The analyst Paul Samuelson noted that the Second World War was the “economists battle”. The US came to realize that financial planning, the part of the Federal Reserve and participation of the civilian field were important in times of war.
What the part of geoeconomics, and also technology, signs now is the full triumph of” total participation”. That is, that lack and financial success become the de facto motorists of foreign and domestic plan. The climax of this discovery is the glory of Donald Trump’s “realpolitik”.
The 19th-century progressive perspective of “non-zero-sum” “quid pro quo” was the Adam Smith thought that the benefits of business led to economic and social benefits for all involved.
But, the increasing participation of assets ( both natural and human ) led to the idea, put forth by Hirschmann in 1945]1], of the “zero-sum” notion of winners and losers.
The path of occasions of WW2 made progressive free trade rhetoric redundant. The prevalent desire was what economics call “mercantilism”.
This was the plan that increases in prosperity imply greater power – to the expense of the other. So, politics and geoeconomics became intertwined.
The importance in capitalism is the function of one or two “hegemonic” powers. So, in the 20th centuries this was assured for the US through the expulsion of the Bretton Woods agreement in 1972. The emancipation of the issuance of silver to dollars set in motion a fresh ideology for the US.
The universe had changed for a few cents more. The fiat money of the money had replaced metal. Hegemony is policed through, for instance, world payment methods, restrictions, etc. Mercantilism is again in vogue. We can see it in Donald Trump’s isolationism and China’s sweet money creating Chinese dominance in Asia.
The application of geoeconomics, and the need to create ideology leads to obvious conflict. This is endemic to the” next revolution”, that of technology. The Industrial Revolution began the process of participation of the standing supply of the earth’s sources, that of natural materials and manpower.
The shift towards technology and AI, however, means that workers as the primary factor in capital creation does been overtaken by technology and automation.
This does heap pressure on the rate of return on investment and profits. Today, the post-war arrangement with work led to business organizations, the welfare state, etc. This was a bad “zero-sum” results for money.
What the new world today offers is a maxim way of capital and source accumulation. All governments have successfully abandoned liberal democracy and emerge on a sliding scale of authoritarianism: the most successful type for the execution of” Deathenomics”.
This, ironically, is certainly a value assessment on whether democracy is right or wrong– it is a de facto history of history.
The new world order rests on the diminishing value of work as seen in its classic style. Robotics and AI will change individual workers. In truth, in the not-so-distant potential, human beings may be external to world economies.
Imagine the cost benefits of a mechanical workforce. According to Techcrunch:
Broadly speaking, technology benefited from the crisis. Staffing shortages led to an flood in assets and a kind of reformation in business technology. More recently, an explosion of curiosity in conceptual AI has more accelerated the market and the drive toward “general-purpose” computers. ]2 ]
In this brave new world, Elon Musk estimates there will be need for 20 billion computers. Considering a one-off cost of US$ 20, 000-30, 000 per product, this is a win-win for money.
But what of labour? Whilst first robots would be the labor of factories and automated processes, the prospect will leave work in all areas such as administration, financial, nurses and also agriculture.
The issue with Macroeconomic’ Deathenomics ‘ is that it will eventually eradicate the consumer. The employee was typically a customer. What extended developed capitalism was the regular re-creation of buyer demand, what Marxists call the “fetishization” of the market characterized by countless needs.
The future of this innovative world will mean a dichotomy between tech/machine-owning leaders and a glut proletariat poor. In a world where surplus value of the worker is eliminated, value is replaced by machines. Human beings will thus become dependent on the state for sustenance.
The trajectory, already underway, will be a massive increase in indolent populations without work. National economies will be effectively irrelevant to the majority.
The new economy will be oriented towards war in a competition for tech resources, raw materials and minerals. Disputes as to extraction and rights will lead to war and a Keynesian cycle of demand. War and economy will become intertwined in” Deathenomics”.
In Russia, a dead son is worth a$ 130, 000 payment. According to a BBC report this is called” coffin money”, it is enough to transform family lives from poverty]3]. Widows of dead husbands have developed a vogue for expensive hair dryers.
Putin has instituted a program called” Time for Heroes”, wherein returning soldiers are fast-tracked into governing and business positions. Keynesian war is one of the few remaining growth areas.
National security spending in the US has increased 50 % since 2000. The problem with military defense spending, whose logic is now exported to the Europeans in a panic about security, is that resources are drained from any other economic areas.
It creates a dependence by workers on defense industries. It creates short-term profit booms for defense stocks. It means the US spending beyond 5 % of GDP on the military.
Yet some analysts, such as those at the Rand think tank, have criticized this US dominant position in an increasingly multi-polar world]4]. They maintain there is a need to abandon the Cold War mentality.
Yet that assessment forgets the nature of the military economy. For example, contractors are not focussed on production capacities or R&, D. Their main concern is return of profit. Hence the majority of this profit is not reinvested or orientated to efficiency but given to shareholders.
A 2023 Pentagon study showed an increase of cash to shareholders of 73 % ]5]. Therefore, state money is funneled directly into the defense shareholdings of the wealthy. This is what Milton Friedman called” shareholder capitalism”. The emphasis is on shareholder returns.
This is a problem for some sectors, however. Hence privatization of health and defense will orientate capital to private wealth. Weaponized economies negatively effect other parts of the economy. In fact, there is no boost to other sectors of the economy as seen by the decline of the manufacturing sector in the US.
Therefore, defense spending works as a short, but not long-term, boost to the elite economy. The other side of the coin is the compounding delusion that military spending is the only way to conduct geopolitics. ( US interest payments on its national debt in 2024 will be greater than the Pentagon’s budget. )
The new world era of Deathenomics requires the total accumulation of resources, both material and human, to an endless circle of war. The new times require governments to act as private businesses. The state and civil society become one. Leaders must be dressed in suits. And, of course, war is an extension of business.
Notes:
]1 ] Hirschman, Albert. 1945. National Power and the Structure of Foreign Trade. University of California Press
]2 ] https ://techcrunch.com/2024/07/23/elon-musk-sets-2026-optimus-sale-date-heres-where-other-humanoid-robots-stand/
]3 ] https ://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w3ct5mv5
]4 ] David A. Ochmanek, Anna M. Dowd, Stephen J. Flanagan, et al., Inflection Point: How to Reverse the Erosion of U. S. and Allied Military Power and Influence https ://www.rand .org/pubs/research_reports/RRA2555-1.html.
]5 ] U. S. Government, Department of Defense,” Contract Finance Study Report”, ( Washington, D. C.: DOD, 2023 ) 18, https ://www.acq.osd .mil/asda/dpc/pcf/docs/finance-study/FINAL Defense Contract Finance Study Report 4.6.23.pdf#page=18.
Brian Patrick Bolger studied politics and economics at the London School of Economics. He has taught political philosophy and applied linguistics at universities in the UK and Czech Republic.  , He is an adviser to several think tanks and corporations on geopolitical issues.