Take a picture of dead soldier, or the child of a killed Iraqi family, broadcast it on your blog, and what happens? Photo journalist Zoriah Miller has found out. He was kicked out of his ‘embed,’ which is the name for the pack of journalists permitted to travel with a group of soldiers and report what those in command want reported. Afterwards, he was prohibited from traveling in any Marine-patrolled area of Iraq. The military command worked to get him kicked out of the country altogether.
Yes, it all seems very premodern and primitive, and contrary to all our pieties about the free flow of information — the First Amendment and all that. But from the government’s point of view, it is running the war, and it should control what people know about it to the same extent it controls everything else about the war. As a result, after 4,000 dead soldiers, countless hundreds of thousands of Iraqi dead, millions of wounded on all sides, there are only a handful of bloody pictures to be found anywhere.
Amazing isn’t it, just how effective the state can actually be when it cares intensely about something?
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Its funny because the war is market driven yet the cocern is on just the symptom.
-How much are morals worth? I’ll take two if you can package it and mail it.
The war is market driven? So the state is a market institution? I did not know that.
I would agree with you if you said that the war is profit driven – meaning that certain powerful corporations seek profits by using the state’s monopoly on taxation and violence.
Maybe it is you who is confusing the symptom with the cause.
What!!!???
Ironic….Can you please explain how you’ve worked it out that “the war is market driven. “
It is in the financial interest of certain people that a war occur in Iraqi. I hope that is a given.
The demand therefore exists for war, in the United States war making companies account for a substantial section of the GNP. It is then the case that a government with the task of managing the markets, is also the supplier of the war in the interest of maintaining a high GNP. At the cost of our tax dollars.
Is it fair, that the every demand be met with a supply of something no matter the cost? Fairness and justice seem to be in short supply and I wonder if it is because of a lack of demand.
Guys, I see a huge confusion in the comments. Although in this blog it seems natural to mistake “market” with “free market”, whatever that is, you should not be sloppy with your terms.
You have market wherever human cooperation, or even cohabitation, exists. Don’t forget even in the nazi concentration camps there was a market. Very cruel but a functional market, pricing in the, then current environment and conditions.
Free market distinguishes itself by being the most efficient for cooperation (if you want to optimize for that. Please observe, that no parasite will find cooperation attractive enough to propagate free market.)
Market itself is not sufficent to make a moral statement. It is just a synonym for human interaction. As the market is driven by human action, conversely, human action is driven by the market. In this sense, I think we can say, war is also market driven even if it seems rather redundant.
Andras,
“You have market wherever human cooperation, or even cohabitation, exists.”
A market is where buyers and sellers come together to make an exchange. Your definition is way too broad. If I cooperate with my neighbor to rob a bank, is this a market? I don’t think so. We may be cooperating but there is no buying and selling taking place. There are plenty of human actions that take place that are not a market. Your definition does not make any sense.
Also, the war is not market driven, it is politically driven. The war was “declared” informally by congress giving the president the authorization to use force. The state is using its monopoly to use force against another state. But I wonder if one who considers war market driven would also consider death market driven because the mortician demands it to stay in business.
I can only hope that war is artifical in nature whereas death is natural.
I have a side-note question: How close is the Austrian School to the philosophy of Ayn Rand? I have read extensively about the Austrian School and (unfurtunately) some of Ayn Rands ‘Philosophical Essays.’ The two stories seem close I would like to know how close the two are in practicing believers. Ayn Rand is concerned with the Object of creation, while Austrians are firstly concerned with the process of creation (the market).
If all this is so, how does the human ideal purposed by Rand fit with a ideal market?
tom,
You are right in stating that there are other influences than the market that drives human action, though I believe even these are priced in by the market so you can safely ignore this side of the market. You can call them politics, love etc.
On the other hand, it seems you could not catch my point. This question may help. How do you realize that you made a mistake in your actions, what is that mechanism that gives you your error signal? Supply and demand and the other laws we are so proud to recognize are not a “free market” phenomenon but a “market” one.
Ironic, Austrians are economists. “The process of creation” more commonly called “production” is only part of the study of economics. Economics is the science of human action and interaction, if you want some broad definition. The market is a human social phenomenon. It is what you obverse when individuals start exchanging goods and services, thus structuring prices and dividing labor. Economists are generally employed to analyze some market and make forecasts on it.
Free market is when you don’t have restrictions for entrance in the market (ie. to start exchange stuff) and the playground is leveled.
With regard to Ayn Rand, I have only read her Atlas Shrugged, but her philosophies went from political science to personal morality. In terms of morals, her philosophy was atheist, and, in general, I don’t believe many Austrians align themselves with Objectivism, the name of her philosophy (certainly not anymore than by the rest of economists, political scientists and in other related fields). Politically speaking, I’m sure Austrians would agree with most of the personal and economic liberty advocated by Ayn Rand, but she believed a government was necessary to secure these rights, while Austrians have some tradition of economists that have studied how political anarchy could function.
Ironic,
Rand was primarily a novellist while the Austrians are economists. Fisrt was an artist the second are scientists. This fact itself describe their attitude. Rand called her philosophy objectivist while Austrians like to call their economics subjectivist. You realize that this nomenclature not even in the same sphere but they used to believe that was enough to distrust and call each other dogmatic. Let’s hope it has changed with the passing of the Leaders. You should make up your mind yourself and find the universal in both. As you realized, they are much closer than they would like us think. And more importantly, both are so far ahead of anything else trying to grasp the truth. I do enjoy them without prejudice so I am able to learn from both.
Ironic,
Rand was primarily a novellist while the Austrians are economists. Fisrt was an artist the second are scientists. This fact itself describe their attitude. Rand called her philosophy objectivist while Austrians like to call their economics subjectivist. You realize that this nomenclature not even in the same sphere but they used to believe that was enough to distrust and call each other dogmatic. Let’s hope it has changed with the passing of the Leaders. You should make up your mind yourself and find the universal in both. As you realized, they are much closer than they would like us think. And more importantly, both are so far ahead of anything else trying to grasp the truth. I do enjoy them without prejudice so I am able to learn from both.
Sorry for the double post.
I’m still learning. (It is not a threat.)
Llewellyn, you spent most of this article sermonizing about the various costs of war, but you only touched upon the financial costs in the last two paragraphs. While I do not mean to trivialize the loss of life, I would expect the financial cost to be the primary concern of economists.
Indeed, I have seen suggestions that one of the primary reasons for the Iraq War was a financial one. In November 2000, Saddam Hussein declared that Iraq would cease to accept U.S. Dollars for oil payments, and would accept only Euros instead. Saddam’s explanation was that he no longer wanted to deal “in the currency of the enemy.”
It’s not unfathomable to think that Saddam, recognizing that he could not compete militarily with the United Sates, realized that he could inflict far more damage by attacking the United States financially; specifically, by breaking the U.S. dollar as the monopoly currency for the international oil market.
Venezuela and Iran are also trying to break the U.S. dollar’s monopoly; tellingly, both nations are demonized by the United States.
Finally, and perhaps most importantly, if the American people had to pay for the full costs of the Iraq War up front (e.g., with a “war tax”), it never would have happened in the first place, because every politician who voted for the war would know that he was committing political suicide by doing so.
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