an explicit instance of the "aberration" claim, see Fitzgerald 1989, 197–98). I maintain, inwards contrast, that these offenses together with fifty-fifty to a greater extent than serious ones are non only unfortunate blemishes on a basically audio arrangement, but superficial expressions of a thoroughgoing, intrinsic rottenness inwards the entire setup.
It is regrettable inwards whatever lawsuit for people to endure nether the weight of a province together with its armed forces apparatus, but the nowadays scheme — a scheme of military-economic fascism as instantiated inwards the the States yesteryear the MICC — is worse than full-fledged military-economic socialism. In the latter, the people are oppressed, because they are taxed, conscripted, together with regimented, but they are non co-opted together with corrupted yesteryear joining forces with their rapacious rulers; a clear line separates them from the predators on the "dark side."
With military-economic fascism, however, the line becomes blurred, together with a substantial number of people actively hop dorsum together with forth across it: advisory committees, such as the Defense Science Board and the Defense Policy Board and academy administrators encounter regularly with Pentagon officials (see Borger 2003 for a study of an specially remarkable meeting), together with the revolving door spins furiously — according to a September 2002 report, "[t]hirty-two major Bush appointees are onetime executives, consultants, or major shareholders of exceed weapons contractors" (Ciarrocca 2002, 2; see also Hamburger 2003, Doward 2003, Stubbing 1986, 90, 96, together with Kotz 1988, 230), together with a much greater number cross the line at lower levels.
Moreover, military-economic fascism, yesteryear empowering together with enriching wealthy, intelligent, together with influential members of the public, removes them from the ranks of potential opponents together with resisters of the province together with thereby helps to perpetuate the state's existence together with its intrinsic grade exploitation of people exterior the state. Thus, military-economic fascism simultaneously strengthens the province together with weakens civil society, fifty-fifty as it creates the illusion of a vibrant private sector patriotically engaged inwards supplying goods together with services to the heroic armed forces establishment (the Boeing Company's slickly produced tv set ads, with others, splendidly illustrate this propagandistically encouraged illusion).

Garden-variety Military-Economic Corruption of Government Officials

We involve non dwell long on the logic of garden-variety military-economic corruption. As pots of love attract flies, so pots of coin attract thieves together with con men. No organisation has to a greater extent than coin at its disposal than the US government, which attracts thieves together with con men at to the lowest degree inwards total proportion to its command of wealth. Unscrupulous private parties who wish to gain a piece of the government's booty converge on the morally dismal swamp known as Washington, DC, together with choose whatever actions they appear volition divert a portion of the loot into their ain hands. Anyone who expects accolade with thieves volition live sorely disappointed yesteryear the details of these sordid activities.
Although headlines lone cannot convey the resplendently lurid details, they tin john advise the varieties of putrid sloughs that drain into the swamp:
  • Audit Cites Pentagon Contractors [for widespread abuse of overhead charges]
  • Ex-Unisys Official Admits Paying Bribes to Get Pentagon Contracts
  • Top Republican on a House Panel Is Charged With Accepting Bribes
  • Ex-Pentagon Officials Sentenced [for taking monetary bribes together with accepting prostitutes' services from contractors]
  • Northrop Papers Indicate Coverup: Documents from '80s Show Accounting Irregularities Were Hidden from Pentagon
  • Revolving Door Leads to Jail: Former Acquisition Official Convicted of Steering Business to Boeing for Personal Gain
  • Contractor "Knew How to Grease the Wheels": ADCS Founder Spent Years Cultivating Political Contacts
  • Graft Lurks within Pentagon's "Black Budget": Top-secret Items Escape Oversight
  • Contractor Pleads Guilty to Corruption: Probe Extends Beyond Bribes to Congressman
  • From Cash to Yachts: Congressman's Bribe Menu; Court Documents Show Randall "Duke" Cunningham Set Bribery Rates
  • Defense Contractor Guilty inwards Bribe Case
(Sources for these headlines appear, respectively, inwards the citations given inwards the 3rd paragraph of this article.) Anyone who cares to accumulate all such intelligence articles may appear forrad to total work for the repose of his life.
Yet, notwithstanding the many culprits who are caught inwards the act, 1 must realistically assume that a far greater number acquire away scot-free. As Ernest Fitzgerald, an extraordinarily knowledgeable authorisation with extensive personal experience, has observed, the entire scheme of armed forces procurement is pervaded yesteryear dishonesty: "Government officials, from the imperial role of the president to the lowest, sleaziest procurement office, prevarication routinely together with with impunity inwards defense strength of the system," together with "the combination of loose procurement rules together with regime acquiescence inwards rip-offs leaves many a crook untouched" (1989, 312, 290).
Among the instructive cases straightaway making their way through the jurist scheme are several related to of late convicted congressman Randall "Duke" Cunningham, a state of war hero together with longtime titan of the MICC who currently resides inwards a federal penitentiary. Chief with the persons nether continuing investigation yesteryear the Federal Bureau of Investigation is Brent Wilkes, a DC high-flyer who is alleged to take hold been involved tangentially inwards events leading to the recent sacking of onetime congressman together with Director of Central Intelligence Porter Goss. According to a May 7, 2006, study inwards the New York Daily News, ongoing FBI together with CIA investigations of Kyle (Dusty) Foggo, formerly the third-ranking official at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), who resigned inwards May 2006 amid a swirl of allegations,
have focused on the Watergate poker parties thrown yesteryear defense strength contractor Brent Wilkes, a high-school buddy of Foggo's, that were attended yesteryear disgraced onetime Rep. Randy (Duke) Cunningham together with other lawmakers.
Foggo has claimed he went to the parties "just for poker" amid allegations that Wilkes, a exceed GOP fund-raiser together with a fellow member of the $100,000 "Pioneers" of Bush's 2004 reelection campaign, provided prostitutes, limos together with hotel suites to Cunningham.
Cunningham is serving an eight-year judgement after pleading to taking $2.4 1000000 inwards bribes to steer defense strength contracts to cronies.
Wilkes hosted regular parties for xv years at the Watergate together with Westin Grand Hotels for lawmakers together with lobbyists. Intelligence sources said Goss has denied attention the parties as CIA director, but that left opened upward whether he may take hold attended as a Republican congressman from Florida who was caput of the House Intelligence Committee. (Sisk 2006)
In your mind, multiply this squalid piffling scenario yesteryear 1 thousand, together with y'all volition get to gain a vision of what goes on inwards the MICC's higher reaches. Evidently, the daily routine at that spot is non all wailing together with gnashing of teeth over how to defend the province against Osama bin Laden together with his horde of murderous maniacs — our country's leaders require frequent periods of repose together with recreation. If this sort of fun together with games at taxpayer expense is your thought of responsible government, together with so y'all ought to respond "yes" when the pollster calls to inquire whether y'all favor an increase inwards the defense strength budget. Our regime is clearly at operate — at operate making chumps out of its loyal subjects together with laughing at these rubes all the way to the bank.

Legal Corruption of Government Officials

The genuinely large bucks, of course, involve non live compromised inwards the to the lowest degree yesteryear this sweaty species of fraud together with workaday corruption (Kovacic 1990a,89–90, 103 n197; 1990b, 118, 130 n94–101). Just as someone who kills 1 someone is a murderer, whereas someone who kills a 1000000 persons is a statesman, so the regime officials who steer hundreds of billions of dollars, possibly without violating whatever police push clit or regulation, to the Star Wars contractors together with the producers of other big-ticket weapon systems concern human relationship for the mass of the swag laundered through the Department of Defense together with the Department of Homeland Security. (Lest the latter organisation live overlooked, see the enormously revealing concern human relationship yesteryear Bennett 2006.)
I am non maxim that this huge element of the MICC is squeaky create clean — far from it — but alone that the corruption inwards this area, inwards dollar terms, falls mainly nether the heading of legal theft, or at to the lowest degree inwards the greyness surface area (Stubbing 1986, 407). As a Lockheed employee 1 time wrote to Fitzgerald, "the regime doesn't actually involve this stuff. It's just the best way to acquire rich quick. If they actually needed all these nuclear bombs together with killer satellites, they wouldn't run this identify the way they do" (qtd. inwards Fitzgerald 1989, 313; see also Meyer 2002). I personally think Fitzgerald's maxim to me 20 years agone at Lafayette College, "A defense strength contract is just a license to steal."

Absence of Proper Accounting Invites Theft

Indeed, Fitzgerald appeared as a witness at Senator Chuck Grassley's September 1998 hearings titled "License to Steal: Administrative Oversight of Financial Control Failures at the Department of Defense." At those hearings, Grassley released 2 novel audit reports prepared yesteryear the General Accounting Office together with some other study prepared yesteryear his staff inwards cooperation with the Air Force Office of Financial Management. According to Grassley's September 21, 1998, press release, "These reports consistently exhibit that sloppy accounting procedures together with ineffective or nonexistent internal controls locomote out DoD's accounts vulnerable to theft together with abuse. Failure yesteryear the DoD to exercise proper accounting procedures has resulted inwards fraud together with mismanagement of the taxpayers' money."
Although this sort of complaint has locomote an annual ritual, dutifully reported inwards the press, the Pentagon has never managed to seat its accounts into a cast that tin john fifty-fifty live audited. Like Dick Cheney, who chose non to contend inwards the Vietnam War, the armed forces brass seems to take hold had other priorities, fifty-fifty though for to a greater extent than than a decade the Defense Department has invariably stood inwards violation of the 1994 federal statute that requires every regime subdivision to brand a financial audit (Higgs 2005, 55–61).
Testifying earlier a congressional commission on August 3, 2006, Thomas F. Gimble, the department's acting inspector general, emphasized "financial direction problems that are long standing, pervasive, together with deeply rooted inwards virtually all operations."
Expanding on this full general observation with specific reference to the financial twelvemonth 2005 agency-wide principal financial statements, he stated: "We issued a disclaimer of persuasion for the statements because numerous deficiencies proceed to be related to the lineament of data, adequacy of reporting systems, together with reliability of internal controls."
Of the nine organizational components "required yesteryear the Office of Management together with Budget (OMB) to prepare together with obtain an audit persuasion on their FY 2005 financial statements," alone 1 received an unqualified persuasion together with 1 a qualified opinion. "All the others, including the agency-wide financial statements, received a disclaimer of opinion, as they take hold every twelvemonth inwards the past…. The weaknesses that comport on the auditability of the financial statements also impact other DoD programs together with operations together with contribute to waste, mismanagement, together with inefficient work of DoD resources. These weaknesses comport on the safeguarding of assets together with proper work of funds together with impair the prevention together with identification of fraud, waste, together with abuse" (US Department of Defense, Office of the Inspector General 2006, 1–2, emphasis added).
In Republic of Iraq since the US invasion inwards 2003, billions of dollars take hold only disappeared without leaving a draw ("Audit: US Lost Track" 2005, Krane 2006). Surely they did non all evaporate inwards the hot desert sun. The accounts at Homeland Security are inwards as horrible status (Bennett 2006, 110–11).
No 1 knows how much coin or specific belongings is missing from the armed forces together with homeland-security departments or where the missing assets take hold gone. If a world corporation kept its accounts this atrociously, the Securities together with Exchange Commission would unopen it downwards overnight. Government officials, however, involve non worry almost obedience to the laws they brand to assure their credulous subjects that everything is hunky-dory within the walls. When they are of a mind, they only flout those laws with impunity.

PAC Contributions to Politicians together with Their Parties Are Bribes

Political activity committees (PACs) evolved together with eventually obtained legal validation as vehicles for making lawful bribes to candidates for federal offices together with to their political parties. Candidates straightaway count on them for a large part of their displace funds, together with everyone over xi years of historic menstruum with an IQ higher upward lxx understands that these contributions are made with an agreement that they volition elicit a quid pro quo from the recipients who win the elections.
Military-economic interests take hold non been timid almost forming PACs together with transferring huge sums of coin through them to the candidates. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, "defense" PACs transferred to a greater extent than than $70 1000000 to candidates together with parties inwards the election cycles from 1990 to 2006. Individuals together with soft-money contributors (before soft-money contributions were outlawed after the 2002 elections) inwards the "defense" sector added to a greater extent than than $37 million, bringing the total to nearly $108 1000000 (the figures are available here).
No 1 knows how much was added yesteryear illegal together with thence unrecorded contributions made yesteryear armed forces interests, but the add-on mightiness good take hold been substantial, if nosotros may guess yesteryear the many accounts of private instances of such contributions that take hold been brought to lite over the years.
Figure 1 shows the amounts transferred during the yesteryear nine election cycles.

Figure 1. Contributions yesteryear "Defense" Interests inwards Federal Elections, 1990–2006

The concern of buying weapons that takes identify inwards the Pentagon is a corrupt concern  The Living Reality of Military-Economic Fascism
Source: Center for Responsive Politics Note: Soft coin contributions (defined as those that do non explicitly urge voters to cast their ballots for specific candidates) after the 2002 elections were banned yesteryear the Bipartisan Campaign Finance Reform Act.
One may deny, of course, that PAC contributions constitute a cast of corruption, inasmuch as they are legal within the statutorily specified limits, but such a denial would elevate cast over substance. Both the givers together with the receivers sympathize these payments inwards exactly the same way that they sympathize illegal forms of bribery, fifty-fifty though they never acknowledge this agreement inwards world — political decorum must live served, if alone to protect the children.

How Government Corrupts Business

A brief review of the history of US armed forces contracting helps to clarify my claim that military-economic transactions tend to corrupt business. The most of import historical fact is that earlier 1940, except during wartime, such dealings amounted to really little. The the States had alone a tiny standing regular army together with no standing munitions manufacture worthy of the name. When wars occurred, the regime supplemented the products of its ain arsenals together with navy yards with goods together with services purchased from private contractors, but most such items were off-the-shelf civilian goods, such as boots, clothing, food, together with shipping services.
To live sure, plenty of occasions arose for garden-variety corruption inwards these dealings — bribes, kickbacks, provision of shoddy goods, together with so forth (Brandes 1997) – but such malfeasances were unremarkably one-shot or fleeting transgressions, because the demobilizations that followed the conclusion of each state of war removed the chance for such corruption to locomote institutionalized to a meaning grade inwards law, persistent organizations, or ongoing practice.
Like gaudy fireworks, these sporadic outbursts of corruption flared brightly together with and so turned to dead cinders. No substantial peacetime contracting existed to fuel enduring corruption of the military's private suppliers, together with much of the contracting that did choose identify occurred within the constraints of stiff solicitations together with sealed-bid offers, which made cozy deals betwixt a armed forces buyer together with a private seller hard to arrange. At belatedly as financial twelvemonth 1940, the War Department made 87 per centum of its purchases through advertising together with invitations to bid (Higgs 2006a, 39).
All this changed abruptly together with forever inwards 1940, together with the province of affairs that existed during the so-called defense strength menstruum of 1940–41, earlier the the States became a declared belligerent inwards World War II, together with the trend inwards which it was resolved had an enduring number inwards shaping the contours of the MICC together with thence inwards establishing its characteristic corruption of business.
The Roosevelt administration, desperate to build upward the nation's capacity for state of war after the breathtaking High German triumphs inwards the saltation of 1940, made an precipitous about-face, abandoning its relentless flagellation of businessmen together with investors together with instead courting their favor as prime number movers inwards the buildup of the munitions industries. Most businessmen, however, having been anathematized together with legislatively pummeled for the yesteryear 6 years, were reluctant to acquire into into such deals, for a diversity of reasons, primary with them beingness their fearfulness together with distrust of the federal regime (Higgs 2006a, 36–38).
To placate the leery businessmen yesteryear shifting the risks from them onto the taxpayers, the regime adopted several of import changes inwards its procurement laws together with regulations. These included negotiated cost-plus-fixed-fee contracts, instead of contracts arrived at within the solicitation-and-sealed-bid system; diverse forms of revenue enhancement breaks; regime loan guarantees; straight regime funding of plants, equipment, together with materials; together with provision of advance together with progress payments, sparing the contractors the involve to obtain together with pay involvement on depository financial establishment loans.
All of these arrangements, with greater or lesser variations inwards their details from fourth dimension to time, became permanent features of the MICC (US Senate, Committee on Armed Services 1985, 35, 42, 553–67).
Even to a greater extent than important, as the novel scheme operated on a vast scale during World War II, the dealings betwixt the armed forces purchasers together with the private suppliers took on a fundamentally novel style. As described yesteryear Wilberton Smith, the official historian of the Army's economical mobilization during the war:
The human relationship betwixt the regime together with its contractors was gradually transformed from an "arm's length" human relationship betwixt 2 to a greater extent than or less equal parties inwards a concern transaction into an undefined but intimate relationship — partly business, partly fiduciary, together with partly unilateral — inwards which the financial, contractual, statutory, together with other instruments together with assumptions of economical activity were reshaped to encounter the ultimate requirements of victory inwards war. Under the novel conditions, contracts ceased to live completely binding; fixed prices inwards contracts often became alone tentative together with provisional prices; excessive profits received yesteryear contractors were recoverable yesteryear the government; together with potential losses resulting from many causes — including errors, wretched judgments, together with performance failures on the component of contractors — were averted yesteryear modification together with amendment of contracts, with or without legal "consideration," whenever required yesteryear the exigencies of the state of war effort. (1959, 312, emphasis added)
Although Smith was describing the scheme as it came to operate during World War II, almost everything he said fits the postwar MICC as good (Higgs 2006a, 31–33), specially his depiction of the buyer-seller dealings as constituting "an undefined but intimate relationship" together with his recognition that "contracts ceased to live completely binding."
Thus, the institutional changes made inwards 1940–41 together with the wartime functioning of the military-industrial complex inwards the context of these novel rules seat permanently inwards identify the essential features of the modern procurement system, which has repeatedly demonstrated its imperviousness to reform for the yesteryear 60 years — it was likewise practiced a bargain to surrender fifty-fifty after the demise of the USSR together with the halt of the Cold War, together with with breathtaking chutzpah, the system's kingpins parlayed the box-cutter attacks of 9/11 into an excuse to pour hundreds of billions of additional dollars into purchases of Cold War weaponry (Sapolsky together with Gholz 2001, Isenberg together with Eland 2002, Higgs 2004, Makinson 2004).
Under the old, pre-1940 system, a private concern rarely had anything to gain yesteryear wining together with dining armed forces buyers or congressmen. Unless a theater made the lowest-priced sealed-bid offering to provide a carefully specified good, it would non acquire the contract. The armed forces buyer knew what he needed, together with he had a tightly limited budget with which to acquire it. After 1940, however, the newly established "intimate relationship" opened upward a whole novel globe for wheeling together with dealing on both sides of the bargain — often it was hard to say whether the regime agent was shaking downwards the human being of affairs or the human being of affairs was bribing the regime agent.
In fact, until the armed forces purchasing agency certified a companionship as qualified, the theater could non brand a valid offer, fifty-fifty inwards the context of competitive bidding. In the post-1940 era, alone a small-scale fraction of all contracts emerged from formally advertised, sealed-bid competition, together with most contracts were negotiated without whatever variety of cost contest (Higgs 2006a, 39; Stubbing 1986, 226, 411).
Deals came to plow non on price, but on technical together with scientific capabilities, size, experience, together with established reputation as a armed forces supplier — vaguer attributes that are easier to fudge for one's friends. From fourth dimension to time, deals also turned on the perceived involve to hold a large theater from going under. For example, Fen Hampson observes that inwards the early on 1970s, "The bidding [for production of the C-4 (Trident I) missile] was non opened to other companies because Lockheed was encountering financial difficulties at the fourth dimension together with desperately needed the business" (1989, 92).
Indeed, scholars take hold identified an extensive pattern of rotating major contracts that has been dubbed a "follow-on imperative" or a "bailout imperative," a virtual guarantee against bankruptcy, regardless of mismanagement or other corporate ineptitude (Nieburg 1966, 201, 269; Kurth 1973, 142–44; Kaufman 1972, 289; Dumas 1977, 458; Gansler 1980, 49, 172, 227; Stubbing 1986, 185–89, 200–04).
Subcontracts could also live used to prop upward failing firms, together with inwards nearly every large-scale projection they served as the principal way of spreading the political patronage across many congressional districts (Kotz 1988, 128–29; Mayer 1990, 218–31). In truth, deals — specially the many of import changes introduced into them after their initial formulation ("contract nourishment"), permitting contractors to "buy inwards now, acquire good later" (Stubbing 1986, 179–84) — came to plow inwards substantial component on "who y'all know." In Richard Stubbing's words, "Often it is raw politics, non armed forces considerations, which ultimately determines the winner" (1986, 165).
All the successful major prime number contractors — such as Lockheed Martin (see Cummings 2007), General Dynamics (see Franklin 1986), Rockwell (see Kotz 1988), Bechtel (see McCartney 1988), together with Halliburton (see Briody 2004), for example — demonstrated beyond whatever uncertainty that inwards the MICC, cultivating friends inwards high places yields a high charge per unit of measurement of return. Indeed, without such friends, a theater may live hard pressed to endure inwards this sector at all.
The tight budget constraints of the pre-1940 peacetime periods became vastly looser as trillions of dollars poured out of the congressional appropriations physical care for during the endless national emergency of the Cold War together with its sequel, the so-called state of war on terror. As Nick Kotz observed, "Now that the stakes inwards profits together with jobs were far higher than those of whatever regime programme inwards history, dividing the spoils ensured that the game of politics would live played on a grand scale" (1988, 50). (Of course, the game of politics inwards reality, as distinct from the high-school-civics idealization, is essentially the game of corruption.) In financial twelvemonth 2007, for example, the Department of Defense anticipates outlays of or so $90 billion for procurement, $162 billion for operations together with maintenance, $72 billion for research, development, testing, together with evaluation, together with $8 billion for armed forces structure — components that total to $332 billion (US Department of Defense, Office of the Under Secretary of Defense 2006, 15). Nearly all of this loot volition halt upward inwards the pockets of private contractors; armed forces personnel costs are dissever from these accounts.
With plenty of coin to locomote around, all that a would-be contractor needs is an old buddy inwards the upper reaches of a armed forces bureaucracy or a friend on the House armed forces appropriations subcommittee or inwards the Senate. (Nowadays, to a greater extent than than always before, a unmarried fellow member of Congress tin john create magnificent gifts for his friends yesteryear making "earmarks," furtive amendments to an appropriations pecker that everyone understands to live aught but an private legislator's pound of flesh taken out of the taxpayer's unfortunate corpus.)
If 1 does non take hold such a friend inwards high places, 1 tin john acquire him (or her, as the infamous Darleen Druyun illustrates [see Colarusso 2004]) yesteryear ponying upward the diverse forms of bribes to which many Pentagon officials together with members of Congress take hold shown themselves to live highly receptive. After all, it's non as if the bureaucrat or the fellow member of Congress is giving away his ain money.
To hold this gravy develop on the track, contractors together with their merchandise associations, as good as the armed forces themselves, devote cracking efforts to increasing the amount of coin Congress appropriates inwards total for "defense," together with straightaway also for "homeland security." Their displace contributions together with other favors locomote predominantly to the incumbent barons — congressional leaders together with commission chairmen — together with to the "hawks" who've never met a defense strength budget large plenty to delight them. As Fitzgerald notes, "In Washington y'all tin john acquire away with anything as long as y'all take hold the high moguls of Congress as accessories earlier together with after the fact" (1989, 91).
Furthermore, as Kotz observes, "[t]here is a multiplier number as the dissimilar armed forces services, members of Congress, presidential administrations, together with defense strength industries merchandise back upward for each other's projects" (1989, 235). In other words, the defense strength budget is non only the biggest logroll inwards Congress (Stubbing 1986, 98), but the biggest logroll inwards Washington, DC. Fen Hampson remarks: "bureaucratic together with political interests approach weapons acquisition together with defense strength budget issues as non-zero-sum games; that is, as games where at that spot are rewards together with payoffs to all parties from cooperation or collusion" (1989, 282). Only the taxpayers lose, but their interests don't count: they are non "players" inwards this game, but victims.
To give Blue Planet a seeming involvement inwards the whole wretched racket, the contractors also pass substantial amounts of coin cultivating the public's yearning to take hold the armed forces dish out decease together with devastation to designated human quarry around the globe — commies, gooks, ragheads, Islamo-fascists, narco-terrorists, together with so forth — who are said to threaten the precious "American way of life."
For example, Rockwell, a armed forces contractor whose massive underground contributions helped to reelect Richard Nixon inwards 1972 (Kotz 1988, 103–04, Fitzgerald 1989, 84), 1 time mounted "a underground grass-roots displace code-named Operation Common Sense" that included "a massive letter-writing displace … solicitation of back upward from national organizations … together with production of films together with advertisements as good as prepared articles, columns, together with editorials that willing editors could impress inwards newspapers together with magazines" (Kotz 1988, 134–35) — all the intelligence that's jibe to print, so to speak.
Much coin goes into producing glorification of the armed forces, together with reports of those forces' stupidities together with brutalities inwards exotic climes are dismissed as aught but the fabrications of leftists together with appeasers or, if they cannot plausibly live denied, alleged to live aught to a greater extent than than the isolated misbehavior of a few "bad apples" (Higgs 2006b).
Lest the armed forces themselves bear witness insufficiently imaginative inwards conceiving of novel together with fifty-fifty to a greater extent than expensive projects for the lucky suppliers to carry out, the contractors hire battalions of mad geniuses to pattern the superweapons of the hereafter together with regiments of onetime generals together with admirals to marketplace these magnificent creations to their old friends together with subordinates currently holding downwards desks at the Pentagon.
Thus, as General James P. Mullins, onetime commander of the Air Force Logistics Command, has written, "the prime number contractors are where the babies actually come upward from." He explains: "[T]he contractor has already often determined what it wants to make earlier the formal acquisition physical care for begins…. The contractor validates the pattern through the physical care for of marketing it to 1 of the services. If successful, the contractor gets a contract. Thus, to a substantial degree, the weapon capabilities devised yesteryear contractors create armed forces requirements" (1986, 91; see also Stubbing 1986, 174).
In sum, the military-supply firms exemplify a fundamentally corrupt type of organization. Their income comes to them alone after it has outset been extorted from the taxpayers at gunpoint — thence their compensation amounts to receiving stolen property. They are hardly unwitting or unwilling recipients, however, because they are non drafted to do what they do. No wallflowers at this trip the lite fantastic of death, they eagerly devote strenuous efforts to encouraging regime officials to wring always greater amounts from the taxpayers together with to distribute the loot inwards ways that enrich the contractors, their suppliers, together with their employees.
These efforts include both the licit together with the illicit measures I take hold described, spanning the total make from making a legal displace contribution to providing prostitutes to serve the congressman or the Pentagon bigwig after he has locomote bored with playing poker inwards the contractor's suite at a plush DC hotel.
(Note well: such "entertainment" expenses are probable to live accounted "allowable costs" yesteryear the defense strength contractor who bears them, together with with alone routine audacity he may add together to them an "overhead" accuse — the entire total to live reimbursed ultimately yesteryear the taxpayers. [In general, "overhead proves to live a huge moneymaker for defense strength firms" (Stubbing 1986, 205).] Kotz [1988, 137], describes Rockwell's billing for entertainment, world relations, together with lobbying inwards connection with its contract to build the B-1 bomber. Fitzgerald [1989, 197, 198–99] describes similar charges yesteryear General Dynamics, as good as boarding expenses for an executive's dog, together with yesteryear Pratt together with Whitney, including $7,085 for hors d'oeuvres at a Palm Beach golf game resort together with $2,735 for strolling musicians at some other bash. Sometimes the contractors billed the regime twice for the same outrageous expenses.)

Can Anything Be Done?

The brusque respond is "probably not." The MICC is deeply entrenched inwards the US political economy, which itself has been moving steadily closer to consummate economical fascism for to a greater extent than than a century (Higgs 1987, 2007). Decades of studies, investigations, bluish ribbon commission reports, congressional hearings together with staff studies, together with intelligence media exposés detailing its workings from Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 to Z take hold scarcely dented it (Higgs 2004). For the most part, the official scrutiny is just for show, whereas the unofficial scrutiny is easily dismissed as the operate of outsiders who don't know what they are talking about, non to refer that they are "America haters."
Official evaluations, at their frankest, conclude that "[p]ast mistakes — whether inwards the procurement of a weapon scheme or inwards the work of forces during a crisis — do non have the critical review that would forestall them from recurring…. The lessons locomote unlearned, together with the mistakes are repeated" (US Senate, Committee on Armed Services 1985, 8). Such evaluations, though seemingly forthright together with penetrating, strike me as far-fetched. Of course, people sometimes makes mistakes, but if people with the powerfulness to alter an scheme refrain from doing so for decades on end, the most reasonable conclusion is that they prefer things as they are — that is, as a rule, at that spot are no long-lasting "failed policies," properly speaking.
To apply hither what I wrote twelve years agone inwards regard to several other kinds of policies: "Government policies succeed inwards doing exactly what they are supposed to do: channeling resources bilked from the full general world to politically organized together with influential involvement groups" (Higgs 1995; see also Kotz 1989, 242–45).
Therefore, 1 must conclude that the MICC serves its intended purposes well, nevertheless much its chronic crimes together with intrinsic corruption sully its self-proclaimed nobility. What y'all together with I telephone phone corruption is, after all, exactly what the military-economic movers together with shakers telephone phone the practiced life.
Ultimately, the most meaning factor is that the post-World War II US unusual policy of global hegemony together with recurrent armed forces intervention places a strong flooring beneath the MICC together with serves as an all-purpose excuse for its many malfeasances (Eland 2004, Johnson 2004).
As Ludwig von Mises observed, "The root of the evil is non the structure of new, to a greater extent than dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest…. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war" (1966, 832; see also Higgs together with Close 2007). Until the range of the US government's geopolitical ambitions together with thence the scale of its armed forces activities are drastically reduced, non much chance volition be for making its scheme of military-economic fascism less rapacious together with corrupt.
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The higher upward originally appeared at Mises.org.




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