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From: condict@csd1.UUCP
Newsgroups: net.politics
Subject: Re: Defense Spending and the Economy
Message-ID: <138@csd1.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 6-Dec-83 16:14:35 EST
Article-I.D.: csd1.138
Posted: Tue Dec  6 16:14:35 1983
Date-Received: Fri, 9-Dec-83 06:51:51 EST
References: <411@pyuxa.UUCP>
Organization: New York University
Lines: 51

Mr. "Spread the wealth" Wheeler attempts to reinforce his previous article
on the economic benefits of nonsensical expenditure of materials and labor,
using as a particularly nonsensical example the repeated construction and
dismantling of a battleship.  My fingers tremble and my nose itches at the
very prospect of responding.

Point one is that, although he spends most of the note defending the notion
that this would involve a lot of parts and labor, and not just for the
primary work, but in support of those workers as well (secondary spending),
no one is contesting this notion.  Yes, of course lots of jobs are required,
-- created, if you wish -- in order to support this sad project.  The
argument lies in the benefit of these jobs, in whether they contribute to
raising the average standard of living or some other measure of desirability.
The implicit assumption he makes is that anything that "creates" jobs is
good for the economy.  While this may be true in the short run when there
are not enough jobs to go around, it certainly cannot be viewed as anything
more than a temporary fix of structural bugs in the way things are distributed.

Look, once again, I implore you to use logic and common sense (which is in
direct opposition to some popular economic theories): if the goal is for
there to be lots of jobs, all we need to do is have the government hire
everybody who is unemployed and pay them to flush their toilets after use.
Think of how easy it is to create jobs!  And surely these jobs are less
expensive for the government to create and easier on the environment than the
battleship jobs, because we don't have to import or go out and dig up any raw
materials -- we manage to put all of our labor to "use" without wasting any of
our precious non-renewable resources, such as scarce metals.

To point out the silliness of this proposal another way, let us consider two
versions of the US.  In one, n people are employed directly or
indirectly by the battleship loop, while in the other, which is otherwise
identical, these n people are, say, repairing potholes in roads or building
tractors.  In which version is the US moving towards the higher standard of
living.  Can there be any question? (hint: all economic arguments are in-
applicable here -- I said that everybody but the n people are doing exactly
the same thing in both versions.  It doesn't matter why.)

You cannot use economic voo-doo to get something for nothing.  The harder
people work and the more efficiently they work at producing those goods and
services, the possession or use of which is part of the definition of a high
standard of living, the higher standard of living we will have.  This
statement is close to being a logical tautology.  Making, then dissassembling a
battleship does not produce any goods or services (only consumes them) so it
certainly cannot produce anything that is needed to satisfy the definition of a
high standard of living.  It can only be used as a short term jolt whose
purpose is to adjust the economy towards a state of higher (true) productivity.
It is not obvious to me how it would be guaranteed to have this effect, or
why there are not more desirable ways to achieve the same effect.

M. Condict		...!cmcl2!csd1!condict
New York U.