The Profitability of War

Photo by Alexander Schimmeck on Unsplash

If you ask any famous politician or representative of a well-respected organization how they feel about any given war occurring, they would be stunned. Stunned at the question, stunned at the bluntness, and stunned about what you could possibly be insinuating. Oftentimes, they would respond with a good old rehearsed line about the unfortunate collateral loss of protecting “good old American freedom.” Unfortunately, the statistics of these major companies, such as Boeing or Rolls Royce, reveal that these renowned corporations are likely not as saddened by the continuity of war as the general population is.

While thousands of veteran lives were being lost in Afghanistan with the War on Terrorism, corporations profited; Lockheed Martin, for example, enjoyed a 1,235.60 return on investment. However, some supporters of the free market and capitalistic business practices may misunderstand the implications of these numbers and wonder what is so wrong about an American company supporting patriotic efforts overseas. After all, it appears that they merely take advantage of the situation and have no influence. Apart from the complete disregard of morality profiting off lives entails, the trouble lies in the fact that these corporations can control influential politicians in the US House of Representatives and Senate through Political Action Committees (PACs). Business PACs are entities funded by their own employees that allow corporations to spend unlimited amounts of money on campaigns. Though they can not contribute to campaigns directly, they are allowed to cover most of the expenses incurred by their PAC through direct corporate funding, like administrative costs, creating incentives for employees to fund, and more. Some top PAC contributors consist of Pfizer, Home Depot, and Comcast, with 99% of their spending going to political contributions. Through the enormous amount of spending, these such entities can push out politicians that do not reflect their interests, and influence the ones they helped put on the office. Thus, there is potential to steer decision making and resourcing of the military towards their own benefit. The fact that these multi-billion dollar captains of the industry have the capacity to influence politicians so significantly, and that it can be done legally and often, is problematic, especially since they have the ability to steer the course of the country towards their own interests and allow them to benefit from wars and thousands of lives lost for their own corporate gain.

Although capitalism is arguably the most successful economic system in the world, and protects the right to individualism, the idea of the top 1% benefitting from the death of thousands remains shocking. It all comes down to this: does a robust economy excuse the profitable loss of American lives?