Quote of the Day: War fever feeds on ignorance

Ignorance is a primary fuel of nationalism and aggression. Patriotism is the last refuge of scoundrel, as Dr . Johnson observed, and the first platform of fools.

Three professors from Princeton, Dartmouth and Harvard University just did a poll that found only 16% of Americans queried could find Ukraine on the world map. Actually, that’s better than I expected, given American’s notorious geographical illiteracy. Seeing Ukraine’s map on TV every night no doubt helped.

Worryingly, but hardly surprisingly, the poll also found that the further a poll respondent thought Ukraine was from its real location, the more likely he was to support US military intervention in Ukraine. Few Americans could find Iraq (Eye-raq to most), Afghanistan, or Iran (Eye-ran) on the map.

“Let’s get those dirty Commies,” goes the latest wave of war fever to sweep the US, “if we can only find them!” Some respondents put Ukraine in Australia, or South America…

War fever feeds on ignorance. If mobs in Paris had known in August, 1914, that they would die on the mud of Flanders few would have been so eager for war. All sides in World War One mistakenly believed in a short, sweet military victory. The great French voice against the folly of war, Jean Juares, was assassinated by nationalists.

“The proportion of collage grads who could correctly identify Ukraine (20%) is only slightly higher than the proportion of Americans who told Pew (the respected polling outfit) that President Obama was Muslim in August, 2010,” found the Ivy League professors.

About the same percentage of Americans believe that Elvis is still alive, or that an Islamic Caliphate will shortly rule America. Ever since the Bush administration, stupidity and ignorance have become fashionable.

This is from historian Eric Margolis—commenting on the controversial poll published at the Washington Post Blog, where the less Americans know about Ukraine’s location, the greater the desire to intervene—at the LewRockwell.com. 

I find the observation of the relationship between ignorance (which should not be limited to geography) and militancy highly relevant. And this applies everywhere, not just to American's perception to the Ukraine geopolitcal conundrum.

I’ve noticed that for the many who agitate and pine for war are mostly those with hardly any inkling of war’s horrors. Their conception of war seem to emanate from the movies or shows they’ve watched or from games that they have played—as third party or from the audience perspective.  They perhaps expect somebody to do the fighting for and in behalf of them, while like in sport games, they cheer from the sidelines. They hardly seem to grasp that in war, the lives of their treasured family, relatives, friends or their neighbors may be at stake while their homes devastated and ravaged. They also seem to see wars as cost—free (I mean economic aside from social costs).

And mostly the same group usually serve as unwitting instruments or mouthpieces of the major beneficiaries of war: the political class—who pitch the war fever amplified by media to gain popularity via the herding effect to justify the imposition of taxes, inflationism and economic repression in order to expand their control over society and their resources. Wars after all are not only about politics, but about business too.

So the other beneficiaries or the cohorts of the political class are the defense industry and their financiers aside from mainstream media.  And all it takes to push for war is to rile up on the emotions of the unthinking electorates. As a saying goes, if all you have is a (emotional) hammer, everything looks like a nail.

Results of European Elections Points to More Inflationism

From Bloomberg,

Francois Hollande, who defeated French President Nicolas Sarkozy to become the first Socialist in 17 years to control Europe’s second-biggest economy, pledged to push for less austerity and more growth in the region.

“Europe is watching us,” he told supporters in Tulle, France, last night after he won about 52 percent of the vote. “Austerity isn’t inevitable. My mission now is to give European construction a growth dimension.”

Hollande inherits an economy that is barely growing, with jobless claims at their highest in 12 years and a rising debt load that makes France vulnerable to the financial crisis that has rocked the euro region the past two years. Sarkozy became the ninth euro leader to fall in that time and the first French president in more than 30 years to fail to win re-election.

Hollande’s comments were echoed in Greece, where voters flocked to anti-bailout groups, leaving the two main parties, New Democracy and Pasok, a seat short of a majority if they govern together, an Interior Ministry projection showed. His victory may sharpen tensions with key allies with Hollande advocating a more aggressive European Central Bank role in spurring growth -- a measure opposed by Germany.

As I earlier said politics has always been about gross distortions of reality and the manipulation of the public.

There really has been no “austerity” going on in the crisis affected Eurozone economies. Just look at how ECB’s balance sheets have been exploding…

chart from mybudget360.com

As I wrote earlier,

What has been really happening has been a transfer or a redistribution of resources from both the private and the public sectors into the politically privileged banking system. Taxes have been increased or are in the process of being raised to pay for the bailouts of the banks.

In genuine austerity programs, resources would be made available for the productive use of the private sector. This means growth in the private sector relative to a reduction of government expenditures.

So with the so-called “pro-growth anti-austerity” governments in power, the policy options likely to be taken by them will be 1) to stop the bailouts of the banking system and to resume welfare spending or 2) have the ECB finance both the banking system and the welfare state. [As an aside, the pro-growth and or anti-austerity is actually a mislabel, which in reality, should be called “pro-welfare” governments]

Cato’s Dan Mitchell has a fitting description,

the new political parties are pro-bailout. They are quite happy to mooch off German taxpayers, American taxpayers, and anyone else who is stupid enough to send money (after all, somebody has to finance critical functions of government, such as collecting stool samples from people who want to set up online companies and subsidizing pedophiles).

What gets them upset is the notion that they should do anything in exchange for these handouts. Perish the thought!…

And given the current budgetary mess they are into and given the market’s reluctance to finance them, both options imply more reliance on the ECB to backstop their proposed spending.

Said differently, if the pro-welfare governments act to fulfill on their campaign platform promises of more welfare spending, then I expect increased pressure on the ECB to finance their spending splurges. And if the ECB complies, then we are likely to see even more bailouts mostly through inflationism.

Of course I expect the US Federal Reserve to work behind the scenes to assist the ECB as they have done so, like in the recent past.

Also if these governments will insist on imposing policies based on the Santa Claus (Free Lunch) principle, and refuse to see the reality through lens of the law of scarcity, then we may see defaults to occur soon, or if not, the EU may die a natural death either from internal political dissension or hyperinflation.

Worst is that instead of achieving the objectives of an EU integration which in part has been meant to avert perennial wars of the past, more political redistribution will mean more discord that raises the risks of war.

Writes Professor Philipp Bagus

The EMU provokes conflicts between otherwise peacefully cooperating nations. Redistribution is always a potential cause of social stress. The monetary redistribution in the EMU was not understood by the bulk of the population and, thus, did not cause conflicts. The bailouts, the rescue fund, and the interventions of the ECB that were ultimately caused by the setup of the EMU have made the redistribution between countries more obvious.

Myth of War as Political and Economic Solution

Some people here or abroad seem to be agitating for war.

In the Philippines, recent unfortunate incidents over at the Spratlys Islands have prompted some officials to call for increased military spending as countermeasure against alleged provocations by foreign marauders.

As earlier pointed out, suggestions of an ‘arms race’ are foolish because they are not only economically unfeasible but political brinkmanship risks escalation which might lead to undesired consequences that may be baneful for both parties. In addition war spending robs the local economy of productivity and resources which leads to poverty.

Since the Philippines have an existing Mutual Defense treaty with the US, which other nations recognize, then perhaps current incursions by China represents a test of this relationship or has been merely been flexing her brawn in order to flaunt her new hardwares of destruction.

Besides, China’s actions have not shown aggressiveness elsewhere, and to the contrary, has been more investment oriented.

This is unless China’s military and incumbent political leaders have different agendas.

In the US, experts like Dr. Paul Krugman seem to be arguing for increased war spending to bolster the economy. Professor William Anderson quotes Krugman

“If we had the threat of war, had a military buildup, you’d be amazed at how fast this economy would recover.”

For people who view the world in the context of dollar and cents, then this view would seem plausible.

Yet as rightly pointed out by Professor Anderson the US has been waging war on different fronts,

I'm not sure what we call Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, and wherever else the U.S. Armed Forces are shooting people. I think I call it war, and we can see just how good it has been not only for our economy, but also the economies of the lands this government has attacked.

From Google’s Public Data

From Cato.org

In relative terms, the US has the largest share of military spending in the world and has continuously outspent the world. And this has been growing trend since 2000 (obviously post 9/11).

So has increased war spending or other forms of government spending been boosting the US economy? Unfortunately not.

From Dan Mitchell

War as a demand booster is a myth.

Henry Hazlitt in his must read classic Economics in One Lesson debunked this fallacious dollar and cents view based on ‘aggregates’.

The great Mr. Hazlitt, (italics original)

Now there is a half-truth in the "backed-up" demand fallacy, just as there was in the broken-window fallacy. The broken window did make more business for the glazier. The destruction of war will make more business for the producers of certain things. The destruction of houses and cities will make more business for the building and construction industries. The inability to produce automobiles, radios, and refrigerators during the war will bring about a cumulative post-war demand for those particular products.

To most people this will seem like an increase in total demand, as it may well be in terms of dollars of lower purchasing power. But what really takes place is a diversion of demand to these particular products from others

In wars, it is not just the diversion of resources from productive to consumptive activities, which brings about a lower standard of living, but the intangible costs from losses of human lives (capital)! Death from war or disasters or any form of destruction cannot serve as economic boosters.

Those who argue for war do so either because they know someone else will do the dying for them or have not envisioned of the brutalities of a real war.

Maybe this is part of what historian Arnold Toynbee calls as the “Generational Cycle in the transmission of a social heritage”.

Dr. Marc Faber quotes Toynbee,

The survivors of a generation that has been of military age during a bout of war will be shy, for the rest of their lives, of bringing a repetition of this tragic experience either upon themselves or upon their children, and... therefore the psychological resistance of any move towards the breaking of a peace ....is likely to be prohibitively strong until a new generation.... has had the time to grow up and to come into power. On the same showing, a bout of war, once precipitated, is likely to persist until the peace-bred generation that has been lightheartedly run into war has been replaced, in its turn, by a war-worn generation'

In short, the lack of exposure to war whets the desire for war.

Here is a suggestion: Dr. Krugman and all his ilk and his followers (including Filipino politicians and their adherents), who yearn for war for whatever reasons, should go to the front line, instead of getting ensconced in the proverbial ‘ivory towers’, and bring their family along with them.

If you want war, go fight them yourself!