Does military spending lead to economic decline and collapse?

Here is a previous response to this discussion question:

Robin Posted: April 19 2013

I think it was Marx who said that military spending is like throwing money into the sea, since it does not produce anything of value for people.

We could saw this previously in the case of the Soviet Union that was driven into bankruptcy by the arms race, which was a deliberate and successful strategy of NATO.

But now, if we look clearly, we can see it is now the case for the United States which produces very little for export and imports enormously (especially from China), while it spends most of its wealth on arms production.

Arms production is hidden in the official government budget of the United States. First, the government adds in social security which does not come from taxes, but which is simply a form of saving by those who pay into the system. Then it hides much of military spending in other budgets (for example nuclear production is hidden under energy). And finally, it fails to mention that most of the enormous budget item of debt payment is actually the payment for previous wars and arms production.

According to the careful research of the War Resisters League (available as “pie chart flyers” at their website), almost half of the federal budget of the United States is for present and past military expenses. This amounts to over 1.3 trillion dollars a year!

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