We need to look more closely at the connections between military spending, the depletion and waste of the earth s resources and the economic devastation we see around us. These connections often seem impossibly complex, like a monstrous tangle of barbed wire strung across a nuclear mine field blocking our vision of the future. To unravel and cut through this tangle we first need to develop an overall picture of how the strands interweave and reinforce each other. The first strand in the tangle is waste. But reallocating resources from military spending to human needs would not only benefit the Third World.
Few people realise the economic distortions and devastation wrought by the arms race.
For a start military expenditure is clearly a non-productive use of our scarce human, natural and capital resources. If we choose to devote some of these resources to security and defence, we should be well aware that, as economist Adam Smith noted, the whole army and navy are unproductive labourers , They produce almost nothing which can then be exchanged for other goods and services. This is part of the reason why military expenditure fuels inflation. It is no accident that the Vietnam and Korean wars were followed by galloping inflation. Arms spending generates income but not consumer goods and services or productive investment.