In times like these a progressive legislator in the U.S. Congress intent on reducing Pentagon appropriations should be able to rise and shine. After all, isn't the Cold War over? Or at least winding down?
They say the process of detente with the USSR began with the signing of the IMF treaty and that a new spirit of cooperation has replaced confrontation. The U.S. wars of intervention in Angola, Namibia, and even in Central America are said to be slowing down too. It is claimed that no U.S soldiers are involved, at least overtly, in direct military combat on foreign soil.
All this is calculated to give the impression that a new phase in peaceful capitalist development has opened. But this rosy picture deserves a second look.
Only the other day the U.S. Congress agreed on a stupendous $305-billion military program (New York Times, Nov. 3). Yet what might surprise the general public most is that the appropriation was whisked through both houses of Congress with scarcely any but token opposition. The fact that both houses have been controlled by a majority of Democrats for three years hardly seems to make any difference, especially in matters of military expenditures.
True, the research program for Star Wars was cut by about a billion dollars. But this is an abysmally small pittance when measured against the $305 billion in general military appropriations for the year.
Even this cut in the Star Wars budget is a sheer deception. The Pentagon's negotiators are old hands at this business. They always ask in the most urgent tones for far more than they know they will get. And the legislators have the comfort of knowing that the Pentagon will really be satisfied — for the moment, at least — with a somewhat "reduced" appropriation.
If there's a need to buffalo the public, a new scare story can always be manufactured, which the media will eagerly grasp on to. These stories regularly come up at military appropriation hearings — ones like the new sighting of foreign submarines close to U.S. shores.
Can these military expenditures continue endlessly? Is there no end to the greed of the military-industrial complex? Perhaps a recent example will serve to illustrate that the problem is not a subjective one; that there is an acute contradiction in Pentagon economics which they cannot resolve.
The recent accident on the Navy carrier Iowa, in which some 47 lives were lost, exemplifies the real problems involved in Pentagon spending. The Iowa was one of the big U.S. Navy warships stationed in the Pacific during World War II. It became famous because it survived many hits from Japanese planes and ships.
After the war it was taken out of service, or "mothballed" in popular terminology. What then happens is that it is listed in the Navy's inventory of inactive ships. It also remains on the list of government-owned properties. As an asset of the U.S. government, the ship has a market evaluation.
The U.S. government owns many properties of all kinds, worth untold hundreds of billions of dollars. A fraction are regularly sold as surplus property. Sometimes government property, including real estate, is sold to the favorite customers of the current administration by the U.S. Treasury or the Interior Department, adding up to hundreds of millions and even billions of dollars in giveaways.
The assets of the U.S. government include a varied assortment of things — from monuments, museums, canals, bridges, post offices, and unused land to missiles and poison gas. Not the least of these assets is the government's arsenal of military hardware.
When a U.S. fighting ship like the Iowa is retired, it remains part of the inventory of the U.S. Navy. It has a price tag attached to it like any other property of the U.S. This doesn't necessarily mean that the ship is for sale, although the U.S. government does do a thriving business in military hardware, both new and used. As it grows older, the ship could also be donated to one of Washington's allies in exchange for political concessions.
The price the ship commands is figured not only on the basis of how much the government paid out to naval contractors. It also reflects its so-called market value.
When the Iowa was built, its cost was about $100 million in war-time dollars. At the height of the war, when the ship was ready for action, its market price might have been in the hundreds of millions. But when it was retired at the end of the war, its market value sank dramatically. For many years, it would have been worth nothing more than the going price for scrap iron — until President Reagan took it out of mothballs and reactivated it in his pursuit of military adventure in the Middle East. It was sent to the Mediterranean alongside the New Jersey, which was used to bombard the oppressed peoples of Lebanon.
Then the price of the Iowa soared, not because it was up for sale but because it was involved in a military operation which required that it be extensively repaired and refurbished. Eventually the question of modernization would have to be taken under consideration if its performance were not to become substandard. This would also mean a very steep appreciation of its price tag, which in turn would enhance the value of one of the assets of the U.S. government.
When one of the Iowa's gun turrets blew up earlier this year, a question raised by investigators, and aired on ABC's 20/20 news program (Nov. 3, 1989), was whether the accident, instead of being a deliberate act of sabotage or the result of human error, could have been caused by the ship's obsolescence. Should this be the finding, the dollar value of this reactivated ship would almost certainly depreciate again.
However, if the U.S. Navy, as a result of its lobbying, were to get the funds to modernize the ship, its market value would rise substantially. The asset side of the U.S. government ledger would then appreciate.
Whether in action or in mothballs, the Iowa is thus a commodity, and as a commodity is part and parcel of the world market of capitalist commodities. (As Marx said in his opening sentence to Capital, "The wealth of those societies in which the capitalist mode of production prevails, presents itself as `an immense accumulation of commodities.' ") Its exchange value rises and sinks depending on conditions.
Several months ago, during an airshow in West Germany, one of the most modern British fighters exploded in mid-air, causing many deaths and dozens of injuries. These military airshows are always significant because if a performance goes exceptionally well, the price tag of the plane rises, even though it may not be for sale.
Recently the B-1B or Stealth bomber was said to have given a successful performance after two previous failures. This would enhance the likelihood of bigger U.S. congressional appropriations for the aircraft. If modernization is agreed upon, the price tag of the aircraft appreciates and this swells the assets side of the U.S. ledger of income and outgo. It should be noted that the stock prices of the military contractors involved will also rise on the stock exchanges.
When one looks at the U.S. government's ledger of assets and liabilities, the Navy's arsenal is impressive from the viewpoint of its economic viability. According to the 1988 Encyclopedia Britannica Book of the Year, the U.S. Navy at the end of 1987 consisted of:
Thus, it is in the interest of the U.S. capitalist class in general (not only that section identified as the military-industrial complex) that the military assets of the government be of economic significance. Hence, the need to modernize. The need to appreciate the market value of the arsenal as a whole becomes more imperative with each new technological stride in the military-industrial complex.
This is merely a specific instance of the general need of capitalist industry to constantly restructure, which is leading not only to violent and destructive capitalist competition but ultimately to an economic crisis of even greater proportions than earlier ones.
In addition, huge appropriations for the military create indebtedness — and that's the debit side of the ledger. To keep the military assets in a constant state of appreciation requires modernization, which must be paid for with either taxes or loans. As the assets side of the U.S. ledger appreciates, the debit side increases proportionately. The growing indebtedness puts a downward pressure on the U.S. dollar and tends to depreciate the general state of the capitalist economy.
This is a contradiction from which there is no exit without an explosion. It expresses the fundamental social contradiction in capitalist society between the dynamic growth of the productive forces with the advance of modern technology, and the static social system based on the private ownership of the means of production and the exploitation of labor.
Last updated: 23 March 2018