The proper role and scope of government

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Government doings reify the things a society considers and generally agrees are necessary to do, but on which nobody's ever figured out how to turn a profit. Providing for the common defense is the most obvious example.

It connects with that other thing that should be said of the State: it is not your mother, it is not your father; the State is a weapon. Like a weapon, it is a tool suited to a certain spectrum of tasks, but not to others. Yet like a weapon in very truth, when it is needed nothing else will do.

[Lamplighter]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Government doings reify the things a society
considers and generally agrees are necessary to do,
but on which nobody's ever figured out how to turn a profit.
Providing for the common defense is the most obvious example.
<snip>.

It's easy to agree with your first sentence,
but I don't think you want to hang your hat on the second.

Eisenhower recognized and told the US people something about that.
Regan ignored his remarks in striving for his 600-ship navy.
"Star wars" and "Haliburton" are a couple of the more current memes.
It was all about making $ and profits from the common defense.

[SamIam]

I'm with you, Lamplighter. Private contractors are raking in money hand over fist. They're making a killing in more ways than one. During the Iraq War, there was one private contractor employee for every one American soldier.

Lots of interesting stuff from the CBO. Here's a snip:

CBO estimates that total spending by U.S. agencies and U.S.-funded contractors for private security services ranged between $6 billion and $10 billion over the 2003–2007 period. Between $3 billion and $4 billion of that spending was for obligations made directly by the U.S. government for private security services in Iraq.20 The government’s obligations for those services have amounted to roughly between $500 million and $1.2 billion annually since 2005. DoD, DoS, and USAID have awarded all of the U.S. government contracts for security services in Iraq.

[TheMercenary]

Originally Posted by SamIam

I'm with you, Lamplighter. Private contractors are raking in money hand over fist. They're making a killing in more ways than one. During the Iraq War, there was one private contractor employee for every one American soldier.

Most of us understand and appreciate nearly every single one of them. I was always glad to see the contractors on every deployment.

[Urbane Guerrilla]

Originally Posted by Lamplighter

It's easy to agree with your first sentence,
but I don't think you want to hang your hat on the second.

Eisenhower recognized and told the US people something about that.
Regan ignored his remarks in striving for his 600-ship navy.
"Star wars" and "Haliburton" are a couple of the more current memes.
It was all about making $ and profits from the common defense.

Popular notion, but I'm thinking in terms of a society's overall creation of wealth, not in soldiers and government contractors getting paid their livings.

The weapons of a state might be analogized with the antlers of a deer: they defend the deer, they aid the deer in promulgating his genes through deer-dom -- but they exact a cost to the deer's metabolism, growth, energy. Such expenditure might have been laid out in some other part of the deer, right? And yet, the deer would not do so well without them, in the end.

Necessary, but not wealth-generating overall; wealth-consuming instead.

[Griff]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Popular notion, but I'm thinking in terms of a society's overall creation of wealth, not in soldiers and government contractors getting paid their livings.

The weapons of a state might be analogized with the antlers of a deer: they defend the deer, they aid the deer in promulgating his genes through deer-dom -- but they exact a cost to the deer's metabolism, growth, energy. Such expenditure might have been laid out in some other part of the deer, right? And yet, the deer would not do so well without them, in the end.

Necessary, but not wealth-generating overall; wealth-consuming instead.

In summation; castrate the deer, but keep the horns.

[Uday]

Originally Posted by Urbane Guerrilla

Popular notion, but I'm thinking in terms of a society's overall creation of wealth, not in soldiers and government contractors getting paid their livings.

The weapons of a state might be analogized with the antlers of a deer: they defend the deer, they aid the deer in promulgating his genes through deer-dom -- but they exact a cost to the deer's metabolism, growth, energy. Such expenditure might have been laid out in some other part of the deer, right? And yet, the deer would not do so well without them, in the end.

Necessary, but not wealth-generating overall; wealth-consuming instead.

But when horns are too big, the animal goes extinct, yes?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Elk