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The U.S. Can Afford a Bigger Military. We Just Can’t Build It. (www.wsj.com)

submitted 11 months ago by yogthos@lemmygrad.ml to c/us_news@lemmygrad.ml

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[–] supersolid_snake@lemmygrad.ml 39 points 11 months ago* (last edited 11 months ago) (1 children)

It's not that the US can't afford it, they can't not afford it, the entire western economic system is built on exploitation. It's subduing people and taking their shit, including their labor for cheap. It knows no other way. So it may not be able to afford war, but even more so, it can't afford not to do war.

It's stuck unless it changes its economic system.

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 42 points 11 months ago (3 children)

That's all true, but the immediate issue for the west is that it's now largely deindustrialized and isn't able to keep up industrially even with Russia, let alone China. This is not a problem that has any clear solution either. Building out an industrial base requires huge up front investment, it requires an education system that can produce the workers, and engineers who would build it, it needs a huge long term commitment from the government, and so on. None of these things are possible under the current political and economic system that the west champions.

[–] usernamesaredifficul@hexbear.net 31 points 11 months ago (1 children)

extremely critical support to Thatcher Reagan and Pinochet in their ongoing campaign to destroy the west

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 18 points 11 months ago

😄

[–] ihaveibs@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 11 months ago (1 children)

It also would require giving labor a lot more power which is a major contradiction with neoliberalism

[–] yogthos@lemmygrad.ml 19 points 11 months ago

Exactly, depriving labour of power was the major drive behind the neoliberal globalism push.

[–] supersolid_snake@lemmygrad.ml 16 points 11 months ago

I agree with everything you are saying. We are on the same page here. I am also saying that they are utterly devoted to the mode of economics that is based on exploitation and that can only go on for so long. They need a long term commitment to change that but without a complete change in mindset and mode of economics, they need conflict and that is not as successful anymore vs the Victorian era.