Does Capitalism need....

[Aurora]

Capitalism needs war to servive,this has been proven time and time again.
I very stupidly said this :blush: and I dont know how to back it up?Does anyone know how to back this up?any help would be really appreciated!!



I would like an answer from a strictly Leftist view so please dont move this topic!

[redstar2000]

You can make a historical argument. Capitalism produces beyond what people can afford to buy...thus "something must be done" to "use up" this "surplus product" or prices will fall catastrophically (disinflation) and the capitalist class will suffer massive losses. And war accomplishes this purpose quite nicely.

It's a potentially profitable "business"...if you don't lose.

On the other hand, military "production" is rarely actually productive...those huge armies don't produce any surplus value. I've read one guy who suggested that the "burden of security" may become so heavy as to be the "last straw" that breaks the back of the capitalist system.

Something to keep in mind.

http://www.websmileys.com/sm/cool/123.gif

[Aurora]

Thanks alot redstar I couldnt have asked for more :)

[RebelDog]

Capitalism is a continuous competition for resources and on the scale of countries it often results in war. Take WW2. All the axis partners were heavily dependent on imported goods and in a capitalist world these can't always be relied on or are simply seized. This was definitely in the reasoning of these countries when they decided on aggression.

Also market forces inside a country can play a part, ie; the arms industries actually lobbying for war so as to increase use of their products and profit from war. This is a huge factor in the US. It costs $1million per cruise missle and every time one is fired it is replaced by the grateful Lockheed Martin. Like a ice-cream salesman praying for a long hot summer these bastards pray for a long destructive war. Also where Iraq is concerned we need only mention Haliburton, construction contracts and cheap oil. All these 'buisness opportunities' have been opened up by a war that has killed at least 100,000 people.

Capitalism will exploit anything for profit and it will go to any length. It is the biggest murder machine there will ever be in human history. War is state sponsored slaughter.

[Amusing Scrotum]

You may want to check out some left-communist literature....perticuarly some of the stuff on decadence. The ICC, if I remember correctly, has quite a few theories on this and the need for War and a War economy, according to them, is a crucial factor which shows capitalisms decadence.

There's a member on Rev-Left called Beltov (?) who I'm pretty sure is in the ICC, so you may want to PM him/her to get more information....as I said, I'm pretty sure that this is pretty central to the ICC's thinking.

Anyway, I used the words "war" and "economy" to search their site, and this is what I found....

http://en.internationalism.org/trip_search

Somewhere in those results, I'm sure you'll find an in-depth piece on this.


Originally posted by The Dissenter
All these 'buisness opportunities' have been opened up by a war that has killed at least 100,000 people.

One of the things about modern day plunder, like in Iraq, is that it generally only benefits a small section of the bourgeois....the big backers of the Iraq War, were mainly Engineering firms and Oil companies (and a few Military corporations of course).

The rest of the bourgeois, hasn't really made a great deal of money out of Iraq....indeed, if the American economy takes a "hit", which looks distinctly possible, then the bourgeois as a whole, will not have benefited from Iraq.

[drain.you]

been taught in politics about how industry can influence government very stringly at times. Can't remember the name of the main arms company in the US but supposedly they want a war every 10years in order to showcase their new weaponary to the world and boost sales to other countries. scary because of how much pressure companies can put on government in the US, just backs up the fact that the capitalists are REALLY REALLY in the driving seat.