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Alan Greenspan vs. Naomi Klein on the Iraq War, Bush’s Tax Cuts, Economic Populism, Crony Capitalism and More

Examples of Military Keynesianism

There have been no clear cut historical example of military Keynesianism in action. 1930s Germany, which rebuilt a crippled economy with enormous military production under a National Socialist government has been cited as an example of military Keynesianism. This example illustrates both the potential positives of such policies in generating rapid growth, and also the negative social effects presented by critics, however the aim of heightened German military production in the 1930s was preparation for the Second World War.

In today’s discourse, the term is most frequently discussed in relation to the United States, particularly the administration of President Ronald Reagan in the 1980s. Reagan’s administration pushed for significant tax cuts, while increasing military spending to combat the Soviet Union. While this was in practice a policy suggestive of military Keynesianism, Reagan’s reasoning for the policy was not that it would spur economic growth, but that military spending was necessary to combat Communism.

For many in the United States worried about the adoption of these economic policies, fears of this were somewhat averted by reduced military spending in the 1990s in what was commonly described as a peace dividend for the end of the Cold War. However, the ongoing "War on Terrorism" and current Iraq War have brought such concerns to prominence once more.

Este analista señala que no solamente el gasto militar de EU supera al que erogan en el mismo renglón todos los demás países del mundo juntos, sino que, al igual que el imperio romano en su hora de decadencia, Estados Unidos se ha rodeado de fortalezas y bases en todas las "regiones frontera" del planeta, aunque, a diferencia de Roma y del imperio británico, no ha establecido colonias en el sentido estricto del término.

Al respecto, los datos de fuentes oficiales que aporta Johnson son apabullantes (ver su libro Nemesis). En la actualidad Estados Unidos tiene 737 bases militares en países extranjeros, lo que significa que en 132 de los 191 estados miembro de la ONU hay tropas estadounidenses.

From his very first moment in the national spotlight—his keynote speech to the Democratic National Convention in 2004—Barack Obama has attached himself to the notion of audacity. He spoke that night of the "audacity of hope," a phrase he borrowed from his minister at Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. He used the phrase as the title of his second book, a best seller since the nanosecond it was available for purchase. And it's certainly audacious for a U.S. Senator with a mere two years of service, of mixed-race parentage and with Hussein as his middle name, to run for President of the U.S., challenging one of his party's best-known and best-financed politicians, Hillary Clinton. The whoosh of his candidacy, in the polls and in the amounts of money raised, has been audacious as well.

But Obama's is a determinedly conservative boldness. He is a lovely speaker, yet his tone is more conversational than oratorical. He offers little in the way of red-meat rhetoric to his audiences, some of whom are surprised, and disappointed, by his persistent judiciousness. He is solid on the essentials of most issues but daring on none—he swims contentedly in the Democratic Party's mainstream, unwilling to lose any potential voters with, well, the audacity of his proposals. In mid-April, Obama, 45, gave a major speech on foreign policy and spent surprisingly little time or heat on Iraq. Instead, he talked about first principles: about alliances and the place of altruism in American policy.
But that is the Senator's gamble, that in a time of rancid partisanship, after six years of a presidency dedicated to bullying its domestic adversaries and international allies, an Obama candidacy will prosper by offering the exact opposite: flagrant, thoughtful consensus seeking. Which is very audacious, indeed.