by exploited » Mon Oct 20, 2014 4:06 pm
To be fair, I don't think the importance of defense spending to the US economy can be measured simply as a percentage of total money floating around. I am with most of you in thinking that Dharma is incorrect about just how important it is... however, we should all be able to agree that the defense industry punches far above it's weight class. As someone else pointed out, the internet, GPS, and other related technologies came out of defense spending. The advanced robotic research that DARPA performs will be crucial to maintaining economic dominance for the elites over the long-term. After all, you can't have a military-industrial complex without military-industrial capacity, and you can't automate peoples livelihoods out of existence without someone willing to do research that is initially unprofitable.
I think you can very generally compare certain aspects of the US and Nazi economy... however, even where there is some slight similarities, there isn't much you can do with that data. It is kind of a moot point, IMO, since even US military elites have been subjugated to the whims of global capital.