:cope
It's frightening how media can not only manufacture consent, but also create entirely different fictional realities for people to be completely absorbed in.
Aktuly War Is Good For the Economy
is shit that's just kinda drilled into you during grade school. You don't talk about the decimation of capital in Europe following WW1 or the crushing poverty that plagued the next generation. You don't talk about the obliteration of infrastructure in Korea or Vietnam or Afghanistan or Iraq, nor the decades of poverty and disease and famine that followed. You don't talk about the Drug Wars in Latin America, the decades-long effort to render entire regions of arable land infertile in order to corral unapproved drug fields, operations to sterilize large parts of the African population as part of "population control" in post-War Congo, or the hellish treatment of civilians and refugees following any one of these entirely man-made calamities.
Neither do you discuss the volume of real estate bulldozed to make way for domestic modernization projects. No educators want to discuss how many communities (particularly communities of color) got plowed under to build the US Highway System. No testing agency quizzes anyone on the real state of the Water Cycle or how large asphalt and concrete slabs impact groundwater reserves or erosion patterns. Certainly, there is no inquisition into the impact a massive bombardment and subsequent occupation might have on the quality of land, water, and air in the ruined territory they create.
These are just not subjects we discuss with young people. They aren't included in the games we play or the stories we tell. They aren't a part of the mythology we've woven around ourselves. I don't know if its seriously included anywhere. But it is certainly not mentioned in a country with a monetary incentive revolving around the export of wars.
"War stimulates the economy" - guy whose country has never fought a defensive war.
There's a big graveyard up in Gettysburg suggesting otherwise. And another at Little Big Horn.
But imagine looking at Sherman's March to Atlanta, nodding sagely, and telling folks in the state "This will be good for your economy". Now imagine if Sherman had B-52s.
Sherman should have turn back and made another pass...
In all seriousness Americans have no concept of actual war and it's consequences being insulated within the imperial core as they are.
Sherman should have turn back and made another pass…
Eh. Maybe. But not for the sake of GDP.
The Indian Wars were a pretty classic case of native peoples besieged by a foreign intruding power, within the North American continent.
what I mean is the Lakota Sioux (and allied tribes) wouldn’t have necessarily considered themselves part the Unites States of America
Hence the war, sure. But then it ended badly, and now here we are.
I could point to a bunch of other failed struggles, from the Whiskey Rebellion to Blair Mountain to the Greensboro Massacre and call them "defensive conflicts", too.
It seems a weird response to be like yeah the USA has experience in fighting a defensive war, because of that time when doing genocide to First Nations they lost as the attackers.
I'm not sure what to tell you other than that the US is conquered territory. Residents struggle against the occupation regularly. And those struggles regularly fail.
war was good for the American economy because all the competition was bombed to rubble
Broadly speaking, nobody's. Even the most cynical Capitalist is better served through improved infrastructure and civil services.
But the US is trapped in an ideological crisis that forbids domestic progress if it means foreign working and living conditions improve as well.
What happens when this shatters? Will it shatter at all? Think it won't personally lol
This is unironically how some South African electricity contractors currently operate lol. They'll literally cut down powerlines to secure tenders to replace them.
I wouldn't bank on it. More likely they're replacing durable cables with shitty patch-jobs.
We only have 12 hours of electricity a day I'm not banking on them doing a good job...
No, it's usually split, the electricity goes off for two to four hours at a time, usually during peak hours but sometimes at night or in the morning as well.
So usually two four hour periods a day of the power out, and one two hour period, that becomes a four hour period if you're unlucky
Does South Africa still use coal and oil as its main source of energy? So what is happening, lack of investment and the energy grids are breaking down?
Yes we use coal because we have a lot of it. And because Gwede Mantashe, the minister of mineral resources and energy, is in deep with the coal industry. I think he'd marry a block of coal if he could.
The crisis is due to multiple things. It starts with neoliberal reforms by Thabo Mbeki in the 2000s, he ignored reports by the state run electricity company (Eskom) that they needed funds to do maintenance and build new power infrastructure. Thus the first round of rolling electricity blackouts in the late 2000s. From there on its been a lack of maintenance, running equipment over the limits in a short term push to keep the lights on, trying to buy a ton of diesel to fire up massive generators, using low quality coal witch messed up equipment, sabotage by Eskom employees and other contractors (such as cutting powerlines down just so they can fix them, but with regards to all power infrastructure), and blatant corruption and theft. Apparently 1 billon rand goes missing every month at Eskom.
There's been big drama as the Eskom CEO resigned with a no holds barred interview blowing the lid on all the shenanigans at Eskom after someone tried to poison him. While he has been a massive failure as CEO, this has earned him some good will, especially among the upper class. There is also the fact that he's a white guy, so he gets more credibility amongst the white middle and upper class.
What if we got the US's post-war economic boom without any of the US's post-war material conditions? :so-true:
I've heard studies showing that...
:data-laughing:
Bruh that's a fart. You heard yourself fart. That's not a study.
Sure thousands of young people are dying in trenches instead of starting families, but what if this actually leads to a baby boom?
What if the children of the few that survive get lucrative jobs in the booming trench-filling industry 20 years later?
well you see there was a baby boom after the WW2 in soviet union with all the pro-natalist policies.
Wait what it didn't happened? what you are telling me it has even less chance this time because there are no children welfare, health and education?
Guatemala has a stronger economy than Ukraine. Things are going to be bad for a long time.
God I still remember the common knowledge in the 90's that a huge war would create an economic miracle :brainworms:
Yeah, what few surviving Azov Nazis with fucking US arms will just calmly say, "Let's calmly construct together!" :youre-laughing:
It worked for the US specifically during right at the start at WW2 so Americans think it will apply in other contexts. The lesson they should have learned is that massive government spending works. Even the just the New Deal spending would have eventually fixed the Great Depression.
yeah but the US had all that industry, it was just not able to use it because capitalism is inherently stupid.
it was all there. the factories, the mines, the workers. nothing was bombed to shit.
Do people really think this happens after a war? The Marshall plan basically donated $43.5 billion in today's currency into Europe every year for four years and then the US spent $87 billion every year through 1961 rebuilding its allies, most of which went to Europe and Japan. Western Europe didn't just magically fix itself after the war.
The Marshall Plan wasn't really a donation, they could only use this money to buy US stuff, which made their capitalist class very rich and productive, which essentially propelled the US to become the world's hegemon for years to come. It was entirely self-serving from the start.
...so there's a possible future where this "post-war economic boom" happens, but it's in an eastern Ukraine being rebuilt by Russia, backed by Chinese production.
not saying that's how it's gonna play out, but it seems a lot more likely than our redditor's dream
How resilient your economy is during wartime
Yeah, getting billions in aid will do that
yeah i think when Russia rebuilds those regions it'll be a pretty big boost for them
Really, Ukraine’s only hope is for China’s BRI unless the west decides to go all in on reconstruction which I imagine will ruffle some feathers with the global south who had to give up so much to the IMF and world bank or was devastated by war and got almost nothing in return
In their eyes, and rightfully so, it’ll look like :us-foreign-policy:
Just think of all the new jobs at the black sun racism factory!
I genuinely cannot believe there are still people holding out for Build Back Better World.
Its the most utopian vision we have on offer. Everything else is just that much bleaker.
