RE-ARMING AMERICA J t h h " a W e p p h U e a n n t i t w e t i d o ll States If the Industries that manufacture semiconductors, micro-processors, and computers are forced out of business while the nation is busy rearming Itself? What good does It do us to - world in missile production if we ore at the same time being defeated In toasters?" by Earl Klee “The old Is dying and the new cannot be born; In this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear." Antonio Gramsci The New Reality A A orbid symptoms seem to ■ > ■ abound in national politics these days. Having successfully garnered only 26% of the eligible vote, the Reagan Administration has embarked on an attempt to remake American Society in a hard, regressive image. The abject complicity of most Democrats only lends an air of respectability to such trends. While playing to the populace with pseudo-populist rhetoric about limiting the size of government and bureaucracy, what is emerging is an ever-more centralized corporatemilitary state. We live in a “society of the spectacle.” Images, personalities, symbols, the battle between “good people” and “bad ones,” the trivia of daily life raised to inane heights by the mass media...all this threatens to submerge serious thought. The rather ghoulish figure of a James Watt or an Alexander Haig could easily become the Richard Nixon of the 1980s. But we have to look beyond these too easy targets to the real forces at work. What are the deeper structural trends and what do they mean for our lives? The current administration is not so much conservative as rabidly reactionary. For example, federal funding for urban mass transit will be eliminated over a period of years. Hence more cars, higher gas prices and more poisonous air. Even more symptomatic, the budget for energy conservation has been dried up. Recent studies have shown that we could save as much as 40% or more of our energy resources through intelligent conservation. But this will only be successful with government pressure, not simply private goodwill. Despite current myopia, the era of cheap energy, conspicuous waste and unchallenged American hegemony to enforce it is over. But right now, foresight itself threatens to be seen as subversive. The massive slashes in social services and the amazingly regressive tax cut signal a new direction for corporate capitalism in America. Once we dissolve all the mystifying talk about monetarism and supply side economics, what we can clearly see is a major transference of wealth upwards. Through increased investment, the wealthy are expected magically to create more jobs and economic opportunity. As ideology these notions are a bold excuse for class privilege. Public squalor and private affluence might easily become the dominant tone of our society. The welfare state—the belief that the state has a prime responsibility to provide social services and maintain a certain quality of life for its citizens—seems foreign to our individualistically tuned ears. In a peculiar way we remain an underdeveloped society. We are the only industrial society without a system of national health care. Our existing “private,” fee-for-service system (which relies heavily on government subsidy) has recently been named as the third leading cause of bankruptcy in America. Our pension system—Social Security—is barely a food-rent allowance for many, and is based on the most regressive tax in our whole fiscal arsenal. Because they are not profitmaking, our railroads have been allowed to deteriorate. In Britain, France, Germany and Japan, despite lack of profits, the railroads are maintained, service improves and the trains grow more sophisticated. They recognize that good trains take pressure off the highways and constitute a necessary social service. Perhaps this could best be summed up by noting that we spend under 10% of our Gross National Product on social needs whereas in Sweden (whatever her problems) one quarter of their GNP is spent this way. The true American welfare state was and is contained within the common phrase—the militaryindustrial complex. Defense spending offers us the best clue as to where Reaganomics is going to take us, and the eventual contradictions which will emerge to erode its domination. The New Military State rhe Reagan regime is implementing a redirection of a good part of our national resources toward defense spending. The current high defense budget of $178 billion is scheduled to more than double by 1986 to $368 billion. And these figures are understated. They do not include the inevitable cost overruns nor the secret CIA or Department of Energy budgets (where the nuclear warhead and related technology development is done). No peacetime defense build-up like it has ever been seen. To compare, during the Vietnam war build-up of 1965-70, defense spending rose over $24 billion (adjusted for inflation, the equivalent of $59 billion today). The current slated build-up is three times this size. In concrete terms, there will be thousands of new missiles and several kinds of new nuclear warheads. More than 500 jet fighters. A multi-billion dollar new manned bomber system. A $3.5 billion nuclear aircraft carrier. More than 7,000 tanks at $2.7 million each. $2.5 billion for the rapid deployment force, designed for quick military intervention. If all this isn’t enough, there is the MX missile system which will materialize in some form. What are the domestic implications of all this? In the most basic economic terms we are choosing a form of consumption which is both extremely wasteful and inflationary. This comes at a time when the American economy is sputtering, wracked with stagflation and operating with massive trade deficits. The standard of living in several European countries is now higher than ours. Technological innovation is no longer an American province. In electronics, steel and automobile production, the Japanese and Germans are making products clearly superior to our own. Not having the destructive drain of high defense expenditures (in fact, the Germans are decreasing defense allocations), 30 Clinton St. Quarterly Illustration by Steve Sandstrom
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