note: this is not pro or anti war text, just a brief explanation of the simple economic mechanics behind war (explanation and examples in video below). Because of destruction war creates demand for many types of products and services, and therefore creates many business opportunities no matter how small or large the conflict is. As long as civilization is still standing at the end of the conflict it is guaranteed that someone somewhere will be profiting from it despite all of the people who will be losing from it. This carries heavy implications of potential corruption on a mass scale. Who Can Profit individuals, groups, or entire economies of a specific region or regions direct proponents of the war opportunists groups or individuals indirectly related to the war effort or post war economy groups in both public or private sectors usually individuals or groups on the winning side or are neutral in the conflict profit, but this is not always the case Specific Examples Of How To Profit producing, selling, or delivering arms, fuel, technology, training, food, military aide, healthcare, security, vehicles, equipment, or other products and services related to the war effort investing in corporations who have been contracted to produce, sell, or deliver products, services, or technologies listed above starting a business that provides products or services to the contracted business or investing in corporations that provide products or services to the contracted businesses make loans to the businesses noted above, or to governments, private militias, or other businesses that will be needing products or services related to the war effort seize or monetize on resources of conquered territory or invest in new or demolished corporations that will be rebuilding the infrastructure around these resources. some examples of valuable post war resources are food, lumber, iron ore, arms, fuel, technology, education, drugs, prostitutes (including sex slavery), and new forms of currency makes loans to governments or businesses directly rebuilding the infrastructure of a destroyed region, or businesses importing products or services that are in demand in the destroyed region [video=youtube;mTLlzuDtBVA]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mTLlzuDtBVA[/video]
Informative post, Abram. Thanks. I have a some questions. 1.How many are directly employed providing products and services used solely to prosecute war in the US, the UK, the EU and Australia ? 2. How profitable were these products and services in 2015, or another recent year if the 2015 figures are unavailable? 3. Your video mentions these product and service providers lobbying governments. Do they also make donations to political parties? 4. Have ex-lobbyists for these product and service providers ever been employed as advisors to governments on matters of war?
I do not have any of these figures on hand, I was simply running over simple economic concepts regarding war that most people don't know about. However, I will run a quick search to see what kind of statistics I can find. 1. I'm glad you asked about direct employment though, because an indirect figure would take considerable amount of research (I'm not aware of any group that has taken on such a large task). It's still a tricky question though even when speaking about direct employment because there are basic supplies directly involved in defense and war such as food, gas, clothing, medical care etc. which will be quite a huge number here in the United States regarding employment. To save myself some work in a field I don't really know a lot of specifics about, I will offer you a partial list of military contractors (top 100 I believe): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_defense_contractors This can provide an idea of the great number of those employed through contracts. In addition to this there are 1,301,300 active military personnel in the United States. I'm not sure about the other countries, but as you can see these are some very significant numbers. 2. I have no idea, the only figures I could really give you are how much a particular government or company spends on defense contractors or how much particular contractors brings in, but the total answer is deeper than this. Keep in mind that any budget will imply revenue but not necessarily profit. I will guarantee you that the numbers are astronomical, both in the past and present, in many parts of the world. Wikipedia has some interesting statistics here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_profiteering Here are some more figures but they look like only a partial list and dealing with arms as opposed to other goods and services (so the truth is exponentially more extreme than this): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Companies_by_arms_sales 3. Many companies, war related or not, have and still do sponsor political groups on a mass scale.
companies and individual capitalists may profit but society does not - witness the fact that so many veterans return home traumatized and some resort to violence such as the cop killed in Dallas that is too steep a price to pay for war profiteering
Of course the economy over all does not profit, it is only certain groups within the economy that do.
