Becuase Everything Else Sucks

This Week in Capitalism: August 6th 1945

By Manila Ryce
Published Saturday, August 5th, 2006, 11:26 pm
Filed under: This Week in Capitalism

Is it any coincidence that the model capitalist nations are also the most militaristic? August 6th, 1945 marks the day US President Harry Truman made the decision to drop an atomic bomb named “Little Boy” on the Japanese city of Hiroshima. Three days later Nagasaki would be hit with a second nuclear bomb called “Fat Man”. The total of the two bombings would kill 214,000 people, most of which were civilians. President Truman said the atomic bomb marked a victory over Germany in developing the first weapon to use atomic energy. Truman went on to declare that, “If (the Japanese) do not now accept our terms they may expect a rain of ruin from the air the like of which has never been seen on Earth.”

Three years earlier, James P. Cannon, founder of American Trotskyism, talked about the current World War in a radio speech saying, “Like the First World War, the Second World War is a product of capitalism. It is a struggle for markets, for colonies, for spheres of investment, for control of raw materials, and control of trade routes… Imperialist war is a struggle for these concrete material things in a period when the world has already been divided up. It is not a struggle for fine ideals such as democracy and freedom of oppressed peoples but a brutal, ruthless, bloody struggle to re-divide the world in the interests of different warring gangs of capitalists.”

The nuclear attack on Hiroshima came after America had already firebombed 67 major Japanese cities. Statistical damage caused to Japan from this preceding campaign can be found here. The fact that Japan was so crippled by General LeMay’s firebombing left many to doubt that the nuclear bombings on Hiroshima and Nagasaki were necessary at all. In fact, LeMay himself disagreed with the nuclear bombing, as did General Douglas MacArthur. The succeeding president, Dwight D. Eisenhower, wrote the following excerpt regarding the moment he heard the bomb was to be dropped on Hiroshima: “…I had been conscious of a feeling of depression and so I voiced to him my grave misgivings, first on the basis of my belief that Japan was already defeated and that dropping the bomb was completely unnecessary, and secondly because I thought that our country should avoid shocking world opinion by the use of a weapon whose employment was, I thought, no longer mandatory as a measure to save American lives.”

So if Japan was indeed on the brink of surrender, and killing hundreds of thousands of additional civilians wasn’t necessary then why was it done? It has been argued that the bomb was dropped not to end the war, but to shape post-war attitudes in which America could dictate their policy to the world. Capitalist countries are driven by militarism because their livelihood depends on securing the sources of raw materials. This drive for cheaper raw materials establishes an imperialist nation whose range extends beyond its borders. The end of WWII began a new age, in which American imperialism was allowed to flourish in the void left from retreating European imperialism. The US became dominant over Latin America, had free entry into much of Asia, and secured its investments for cheap raw materials, cheap labor, and new foreign markets the world over. Hiroshima will forever be a capitalist milestone for that reason.
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6 Responses to “This Week in Capitalism: August 6th 1945”

  1. I agree with everything except for one aspect. Capitalism is not the only form of Imperialism. In fact, Imperialism is an ideology that transcends economic systems, and quite often, since economics are fundamental to any society and thereby social orders, Imperialism is easily supported by a variety of economic dogmas. The difference with Capitalism is that it is clearly the dominant economic force in the world, and so happens to be the economic system of the world’s most powerful empires for the last 500 years. In the last 20 years, we have experienced another vastly different economic environment, one where there is NO competing economic system to challenge Capitalism. Nor will there be until the collapse of industial civilization as we know it. On the plus side, this collapse well happen soon, within our lifetime, so there is reason to hope for a return of other economic ideals. This won’t have any impact on Imperialism, however, since historically one Empire falls only to be replaced by another.

    PapaFigue
    08/6/06 at 1:49 pm

  2. I don’t think I said Capitalism is the only form of Imperialism, but I apologize if I gave that impression. However, it should also be noted that the high regard for resources and low regard for life is what makes Capitalist Imperialism the deadliest. Today, civilians make up over 75 percent of war deaths. Our form of Imperialism wages war against civilians, whereas previous incarnations of Imperialism waged war against the ruling class.

    Administrator
    08/6/06 at 2:03 pm

  3. War has always been waged against civilians, the worst case being in hunter gatherer times when one tribe would completely wipe out another in order to secure their resources. People will always fight, there will always be wars, it’s just human nature. I think capitalism is more of a problem as a domestic issue, not an international one. Different countries will always compete for this planet’s finite resources whether there are rich elites or not.

    Kaziglu Bey
    08/6/06 at 4:18 pm

  4. @Kaziglu Bey
    Your comment about capitalism being a domestic problem rather than an international one implies that reform is possible to curb bloodshed. My opinion is that an overturning of the entire economic system needs to occur. The intrinsically nature of capitalism makes it an international problem since it cannot self-sustain for long within its own borders.

    Administrator
    08/7/06 at 1:00 am

  5. I actually prefer socialism, but even if every country was socialist we’d still have wars. Wars existed before capitalism, before any type of government existed, so I don’t think blaming capitalism for human nature makes any sense. The only way to stop warfare indefinitely would be by having one international government, and that will never and should never happen.

    Kaziglu Bey
    08/7/06 at 3:23 am

  6. I agree with Kaziglu Bey that war is a human condition, as long as there are lots of people and limited resource, governments will continue to war. And tragically, as history has proven, governments can start wars, but it’s the poor who do the dying. But the question is not should we stop having wars because of innocents who die, the question is: “Is war necessary anymore?” Of course it is if one is in favor of having a ruling class, as well as getting a share of limited resources. However, I find contention with these two motivations for war. Given our technological advances and capability, we now, and have been for the last 30 years, capable of solving our old problem of limited resources. Innovations in Soy and Tissue Engineering (yes, we can grow meat) means a perpetual food source even with overpopulation. Alternative, renewable, clean energy sources, such as Solar, Wind, Wave, and GeoThermal, as well as grain alcohol and nuclear fusion, give new meaning to the outdatedness of our current Fossil Fuels. And even if a transition to Other-than-Oil is too scary or painful, there are currently 5 test plants up and running here in the US that can turn ANYTHING with biomass into oil. (These plants are in financial trouble because, Big Surprise, our government isn’t interested.)
    OK, so we got limited resources covered, but what about the need for a ruling party. That is a danger, because if the population becomes more educated, more literate, and more economically equal, then that population may begin the question the historical structure of social and political power being concentrated in the hands of the “elite” few. If that government wanted to, say, invade another country on pure speculation and faulty intelligence, imagine the impact if as little as 70% of the population said “Uh, no.”
    War is hell, but it is in fact very beneficial to the ruling party. If the labor and resources put into machinations of war were instead put into a civil capacity, this would be bad news for the ruling class.
    While it is true that a War provides jobs and production for our economy, the products of this labor provide no real social benefit, and is completely wasted, even if it is used. As Dwight D. Eisenhower pointed out, the cost of war is “a burden of arms draining the wealth and the labor of all peoples; a wasting of strength that defies the American system or the Soviet system or any system to achieve true abundance and happiness for the peoples of this earth…It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.”
    The time, labor, and resource that is invested in, as he puts it, One (1) modern heavy bomber (and remember, we’re talking 1953, so the cost of heavy bombers is now decidedly higher,) equates to:
    30 city schools. Or 2 electric power plants, with a capacity for serving 60,000 homes each. Or two Urban and fully equipped hospitals. Or 50 miles of highway. (BTW, if Eisenhower sounds like some peace-loving hippie from Democracy Now, try to remember he was a 4 star General, and had a long history of military service and actual combat experience. Unlike our current administrators, this man knew war, understood it, and Hated It.)
    Again, the point of this is, if this amount of resource were instead poured into society in these forms, that is, schools, buses, hospitals, etc., then would not the quality and standard of living go up? Conversely, if this labor and resource is, as it is in a war economy, diverted Away from society, then would not the standard of living go down? If the former is true, then does that not make the latter also true? And why would any government favor lowering the standard of living for the rest of us anyway?
    Well, the last one is easy to answer, just cuz history has proven it. The Ignorant are easier to rule than the literate. The Fearful fall in line much better than the Defiant. It is this climate of Perpetual War that allows for the ruling class to continue its existance. Higher standards of living, economic equalization, and any Utopian scenario of any social/political/economic system, is therefore the biggest threat.
    So what can we do? Well, personally, when the draft comes, which is inevitable if this country continues on this path, I choose prison. Or New Zealand.

    PapaFigue
    08/7/06 at 10:44 am

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