Comments Jonathan M Feldman has made

Cutting the Military Budget and Political Reality

http://www.counterpunch.org/feldman08232008.html

Dear Colleagues,

I have covered this in my recent article (cited above), but there is so much confusion about this issue that it warrants some special attention. It is important to cut the military budget to fund environmental security and divert resources into new technologies, etc.  The military is a big polluter also in case no one has noticed.  Wars are not good for human health. In Africa, about 5 million or more have died from war-related causes in the post-war era.  War is a big environmental problem because it does damage to the environment of peoples' bodies/families/homes.

Country and Year   
Estimated Total War Deaths   

Sudan (Anya Nya rebellion) 1963-73    250,000-750,000   

Nigeria (Biafra)1967-1970   
500,000-2 million     

Angola 1975-2002   
1.5 million     

Sudan 1983-2002   
2 million   

Democratic Republic Congo 1998-2001   
2.5 million   

Source: Bethany Lacina and Nils Petter Gleditsch, "Monitoring Trends in Global Combat: A New Dataset of Battle Deaths," European Journal of Population, Vol. 21, 2005: 145-166.

The US is not necessarily to blame for this, but the money the US does not spend on a more coherent international relations system is to blame. Also, the U.S. exports a lot of weapons which contributes to the cycle of violence (as do the Russians).

Anyway, some key points:

First, this idea that more military spending gives us more security as a result is simply a lie.  The US spends a lot on the military, but on 9-11 this did not protect the biggest city in New York.  What gives?  You can say that politically many believe in the lie.  But, why is that so?
This brings me to point two.

Second, the groups usually "in charge of" making the military budget smaller and often mis-guided in how they do what they do. They have not had an easy time under Bush as you have noted.  But, they have not been so smart in leveraging their resources (see my article that is linked at the end of the cited one above, i.e. http://www.counterpunch.org/feldman01082008.html.

Third, the idea that it is politically impossible to cut the military question begs the question.  The real question is how do you win the fight to cut the military budget. Please consider that one needs new international relations agreements. Please check out President Kennedy's speech on all this (cited in the article above).  

Fourth, delaying the military budget question will create massive obstacles for the sustainability cause.  If environmentalists are indifferent to this fight because they think the environment is a bigger problem, then how do you deal with the: (a) budget deficit and rhetoric around that and (b) the 3 trillion dollar Iraq War as bottlenecks to SPENDING AT THE RATE YOU NEED MONEY SPENT for alternative means of sustainable production and technology and transport?  50 billion won't cut it even if it is a good start.

Fifth and finally, if there is any one out there who is in the advertising business, I can point out how to create advertisements which could be broadcast to point out all these necessary connections, e.g. start with running soundbites from Kennedy's speech. Show the budget trade offs   caused by Iraq.  Show how the South can produce bombs but lacks water, etc. etc. etc. That is a no-brainer.  As for Al Qaeda and Kennedy not being around for that...well, consider how the Iraq war has worsened the terrorist threat according to US intelligence agencies and run some advertisements about that.On Output-based carbon regulations ignore critical types of efficiency posted 1 year, 3 months ago 21 Responses

Economic Conversion

This is really the missing issue in the elections.
What we need is a political process to make it a reality.  Something between the Democratic Party (which with a few notable exceptions has done nothing much about it in recent times) and a Third Party (which has pluses and minuses):
http://counterpunch.com/feldman01082008.htmlOn Converting the permanent military economy to a green economy posted 1 year, 9 months ago 41 Responses

The "Free" Market?

I think some of why Mr. Avent says makes sense, but I don't quite understand this argument about the free market.

Much of the market is already planned.

First, take a look at the history of the "Gunbelt" in the United States (see the book, "The Rise of the Gunbelt").  Military location was dictated by politics and somewhat by the attempts to gain access to cheap labor and land, but often by location in Congressional districts with powerful politicians.  The organization of military firms and the subsidies to military (and increasingly biotech) firms each are guided by federal R&D procurement and R&D choices.  This means that politics will influence location decisions.

Second, the highway system was subsidized by the state, helping to decentralize or scatter residences.

Third, if you really think the market works well, see the film, "Who Killed the Electric Car?" or "Walmart: The High Cost of Low Price."  The former shows the devastating policies of ill advised corporate planners and government regulators.  The latter how low prices help devastate communities and workers.

Fourth, the idea that a badly planned state is the alternative to free markets is really a straw man that we can easily dispense with.  I don't think Jon Rynn is talking about that.  The issue is rather that government and firms can both be badly or well planned. More on that later.On We don't need to destroy our economy to save the planet posted 2 years ago 79 Responses

Connect the Dots

I agree, but please consult my article where I explain why the dots are NOT connected more often than not!

Regards, Jonathan

http://www.counterpunch.org/feldman05262007.html
On Stopping global warring and global warming posted 2 years, 1 month ago 16 Responses

Spin Offs: Don't Focus on Military Innovation

Military spin offs are usually measured incorrectly because many economists and innovation theorists have not figured out how to do it properly.  

Let us start with the idea of "opportunity costs."
These have to include the actual use of weapons systems, not just the domestic or national spill overs from military technologies weighed against their diversionary impacts on the domestic economy.

For every weapons system developed and used, the costs of the actual use, e.g. bombing Iraq or Afghanistan, killing civilians and infrastructure, has to be weighted economically. This usually does NOT happen.  It did not happen among most economists making the macroeconomic benefits argument whom I met at a conference on defense economics I attended a few years ago in Paris.

Next, we have to measure not just the positive gains of military technologies against the positive losses, but we also have to consider the reasons why spin offs do NOT happen.  In my academic articles I have shown that the power of military interests within the firm, can block the extent of spin offs because the military interests and their development criteria (and criteria for what should be developed and their claim on resources within the firm) are favored at the expense of civilian interests and innovators.

I will now quote from my article in this summer's Social Text special issue on militarism:

"Military Keynesianism has been used to keep the U.S. economy stimulated, but any 'macroeconomic gains' have been accompanied by harsh economic costs. While the military economy may promote innovation in key sectors, there is no guarantee that manufacturing (and eventually engineering and design) jobs created by such innovations will remain in the United States.44 For example, while military procurement contributed to the development and growth of the U.S. aerospace sector, it is far from clear that military subsidy of the sector guarantees domestic growth and U.S. jobs. The increasing limit to military contributions to the aerospace market is graphically demonstrated by the following startling statistic: 'in the future 70 percent of Boeing's new 787 will be manufactured offshore primarily in China and Japan.'45"

For footnotes, go to the original article.

Those hoping to use the military to support environmental technologies will be supporting military claims to resources and the military parts of defense firms against the civilian firms and civilian parts of firms trying to develop environmental technologies.  

It is possible to convert or diversify defense firms to support civilian environmental technologies. To do so, requires civilian industrial policies that shrink and eliminate the military parts of production.

Are their military to civilian spill overs? Yes, of course there are.  Is a policy of using military firms and technology in and of itself the best way to support environmental technology development? No.  Most successful diversification and military development of civilian technology or technology with civilian applications depends on partnership with civilian firms as my research has shown.

There are some exceptions to this pattern, e.g. when the military develops a technology before there is a civilian equivalent (see Feldman, 1998 below).  Yet, in this case, without civilian oversight, power and control the larger project would not have been successful.  In the case of computers, we have a huge government subsidy that could have easily been directed to civilian firms.  Past a certain stage, computer technology has been dominated by civilian firms anyway, e.g. Microsoft.

The idea that we should entrust the military industrial complex to develop environmental technologies would be a huge mistake.  The military industrial complex has had trouble even developing weapons systems.  Imagine the problems that they would have developing environmental technologies, if the process began and ended with their power, authority and expertise.

REFERENCES (Articles by Jonathan M. Feldman, Selective List)

BOOK CHAPTERS

"Industrial Conversion: A Linchpin for Disarmament and Development." Chapter 12 in Dimensions of Peace and Security: A Reader, Gustaaf Geeraerts, Natalie Pauwels and Eric Remacle, eds. Brussels: Peter Lang, 2006.

"The Conversion of Defense Engineers' Skills: Explaining Success and Failure Through Customer-Based Learning, Teaming and Managerial Integration." Chapter 18 in The Defense Industry in the Post-Cold War Era: Corporate Strategy and Public Policy Perspectives, Gerald I. Susman and Sean O'Keefe, eds. Oxford: Elsevier Science, 1998.

JOURNAL ARTICLES

"From Warfare State to `Shadow State': Militarism, Economic Depletion and Reconstruction," Social Text, 91, Volume 25, Number 22, Summer, 2007.

Co-authored, "Medium-Sized firms and the Limits to Growth: A Case Study in the Evolution of a Spin-Off Firm," , European Planning Studies, Volume 8, Number 5, 2000.

"Extending Disarmament Through Economic Democracy," Peace Review, "Workplace Democracy," Summer Issue, May, Volume 12, Number 2, 2000.

"Civilian diversification, learning, and institutional change: growth through knowledge and power," Environment and Planning A, Volume 31, Number 10, October, 1999.
On Shellenberger & Nordhaus respond to critics posted 2 years, 1 month ago 23 Responses

Fear and Environmentalism

This point about fear is a bit of a "red herring" because if Americans really feared global warming they would have addressed their reliance on gas guzzling automobiles, the distance between work and home, the ecocide of wars, etc. a long time ago.  The real problems rather are "denial" as Robert J. Lifton has argued and the inability to break through and expose a culture of nationalistic waste and self-indulgence.  Granted, the U.S. is divided on such questions, but there are very powerful interests that sustain these identities.  Fear is not sufficient for overcoming the problem, but complacency won't do either.On Fear and environmentalism: more posted 2 years, 3 months ago 2 Responses

"Rights" and Orwellian Language

"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness"
-- Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776

There is a basic problem in the contemporary discussions of rights.  A basic principle in democracy has been taken over by technocratic policy think, namely the concept of "emissions rights."  This legal innovation has begun to concept the most basic ideas of American society namely the right to "life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."  This idea of the right to life from the U.S. Declaration of Independence includes the right to maintain one's life which is being violated by polluters.  

When polluters are given the "right to pollute" they are potentially violating the "right to life."  Thus, emissions "rights" have are not exclusively a question of markets, but a question of politics as well.  Citizens in Western Europe and increasingly the developing world recognize that the U.S. uses far more energy than its share of the world population and also disproportionately contributes to global warming and other environmental ills.  Therefore, treating the right to emissions and market solutions as some kind of "internal" U.S. debate misses the larger problem which is whether the "right to pollute" that is traded within the U.S. violates the rights not only of U.S. citizens, but citizens elsewhere.

This does not mean that government is always more efficient or productive than markets.  The Soviet case, however, pointed to the limits of a centralized state which we also have in the Pentagon as Jon Rynn and others have noted.  Rather, independently of the efficiency of markets, if companies are more efficient or productive by violating my or your rights to life free from health reducing pollution, then efficiencies are irrelevant.

The increasingly technocratic education that some get in policy schools, economics departments, and engineering  programs probably explains why some people can go on about "rights" and assume that it only refers to the "right" to pollute.

Note: Try re-reading or reading the Declaration of Independence.On Reversing Reagan's joke posted 2 years, 3 months ago 12 Responses

Government and Markets

First, "picking winners" and whether the government can do this or not and "regulation" and whether the government should do this or not are separate questions.  So I don't understand a lot of the celebration of markets some people are in engaged in.  

Second, whether the market or government does a good or bad job depends on accountability structures.  With respect to the government, voting power is more decentralized and distributed than stock ownership.   As a result, the government should be associated with somewhat more accountability, even though elected officials can be bought off.

Third, if ownership were more distributed, then corporations might better serve environmental concerns, particularly if owners were potential victims of environmental "externalities," e.g. pollution.  Ownership and not markets might be the problem, but markets themselves have not solved the global warming problem.

Fourth, if the government or markets fail, we need to explore how they can succeed better.  Social scientists rarely ask such questions, because then they would have to worry about how organizations are designed, alternatives in design, and this kind of stuff is rarely taught well if at all.  Our politicians and many academics know nothing about it.

In any case, I agree with Rynn.On Reversing Reagan's joke posted 2 years, 3 months ago 12 Responses