Weaponry production: private or national?

[Juxtys]

If the government of the state leaves only three functions to itself - courts, police and military, who should suport military and police with guns, tanks, fighter planes and ammunition? Should it be a private company or a public one?

If the second, it isn't a laissez-faire capitalizm, if the first, the company might produce itself an army and seize control of the country.

So which one should it be?

[DavidOdden]

If the government of the state leaves only three functions to itself - courts, police and military, who should suport military and police with guns, tanks, fighter planes and ammunition? Should it be a private company or a public one?

What do you mean by "support"? The money to acquire materials goods and hire people, necessary to the proper function of the government, should come from voluntary contributions -- from anyone who vonluntarily contributes. The soldiers, clerks, police and judges why carry out the actions of the govenment should be hired (not conscripted). The pencil, paper, computers, guns and ammunition necessary should be purchased with donated money from an appropriate (private) business.

Note that guns and ammo have been produced by private companies in the US for hundreds of years, and that has not led to Smith & Wesson seizing control of the nation.

[agrippa1]

What do you mean by "support"? The money to acquire materials goods and hire people, necessary to the proper function of the government, should come from voluntary contributions -- from anyone who vonluntarily contributes. The soldiers, clerks, police and judges why carry out the actions of the govenment should be hired (not conscripted). The pencil, paper, computers, guns and ammunition necessary should be purchased with donated money from an appropriate (private) business.

Note that guns and ammo have been produced by private companies in the US for hundreds of years, and that has not led to Smith & Wesson seizing control of the nation.

I think when he writes "support" he means "provide the weaponry suitable to a nation's armed forces." That weaponry includes, in addition to the type of supplied by S & W: artillery, grenades, APC's, tanks, guided missile cruisers, nuclear attack submarines, nuclear tipped cruise missiles, aircraft carriers, intelligence satellites, and a whole slew of other goods and services not usually available at Walmart, or even Clark Bros. So the question remains, how does the government contract a private company to build massively destructive weaponry without having to maintain absolute control over that company's sale of the weapons for other customers.

[Maximus]

Those types of weapons have always been manufactured by private companies, under contract to the government. The contract would have to have a provision to prevent the sale of weapons systems to any outside government or entity, without approval by Congress.

Edited October 19, 2008 by Maximus

[Juxtys]

Those types of weapons have always been manufactured by private companies, under contract to the government. The contract would have to have a provision to prevent the sale of weapons systems to any outside government or entity, without approval by Congress.

Isn't that a kind of Governmental regulation? And what if they illegally sell it to other parties in order to make some more money?

[DavidOdden]

Isn't that a kind of Governmental regulation? And what if they illegally sell it to other parties in order to make some more money?

The proper question is whether it should ever be illegal for citizens to possess functioning weapons of mass destruction -- a topic that has been discussed in excess here. The principle underlying such a restriction is that it is proper to restrict threats of force, as arise by citizens owning their own functioning H-bombs. Given that it is proper to prohibit such private ownership of nukes -- I don't intend to argue that point here, I'm just explaning the relationship between that proper use of government force and the manufacturing of weapons -- then it is proper for the government to prohibit the production and sale of H-bombs for illegal purposes.

If a company violates the law, they must be punished according to the law. For example, if Haliburton makes nuclear missles and sells 10 of them to Al Qaida operatives in Iraq, who then deploy them against Tel Aviv, Athens, Mumbai and Rome, those responsibile for the sale should be punished under whatever existing law there is that should include the death penalty as a consequence. However, there are also proper mining-type uses of explosives, and a technical paperwork-related failure to adhere to the law (e.g. failing to file a report by a day) should not be met with capital punishment as its consequence). The answer to "And what if" requires that you have a concept of what the law actually requires.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

If the government of the state leaves only three functions to itself - courts, police and military, who should support military and police with guns, tanks, fighter planes and ammunition? Should it be a private company or a public one?

Under strict capitalism, the government would not have the means of producing anything, including firearms and weaponry; which means there would be no "public" companies in the sense you imply, being owned by all of the citizens of the country or owned by their representatives being sent to Congress as officials of the government.

The primary nature of a just government is the control of retaliatory force and the means of settling disputes peacefully via the courts. Since the government is an agent of force, it would be incumbent on the part of weapons manufacturers to only make those weapons if they agree with the government as to what they will be used for. In other words, keeping military hardware manufacturing in the hands of private citizens or private companies (with or without stocks) helps to limit what can and cannot be manufactured and how it is to be used by the government. For example, let's say some future President wants to declare war on Canada, a peaceful neighbor, then any given manufacturer could deny making any weapons for that war as a way of protesting the war effort.

And, so far at least, no private company has elected to try to take over the country by keeping those arms for themselves and holding everyone else hostage to their demands. How would they get the money to do that anyhow? Weapons manufacturing is very expensive, and it would be a handful of individuals in the company against the entire nation. I don't see that happening. And if anyone tried it, then the retaliatory force of the government could legitimately be used against them.

[Miles White]

If the first, the company might produce itself an army and seize control of the country.

So which one should it be?

Are you saying that establishing a social security program would prevent it? Governments already obtain their weaponry through private capital and we don't have any problems now. The only difference between how the government would work in a free society and how the government works already is the fact that now it has a welfare state in a free society it wouldn't.

Edited October 20, 2008 by Miles White

[Juxtys]

I see. But if one or several guns produced by a company gets missing, the Government can sue the company? I don't find this bit clear yet.

[DavidOdden]

I see. But if one or several guns produced by a company gets missing, the Government can sue the company?

Not intrinsically. It would be like a company that makes computers delivering 1000 units to IBM as required, but letting 3 get lost. Basically, IBM would not care, since they got what the contract called for. They might be concerned at tracking all of the units (protection of trade secrets or whatever) so they could include some contractual requirement for caution. Then if Lenovo were negligent in shipping, IBM might have a cause of action. So if the government ordered a boat load of BFG9000's and were concerned that they not fall into the wrong hands, they can include contractual conditions, whose breach would be a cause for legal acion.

[Thomas M. Miovas Jr.]

Under capitalism, there could definitely be government oversight of war weapons manufacturing. So, yes, they could track all of those weapons, especially the mass destruction weapons, to make sure they do not fall into enemy hands. Remember the government has a monopoly on the use of force in a free society, which means they could limit what types of weapons citizens have (no mass destruction weapons permitted) and thus they could limit what weapons are being sold to non-governmental agents or limit weapons sold to foreign governments.

I should also add that under capitalism -- which means the application of reason to the society within a geographical region -- there would be no PC wars. That is, the onus on the government who declared war would be to end it quickly by utterly destroying the enemy. There would not be a protracted war such as the War on Terror costing us tens of billions of dollars per month. For one thing, there would be no taxes, and the war effort could only continue so long as the populous volunteers to support the war effort (either with money or man power). This is one reason why a capitalist government would only fight wars that actually threaten the freedom of the individuals in that country; otherwise, they wouldn't be able to make a case that the war effort ought to continue.

Such limits on the government would lead them to have to clearly identify the enemy, and to make their case to the American people, and then to fight the war quickly and effectively so as to get the job done before the support ran dry.

I'm all for destroying the Islamic Fascists, but the war could have been over years ago had the US government chosen the right targets (Iran and possibly Saudi Arabia) that actively promote terrorism against the United States or its allies. And under the proper system, they wouldn't worry about rebuilding the destroyed country, unless it was in our interest to do so and only after it was so utterly destroyed that they wouldn't dare lift a finger against us.

Edited October 20, 2008 by Thomas M. Miovas Jr.

[agrippa1]

This is a tough problem, one which, IMO, does not fit neatly into Objectivist philosophy.

Weapons manufacturing - and I'm talking large weapons here, not rifles, handguns and wrist-rockets - necessarily must be controlled by the government, due to the monopoly of force requirement. This entails either a communist-type national industry, think Manhattan or NASA; or a national socialist-type control with government sponsored monopolies/oligopolies (e.g., Boeing-Northrop-Raytheon-Lockheed).

The point is that any industry whose products must be limited to essentially a single-payer customer base, must also have most aspects of production - functionality, price, volume, quality, etc - dictated by the single payer. Since they have no place else to go, they are reliant on the wishes of the one consumer to determine their production.

Economically, it may be somewhat more cost-effective to have multiple "private" companies vying to be the government mandated monopoly for any given product, rather than have government entities produce that product, but the end effect is probably a wash, and philosophically, I believe the results are virtually the same.

[Juxtys]

Not intrinsically. It would be like a company that makes computers delivering 1000 units to IBM as required, but letting 3 get lost. Basically, IBM would not care, since they got what the contract called for. They might be concerned at tracking all of the units (protection of trade secrets or whatever) so they could include some contractual requirement for caution. Then if Lenovo were negligent in shipping, IBM might have a cause of action. So if the government ordered a boat load of BFG9000's and were concerned that they not fall into the wrong hands, they can include contractual conditions, whose breach would be a cause for legal acion.

If one computer unit gets lost, nobody cares too much, but if a single neutron bomb gets lost, the whole country sees a serious threat.

Note the difference i'm talking about.

[D'kian]

The point is that any industry whose products must be limited to essentially a single-payer customer base, must also have most aspects of production - functionality, price, volume, quality, etc - dictated by the single payer. Since they have no place else to go, they are reliant on the wishes of the one consumer to determine their production.

Not entirely, at least not always. There are foreign sales, too. The F-16 for example was exported to lots of countries, and General Dynamics went as far as to open a production facility in Turkey.

Of course not all weapons systems can be sold to other countries. Some because they are too sensitive (I suppose) and some because they are unafordable to any prospective customers (like the Los Angeles- and Ohio-class submarines).

For aircraft it is common for the Air Force or Navy to comission two competing designs based on a set of specs and choose the one that better suits their needs (often involving a series of fly-offs). The looser often tries to place his design in other countries, sometimes with succes (I think the F-5 falls in that category). Some defense firms even develop their own systems and offer it for sale to the Pentagon and/or other countries (The Northrop F-20 for example, even if it floped).

The market is limited and there are many restrictions place don it by the US government. I think that's as it should be. Defending against the enemy is harder if you can't have a technological edge over him. Imagine if American firms sold B-2s to Iran, or if they had sold F-15s to the Soviets.

Overall US firms do brisk business in arms with all NATO countries, Israel, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan and Australia. Alas also with Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the Gulf emirates, and who knows how many others in Asia and Africa

[DavidOdden]

If one computer unit gets lost, nobody cares too much, but if a single neutron bomb gets lost, the whole country sees a serious threat.

That's why the terms for a contract to produce nuclear weapons would be vastly different from a contract to sell a pile of computers. In fact, I think the only sane system would be that the manufacturer not "deliver" at all, that the military pick up at the factory, and that there must be extraordinary security at the manufacturing site. Again, those terms must be stated in the contract: the requirements for security are not self-evident.

[agrippa1]

Not entirely, at least not always. There are foreign sales, too. The F-16 for example was exported to lots of countries, and General Dynamics went as far as to open a production facility in Turkey.

True, true. But always with the endorsement, coordination and tight control of the U.S. government. The foreign trading of arms has two purposes, first, to serve the foreign policy desires of the U.S. government, and second, to bolster the contractors with a government sanction. This helps keep U.S. Defense costs down, boosts exports, and allows contractors to survive more effectively through the lean (peaceful) years.

The result is that the defense contractor essentially acts as a surrogate of the U.S. Gov't while profiting from the arrangement. That's socialism, and I don't see how you get around it, when you're talking weapons systems.

And that's not a defense of the practice, just a statement of reality. The defense procurement process is extremely inefficient, and could be a poster child for any other socialist economic endeavors.

[LiberTodd]

I don't see why you're speaking as if only one company would produce all the weapons. The U.S. military currently gets it's rifles, planes, tanks, etc from differing companies that vie for the business of the military. This creates competition which spawns ingenuity (ex: a gun that can see around corners) and efficiency (caseless ammunition) in products. If one nationalized industry made all the military technology they would have nobody to out-do but themselves, and no motivation for doing so other than to please the government. Why would Colt bother inventing and rolling out the M4A2 if they knew there was a guarantee that the U.S. gov't would continue buying and using the M4A1, since they had no other options? Having one industry in your pocket making everything for you means that industry will grow stagnant and stale.

[D'kian]

It's also worht mentioning there are few US companies that manufacture only weapons meant for the military. Boeing is as good example as any. But makers of guns and ammo, like Colt or S&W also produce for the civilian market and the police (not quite the same thing). And there's cross-over appeal, too, like the Hummer, which was the Jeep's replacement in the Army.

Weapons procurement is a nightmare by all accounts I've read. There's a fictional account of the development of a stealth Navy attack airplane in a novel called "The Minotaur" by Stephen Coonts (a retired naval aviator). One fo the characters says in reference to how the Pentagon goes about acquiring aircraft: "The Soviets are even more screwed up than we are. All their economy is like this."