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Matters of Serious Concern
for Canadians
- K.C. Adams -
Canada's integration into the U.S. imperialist war economy is a serious matter of concern for Canadians. The U.S. war economy has tentacles into every U.S. state as well as Canada and countless other places abroad. The war economy encompasses production and sales of military goods and services to military customers domestically and internationally and all the fixed and circulating value it requires to operate such as buildings and fuel. The war economy includes thousands of military bases, airports, colleges, research centres, intelligence agencies, testing facilities and a vast army of active duty and reservist military personnel and services to veterans.
 As policing has become more militarized under Homeland Security and other factors, police forces have emerged as important consumers of war materiel. A significant aspect of the war economy is propaganda generated in the general culture to promote the imperialist military and its contribution to life and the pushing of state-organized violence to defend the property and interests of the financial oligarchs and their striving for global hegemony in opposition to the peoples of the world.
The U.S. war economy exists within a relation with the aim of the U.S.-centred financial oligarchy for worldwide hegemony. U.S. imperialist theft of social wealth from the peoples of the world and its competition with other big powers feed the war economy and in turn generate increased instability, violence and war.
The war economy would shrink considerably if U.S. overseas' bases were closed and troops returned home. Such a transformation is favoured by the insistence of the people within the U.S., Canada and worldwide to demand a new direction for the economy to meet the needs of the people and develop trade on the basis of mutual benefit. This requires breaking the relation between the domestic economy and the striving of the financial oligarchy for global hegemony through active military intervention abroad against competitors or those who refuse to submit, the instigation of war and threats of war, regime change and the organizing of military Special Operations to capture markets, sources of raw material, places to invest and working people to exploit.
A new aim for the economy is necessary that replaces the current anti-social aim where a small class of rich oligarchs conspire and compete to expropriate maximum profit from the social wealth that working people produce at home and abroad.
A new pro-social aim for the economy would be in conformity with the modern socialized productive forces and have fidelity to the ensemble of human relations and what they reveal. Working people produce social wealth collectively. By vesting themselves with decision-making power, they will prohibit the exploitation of those who produce the social wealth, affirm the rights of all, humanize the social and natural environment and ensure the country is a zone for peace.
 To prevail over the war economy and the financial oligarchy that profits from it means that in 2020 the peoples everywhere will continue to mobilize themselves to fulfill the aims they set for the economy and the country. By organizing themselves politically to change the direction of the economy and the political and social conditions in ways that favour them and not the rich oligarchs, headway is forthcoming.
The transition away from a war economy would not be as difficult as some suggest. The war economy essentially consumes already produced social wealth in exchange for war materiel and the human factor necessary to wage war. Imperialist war and its war materiel are instruments of destruction and oppression and do not contribute to the well-being of the people and Mother Earth. Much of the social wealth used in exchange to pay for the war economy comes from taxation, as governments are the main organizer and paymaster. With a pro-social aim and new direction for the economy, other uses can be found for that social wealth and the human productive force released from the war economy. Needless to say, the suggestions to humanize the social and natural environment are unlimited in their scope.
(December 21, 2019 - No. 32)
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