Fernando Alcoforado*
This article aims to demonstrate the connection between capitalism and the war economy existing in the great capitalist powers that materialized throughout history from the 1st Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. Nowadays, the connection between capitalism and the war economy practiced by the great capitalist powers is increasingly evident as indispensable for understanding the games of interests that influence the dynamics of the world capitalist system. The symbiotic relationship between the current capitalist economic model and war is quite evident [1]. The war economy that was adopted only in times of armed conflict has become permanent. The great beneficiaries of current war capitalism are, in addition to the war industry, due to the increase in demand for weapons and ammunition, also the financial system.
High investments in the war sector provide opportunities to obtain high profits from the war industry and the financial system, not only during periods of war, but also after each conflict. The great powers act as mediators between the military-industrial complex and financial capital. The great powers act as financiers and consumers of armaments production. To this end, it will look to private rentier capital for huge credits to be spent on weapons, which contributes to the growth of parasitic capital and, consequently, to its appreciation. Furthermore, war is an inexorable means for the maintenance and expansion of power by great powers. Conflicts, such as the world wars (1st and 2nd), the Cold War and the countless conflicts that occurred from the 18th century to the contemporary era, are intrinsically linked to the logic of capital accumulation to benefit the armaments industry and the financial system.
In his work, Canhões e Capitalismo (Cannons and Capitalism) [2[, Robert Kurz, one of Germany’s most prominent philosophers, now deceased, states that the innovation of firearms destroyed pre-capitalist forms of domination, sealing the fate of the mounted armies dressed in armor of the medieval period. Firearms, especially large cannons, could no longer be produced in small workshops like bladed or thrown weapons during the Middle Ages. Therefore, a specific armaments industry developed, which produced cannons and muskets in large factories. At the same time, a new military defense architecture emerged, in the form of gigantic bastions that were supposed to resist cannonades. This led to an innovative dispute between offensive and defensive weapons and an arms race between States, which persists to this day.
Robert Kurz states that firearms profoundly altered the structure of armies. That is why the military organization of society separated from the civil one. Instead of citizens mobilized case by case for campaigns or local lords with their armed families, “permanent armies” emerged, the “armed forces” were born as a specific social group, and the army became a foreign body in society. Officership has become a modern “profession”. Alongside this new military organization and new warfare techniques, the number of armies also grew dramatically. The arms industry, the arms race and the maintenance of permanently organized armies, divorced from civil society and at the same time with strong growth, necessarily led to a radical subversion of the economy [2].
The large military complex disconnected from society required a “permanent war economy”. This new economy of death spread like a pall over the agrarian structures of ancient medieval societies [2]. The economy of death is manifested in the fact that the 20th century has throughout history been the century of wars when ten million people were killed in the First World War, fifty-five million in the Second World War and two million in the Indochina wars. All “megadeaths” that occurred since 1914 reached a total of 187 million deaths by the end of the 20th century. Since the end of the Second World War, the world has known 160 wars in which around 7 million soldiers and 30 million civilians died.
Robert Kurz also states that armaments and the army had to be supplied with large resources and began to depend on the mediation of money. Commodity production and monetary economy as basic elements of capitalism gained momentum in the early modern era through the military and weapons economy. The permanent financial lack of the war economy led, in civil society, to the increase of usurious and commercial capitalists, large savers and war financiers. In order to finance the armaments industries, the gigantic armies and the war, the national States had to extort even the blood of their population and this, corresponding to the matter, in an equally new form: in place of the old taxes in kind, taxation monetary. The war economy forced not only directly, but also indirectly, the market economy system [2].
Robert Kurz also highlights the fact that Western democracies are incapable of hiding the fact that they are heirs to the military and arms dictatorship of the beginning of modernity in the 18th century with the total monetary economy and the war economy linked to it until today. At no time in the history of humanity, no society has ever allocated such a large portion of its resources to armaments and the army as is done in the contemporary era. The positive achievements of modernity itself were the heir of firearms and weapons production at the beginning of modernity in the 18th century. The dizzying capitalist development of the productive forces since the First Industrial Revolution also occurred in a destructive way. Neoliberalism is an early child of cannons, as demonstrated by the gigantic armament of “Reaganomics” with the policy of the Reagan administration in the United States, which included the dizzying increase in defense spending among other measures, and the history of the 1990s.
The war economy, which is synonymous with the economy of death, will maintain the disturbing legacy of modern society founded on the market economy until kamikaze capitalism destroys itself [2]. There is no doubt that the arms industry sponsors current wars as it promoted other wars in the past to make money. The record production of weapons, increasingly lethal and surgical, needs to be put to work in practice. Here, the State starts to act in a continuous and systematic way in the dynamics of the system itself, overlapping its political and economic functions, therefore becoming the main agent capable of enabling the development of the war industry through the creation of investment flows constants, which are directly related to the financialization of capital. In this way, there is a symbiosis between the great powers, financial capital and the industrial-military complex. The great powers function as a support element, as a financier and buyer of this industrial-military complex, behaving as a mediator between it and financial capital.
Of the 10 largest weapons manufacturers in the world, six are North American, five of which are leaders in the global arms industry [3] as shown in Table 1 below:
Table 1- The 10 companies that sold the most weapons in 2020
Figure 1 presents the largest military expenditures in the world by country [4]. The United States had the highest military expenditure in the world (39% of the total) in 2021.
Figure 1- The largest military expenditures in the world by country
Figure 2 shows actual US military spending as a percentage of GDP compared to recognized defense spending and closely related SIPRI data from 2007 to 2022 [5]. Over the entire period, real military spending (increased NIPA) as a percentage of GDP averaged 6.7%. In 2022, US defense spending accounted for 6% of GDP.
Figure 2- United States military spending as a percentage of GDP
Taking into account the ten countries with the highest military spending in the world in 2022, the United States based on its actual military spending as shown here, represents more than 70% of the world’s total spending which differs from the 39% shown in Figure 1 that would be underestimated [5].
With 102 wars under its belt, the United States is probably one of the countries most involved in military actions in the world, which began with the annexation of Mexican land to its territory and the conquest of the Panama Canal. It is no coincidence that the United States is one of the countries most benefited economically from armed clashes, as the largest arms exporters in the world are North Americans. In addition to the sale of ammunition and weapons, the United States also monetizes with security contracts and military training, which means that many members of the US Congress understand wars as a machine for generating jobs internally and making money. Peace, for the United States, could cost it dearly. It is these facts that lead many to question the real motivation of the United States in defending Ukraine, which has been in a state of tension with Russia for years, and in defending Israel, which has been in permanent conflict with the Palestinians and Arab countries for decades. In the 21st century, preparation for war has become more central to the world capitalist system than ever before. It is evident that, as long as there is a weapons industry in the world, wars will continue to proliferate across the planet. Peace in the world will only happen when there is a cessation of weapons manufacturing in the world, the end of the arms industry and the disarmament of all countries.
REFERENCES
1. MARTINS, Caio, PASSOS, Heitor, INOMATO, Rayana. Capitalismo e Guerra: uma relação simbiótica. Available on the website <https://internacionaldaamazonia.com/2023/12/05/capitalismo-e-guerra-uma-relacao-simbiotica/>.
2. KURZ, Robert. Canhões e Capitalismo. Available on the website <https://www.marxists.org/portugues/kurz/1997/03/30.htm>.
3. FERRAZ, Marina. 100 maiores empresas de armas venderam US$ 531 bi em 2020. Available on the website <https://www.poder360.com.br/internacional/100-maiores-empresas-de-armas-venderam-us-531-bilhoes-em-2020/>.
4. MELLO, Michele. Gasto militar mundial bate recorde e supera US$ 2 trilhões em 2021, aponta relatório. Available on the website <https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2022/04/25/gasto-militar-mundial-bate-recorde-e-supera-us-2-trilhoes-em-2021-aponta-relatorio>.
5. FOSTER, John Bellamy e CERNADAS, Gisela. Gastos militares dos EUA atingiram US$ 1,5 trilhão em 2022, mais que o dobro do divulgado. Available on the website <https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2024/02/09/gastos-militares-dos-eua-atingiram-us-1-5-trilhao-em-2022-mais-que-o-dobro-do-divulgado>.
* Fernando Alcoforado, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System, member of the SBPC- Brazilian Society for the Progress of Science, IPB- Polytechnic Institute of Bahia and of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer from the UFBA Polytechnic School and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional Development from the University of Barcelona, college professor (Engineering, Economy and Administration) and consultant in the areas of strategic planning, business planning, regional planning, urban planning and energy systems, was Advisor to the Vice President of Engineering and Technology at LIGHT S.A. Electric power distribution company from Rio de Janeiro, Strategic Planning Coordinator of CEPED- Bahia Research and Development Center, Undersecretary of Energy of the State of Bahia, Secretary of Planning of Salvador, is the author of the books Globalização (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1997), De Collor a FHC- O Brasil e a Nova (Des)ordem Mundial (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 1998), Um Projeto para o Brasil (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2000), Os condicionantes do desenvolvimento do Estado da Bahia (Tese de doutorado. Universidade de Barcelona,http://www.tesisenred.net/handle/10803/1944, 2003), Globalização e Desenvolvimento (Editora Nobel, São Paulo, 2006), Bahia- Desenvolvimento do Século XVI ao Século XX e Objetivos Estratégicos na Era Contemporânea (EGBA, Salvador, 2008), The Necessary Conditions of the Economic and Social Development- The Case of the State of Bahia (VDM Verlag Dr. Müller Aktiengesellschaft & Co. KG, Saarbrücken, Germany, 2010), Aquecimento Global e Catástrofe Planetária (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2010), Amazônia Sustentável- Para o progresso do Brasil e combate ao aquecimento global (Viena- Editora e Gráfica, Santa Cruz do Rio Pardo, São Paulo, 2011), Os Fatores Condicionantes do Desenvolvimento Econômico e Social (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2012), Energia no Mundo e no Brasil- Energia e Mudança Climática Catastrófica no Século XXI (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2015), As Grandes Revoluções Científicas, Econômicas e Sociais que Mudaram o Mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2016), A Invenção de um novo Brasil (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2017), Esquerda x Direita e a sua convergência (Associação Baiana de Imprensa, Salvador, 2018), Como inventar o futuro para mudar o mundo (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2019), A humanidade ameaçada e as estratégias para sua sobrevivência (Editora Dialética, São Paulo, 2021), A escalada da ciência e da tecnologia e sua contribuição ao progresso e à sobrevivência da humanidade (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2022), a chapter in the book Flood Handbook (CRC Press, Boca Raton, Florida United States, 2022), How to protect human beings from threats to their existence and avoid the extinction of humanity (Generis Publishing, Europe, Republic of Moldova, Chișinău, 2023) and A revolução da educação necessária ao Brasil na era contemporânea (Editora CRV, Curitiba, 2023).
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