Sors: Inequality.org
We denizens of the 21st century have become somewhat accustomed — inured might be the better word — to the murderous mass violence of modern warfare. We shouldn’t find that at all surprising. The 20th century that gave most of us birth, after all, rati bħala l-aktar seklu fatali fl-istorja tal-bniedem. Aktar minn 75 miljun ruħ mietu fit-Tieni Gwerra Dinjija biss. Miljuni oħra mietu fi gwerer “żgħar” minn dakinhar, inklużi kważi kwart ta’ miljun li miet during the 20 years of the U.S. military war in and on Afghanistan.
But for our forbears, back in the early decades of the 20th century, the incredible deadliness of modern warfare came as something of a shock. The carnage of World War I — with its 40 million dead — left people worldwide searching for new international arrangements that could prevent any repeat of modern war’s horror. The Paris Peace Conference of 1919 launched the League of Nations and sparked a series of additional global parleys. The Washington Disarmament Conference of 1922. The Geneva Arms Control Conference of 1925. The Geneva Disarmament Conference of 1927. In 1928, the world’s top nations even signed an agreement that irrinunzjaw għall-gwerra bħala strument tal-politika nazzjonali.
All these steps would prove hopelessly inadequate to the task at hand. By the mid-1930s the world was swimming in a weapons-of-war sea, and people still reeling from World War I — the “Great War” — wanted to know why. In the United States, peace-seekers would “follow the money” to find out. Many of America’s moguls, they soon realized, were getting ever richer off prepping for war. These “merchants of death” — the era’s strikingly vivid label for war profiteers — had a vested interest in perpetuating the sorts of arms races that make wars more likely. America needed, millions of Americans believed, to take the profit out of war.
Fuq Capitol Hill, il-maġġoranza tas-Senat Demokratiku waqqfet kumitat speċjali biex jinvestiga l-industrija tal-munizzjon u semmiet Repubblikan progressiv, Gerald Nye ta’ North Dakota, biex jippresiedih. "Gwerra u tħejjija għall-gwerra," Nye innota fit-twaqqif tal-panel fl-1934, ftit kellu x’jaqsam jew ma’ “unur nazzjonali” jew “difiża nazzjonali.” Il-gwerra kienet saret “kwistjoni taʼ qligħ għall-ftit.”
The tag “merchants of death” has long since disappeared from our American political lexicon. But the problem Nye named remains. Our contemporary corporate moguls are continuing to get rich off the preparations that make wars more likely and massively multiply death counts when the actual shooting starts. America’s longest war — the war in Afghanistan — offers but the latest example.
We won’t know for some time the total haul of our corporate executive class off the Afghan war’s twenty years. But Institute for Policy Studies analysts Brian Wakamo and Sarah Anderson have come up with some initial calculations for three of the top Department of Defense contractors active in Afghanistan over the 2016-2020 years.
The total compensation for the CEOs at these three corporate giants — Fluor, Raytheon, and Boeing — amounted to $236 million.
The overall personal haul for our current-day “merchants of death” from the carnage in Afghanistan? We would need a modern-day special congressional committee to get at that number, partly because many of the enterprises facilitating death and destruction remain privately held and need not release the annual executive pay figures that publicly traded companies must release.
Bord modern ta 'profil għoli dwar il-profitt tal-gwerra jista' ma jkunx idea ħażina. Membri tal-Kungress ta' dak il-bord jistgħu jibdew ix-xogħol tagħhom billi jirrevedu l- 1936 konklużjonijiet tal-"Kumitat Speċjali dwar l-Investigazzjoni tal-Industrija tal-Munizzjonijiet" oriġinali tas-Senat.
Il-kumpaniji tal-munizzjonijiet, sab dak il-kumitat, sfruttaw "opportunitajiet biex jintensifikaw il-biżgħat tan-nies għall-ġirien tagħhom u użawhom għall-profitt tagħhom." Huma qabbdu u aggravaw it-tiġrijiet għall-armi billi kontinwament jistinkaw biex “jibżgħu n-nazzjonijiet f’nefqa sfrenata kontinwa għall-aħħar titjib fl-apparat tal-gwerra.”
“Il-gwerer,” fil-qosor il-panel tas-Senat, “rari jkollhom kawża waħda,” iżda tmur “kontra l-paċi tad-dinja biex organizzazzjonijiet interessati b’mod egoist jitħallew liberi li jqanqlu u jbeżżgħu lin-nazzjonijiet f’attività militari.”
Do these conclusions still hold water for us today, a new special committee could ask, and, if they do, what can we do to remedy the situation?
Some members of the original Senate panel apparently wanted to nationalize what we now call the “defense industry.” That didn’t happen, and today’s complex of military contractors dwarfs the size of the merchants-of-death network that Americans faced back in the 1930s.
Our Pentagon and military, Lindsay Koshgarian of the National Priorities Project jirrimarka, currently “take up more than half of the discretionary federal budget each year,” and over half that spending goes to military contractors. Most of these contractors, iżid Heidi Peltier, id-direttur tal-inizjattiva “20 Years of War” fiċ-Ċentru Pardee tal-Università ta’ Boston, essenzjalment topera bħala monopolji. Il-profitti eċċessivi li l-istatus jgħinhom jaħtfu qed iwessgħu l-inugwaljanza ewlenija tal-Amerika: il-president eżekuttiv ta’ Lockheed Martin, fl-aħħar għadd, qed tagħmel $30.9 miljun fis-sena.
In 2020, execs at Lockheed and four other contracting giants — Boeing, Northrop Grumman, Raytheon, and General Dynamics — spent $60 million on lobbying to keep their gravy train going. Over the past two decades, the Center for Responsive Politics rapporti, l-industrija tad-difiża b'mod ġenerali nefqet $ 2.5 biljun fuq lobbying "biex tinfluwenza l-politika tad-difiża" u dderiediet $ 285 miljun oħra lil kandidati politiċi ħbiberija biex jikkuntrattaw negozju bħas-soltu.
Kif nistgħu nħarbtu dak in-negozju bħas-soltu? Tnaqqis tad-daqs of the military budget can get us started. Contracting out fewer necessary functions — keeping defense work in-house — and reforming the contracting process itself will also be essential.
But executive pay needs to be right at the heart of that reforming. No corporate execs dealing in military matters should have a huge personal stake in ballooning federal spending for war.
Ir-regolamenti attwali dwar il-kuntratti tal-gvern federali tillimita how much executives can grab directly in salary from the cash their companies pocket for contract work. But corporate execs don’t particularly mind these limits since they get the overwhelming bulk of their total compensation from their stock-based rewards, not their salaries.
Ir-Rep Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) u l-Kucus Progressiv tal-Kungress għandhom approċċ aħjar. Tagħhom proposti ġodda Patriotic Corporations Act would, among numerous other promising provisions, give extra points in contract bidding to firms that pay their top execs no more than 100 times what they pay their most typical workers.
Few defense giants these days come anywhere close to that 100-times ratio. At Raytheon, for instance, the chief exec last year miġbud 'l isfel 193 times the pay of the company’s most typical worker — and that relatively “modest” gap, by U.S. corporate standards, came only after the Raytheon CEO took a temporary Covid-time pay haircut!
Sam Pizzigati jikko-editja Inequality.org. L-aħħar kotba tiegħu jinkludu Il-Ka] għal Paga Massima u, Is-sinjuri Mhux Dejjem Jirbħu: It-Trijonf Minsi fuq il-Plutokrazija li Ħoloq il-Klassi Nofsani Amerikana, 1900-1970. Segwih fuq @Too_Much_Online.
ZNetwork huwa ffinanzjat biss permezz tal-ġenerożità tal-qarrejja tiegħu.
DonateRelated postijiet
Nru postijiet relatati.