Thursday, December 30, 2010

"[M]y point wasn’t that GDP and military spending are unrelated in an 'is' sense, but that they are unrelated in an 'ought' sense. There is no logical connection between a country’s GDP and what it should be spending on the military, so when the neocons bleat about the need for military spending to be 4% of GDP, they are being the deceivers they are by nature."

~Thomas Woods from the LRC blog, 12/30/2010

To which I responded to Dr. Woods:

The neocons know 4% of GDP far exceeds the level of military spending that would be required were the U.S. to pursue a non-interventionist foreign policy. Citing an arbitrary figure keeps the question of foreign entanglements off the radar screen, thereby enabling them to brand a statesman like Ron Paul a crackpot for even raising it.

C. Wright Mills would call the neocons Crackpot Realists. The Realistic Realists are those who understand the U.S. is going broke playing globocop and should pursue instead the maniacally sensible policy of protecting actual Americans on actual American soil from actual foreign attack.

Hoppe, however, says we should expect nothing less from a monopoly provider of national defense. The trend is for the monopolist to deliver less and less service (q.v., 9/11) at a higher and higher price (q.v., ever increasing “defense” budgets). Foreign entanglements will end when national defense is privatized. No private defense company could turn a profit in a free market charging the premiums required to fund perpetual war and a worldwide military empire.

To which Dr. Woods responded, "Right."

Labels:

0 Comments:

Post a Comment

<< Home