Episode 72: C Wright Mills on the Causes of WW3

Imagine if I told you that, in 1958, permanent states of emergency and a permanent war economy were predicted.

➡️ "A paranoid atmosphere of fright."
 
➡️ War as "the business way of life."

➡️ The corporate cronies use war as a way to gain government funds and means of productions as well as a way to defend their own interests and profits.

➡️ Some democratically elected leader is planning to nationalize something? Nope. ❌ Smash that war button. Stage that coup.

➡️ Imperialism = using the military to defend the interests of the power elites and their expansion.

Links:

https://www.amazon.com/Causes-World-War-Three/dp/1258157276

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14952036

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14328891

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14206390

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14222351

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14198055

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14229543

https://consaracytheories.com/blog/f/when-all-else-fails-they-take-you-to-war

https://www.buzzsprout.com/2289560/14539212

Need more? You can visit the website at: https://consaracytheories.com/ or my own site at: https://saracausey.com/. Don't forget to check out the blog at: https://consaracytheories.com/blog. 

Sara's book Decoding the Unicorn: A New Look at Dag Hammarskjöld is available now! Click here to buy it on Amazon. 

Transcript

Transcription by Otter.ai.  Please forgive any typos!

SUMMARY KEYWORDS

World War Three, C. Wright Mills, Cold War, military industrial complex, permanent war economy, economic irrationality, nuclear brinksmanship, corporate interests, imperialism, national security, political realism, economic policy, military metaphysic, power elite, global conflict.

Welcome to con-sara-cy theories. Are you ready to ask questions you shouldn't and find information you're not supposed to know? Well, you're in the right place. Here is your host, Sara Causey.

Hello, hello, and thanks for tuning in. In tonight's episode, I will be talking about C Wright Mills book The causes of world war three. It was published in 1958 and it's interesting to think about how many years, decades, even where people have been scarily and warily waiting for the next shoe to drop. World War One was supposed to be the worst of it all, the war to end all wars, we will never, ever see anything like this again. And then, well, surprise, here comes World War Two. With that being said, it's not lost on me what Vincenzo Vinciguerra says in that BBC documentary about Operation Gladio. He believes that we've had world war three. The general public may not know it, may not understand it as such, but as soon as world war two ended, World War Three began, because you had the Cold War, and then you had these so called stay behind networks of Nazis and fascists who should have been brought to justice but were instead repatriated or swept under the rug. In some cases, they weren't even repatriated somewhere else. They got to stay exactly where they were and keep tormenting people under the guise of national security. We've got to keep those damn commies away. Wow, C Wright Mills was a sociologist and a professor. He taught at Columbia, I think, during the 1950s so we will saddle up and take a look at his ideas of what will cause world war three. The first chapter, appropriately, is titled, war becomes total and absurd. In this he writes, most of the causes of World War Three are accepted as necessity to expect its coming is considered realism. Politicians and journalists, intellectuals and generals, businessmen and preachers now fight this war and busily create the historical situation in which it is viewed as inevitable. For them, necessity and realism have become ways to hide their own lack of moral and political imagination. End quote, I think, sadly, a lot of us do view these situations as being inevitable, and I think of course, we're looking at this with decades of hindsight. But why would we not we've had one Forever War and dust up and geopolitical battle after another, after another, after another. If you think back to the review that I did about Seven Days in May, in that film, they talk about the economy is built on the engine of war. You cannot just slam the brakes on that and expect everybody else to go along with it. The military industrial and military intelligence complexes and the defense contractors are not just going to simply say, Okay, I guess now we'll make rattles and baby bottles and try to come up with clean energy and a warm light for all mankind to share. As Loki says pejoratively in The Avengers. They're not going to do that. I don't know of anybody really That's naive enough to think that the engines of war will stop and we'll all suddenly have peace on earth and goodwill towards men. I think sadly, we've been conditioned to expect that one terrible war and one conflict after another after another is the best we're going to get. I bookmark page three because I was like, oh my god, I have to come back to this and talk about it on the air. He writes, military expertise has as such, has become irrelevant. All the problems of war and peace have now become political and moral problems. War is no longer a continuation of politics by other means. No political aims can be achieved by means of total war. No truly national interests of any nation can be served by it. No nation that reasonable men can believe in makes the preparation for war sensible or promises to achieve peace in the world. For the first time in American history, men in authority talk about an emergency without a foreseeable end. Long pause there. Okay, any of this sounding familiar to you? Keep in mind, this was written in 1958 I want to reread that again for the first time in American history, men in authority talk about an emergency without a foreseeable end. For the first time in world history, men find themselves preparing for a war which they admit among themselves. None of the combatants could win. They have no image of what victory might mean, and no idea of any road to victory in World War Two. War aims became unconditional, which is to say, politically and economically empty. Yet in that war, there were still strategic plans for victory by violent means. But for world war three, there are no theories even of military victory. There are no terms of surrender, and there are no confidence in the military means of imposing any such terms. End quote, wow, wow. Yeah. So in America, as long as you declare a state of emergency, you can do whatever the hell you want an emergency without a foreseeable end. So in the same way that we get forever wars, just one bleeds into another, bleeds into another, it's like once the American public loses sympathy for one battle. Oh, we've got another one teed up ready to go. Oh, you've burned out on Ukraina versus Russia. Okay, not to worry. We're gonna fire up mess in Gaza. Oh, you're tired of that. Well, guess what? We'll fire up something else, whatever you want. We got it. We're just cooking up wars like they're putting burgers on a grill or flapping up pancakes at a breakfast place. Hey, you tired of that pancake? Not to worry. We got another one coming for you. It's crazy. So, yeah, I agree, war becomes totally and absurd. It's really fucking absurd nowadays, but I just that line stood out. It was like on the page, for the first time in American history, men and authority talk about an emergency without a foreseeable end. He nailed that one part. One of the book is titled, do men make history? And he spends several chapters batting back and forth with this idea of, do people make history, or does history make people? Do we really control our circumstances that much? Or do circumstances control us? I've talked about that topic in some other episodes. If you think back to one of the early episodes that I recorded about the HG Wells film, things to come. At the end of that film, we see a similar question, all or nothing? We're either going to go to the stars or nothing at all. Once man has conquered his own world, he has to look outward to other worlds. To conquer it is not in the nature of humans, to be still, to be idle, to be self satisfied for very long, they're always reaching for the next and then the next and then the next. So Is it human nature that we're always going to be looking for some other nation to conquer when one battle is over with, it's just part of who human beings are, at some fundamental level, that they will seek out another enemy. Okay, this enemy has been vanquished and is no longer a threat. Let's go find the next one and the next one and the next one. Or is that just a bullshit idea that's been fed to us so that we think war is inevitable? We also see that to some degree, I think, in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey, which I also recorded an early episode about, the primates go from using bones as tools to then being on spaceships. It's not adequate for us to stay on Earth. We now have to go to the moon, and then we have to go to Jupiter. And then there's this weird evolution that takes place, where David becomes this weird star seed, Star Child floating in outer space. Judge for yourself. Do people make history? Or does history make people? Are we all on some preordained, fatalistic journey, or can we wrest control? Is there a battle? I think it was em forester who said there's a battle that takes place between a man and his stars. Are we in battle with fate? Or is that a crock? Judge for yourself. I'm going now to chapter 10, which is titled The permanent war economy. This was another moment where I got the goose flesh. I got it the first time in this idea of a permanent state of emergency, because it was like, Holy shit, we do live that way now, I mean totally the permanent war economy in this he writes, since the end of World War Two, many in elite circles have felt that economic prosperity in the US is immediately underpinned by the war economy, and that desperate economic and So political problems might well arise. Should there be disarmament and genuine peace? Conciliatory gestures by the Russians are followed by stock market selling when there is fear that negotiations may occur, let alone that a treaty structure for the world be arranged. Stocks by their jitters reflect what is called a peace scare, when unemployment increases, and there is demand that something be done. Government spokesmen regularly justify themselves by referring first of all to increases in the money spent and to be spent for war preparations. Thus with unemployment at 4.5 million in January 1958 the President, this would be Eisenhower, who. Proclaimed that war contract awards will rise from the 35 point 6 billion of 1957 to the 47 point 2 billion of 1958 these connections between economic conditions and war preparations are not obscure and hidden. They are publicly and regularly reported, and they are definitely among the causes for elite acceptance of the military metaphysic, and hence, among the causes of World War Three. End quote, I say this all the time, standing up, teeing up your evidence and saying, here's the issue, the Fed is broke. We've got bank failures. We're in a downward spiral. You had an actual fat cat from the Fed confess publicly that the whole system died completely. Died in 2008 he said all the blood went out of all the arteries and all the capillaries, and it was fucking dead. Teeing up the evidence and telling people that's not difficult. The evidence is not hidden. It's exactly what this guy is saying in 1958 it's reported. It's known. The problem is getting people to wake the fuck up and pay attention. They don't want to believe it. That's like the jack wagons that when I post something on social media about dollar devaluation. We can't count on America always being the top dog, the dollar always being the world's reserve currency, etc. And they'll laugh, react and be like, these are just doom and gloom. You just a fear monger. Okay? You're never going to reach those people anyway. They've got their heads so far up their own buttholes. They do not want you to tell them the truth. They don't want to hear it. They want to tune in to somebody that's like sunshine, roses, lollipops and gumdrops, churning and burning, doing great, 3.9% unemployment rate. Why? If you can't find a job, it's your own damn fault, because there's just jobs everywhere for the taking. If you can't find something full time, just freelance, just gig, you'll figure it out. Don't worry. Little peon, sit down, shut up and go back to bed just a little ways down. He writes, We cannot assay with accuracy the causal weight of this personnel and their interests, but the combination of a seemingly permanent war economy and a privately incorporated economy cannot reasonably be supposed to be an unambiguous condition for the making of peace. I am not suggesting that military power is now only, or even mainly, an instrument of economic policy. To a considerable extent, militarism has become an end in itself and an economic policy a means of it. Moreover, whatever the case in previous periods of capitalism in our immediate times, war in each country is being prepared in order to prevent another country from becoming militarily stronger. There is much justification. E H Carr has noted for the epigram that the principal cause of war is war itself. Perhaps at no previous period has this been so much the case as now for the means of war and war as a means have never before been so absolute as to make war so economically irrational. But we must remember that true capitalist brinkmanship consists of the continual preparation for war just short of it, and that such brinkmanship does have economic functions of important capitalist consequence. Moreover, it is by no means clear that the American elite realize the economic irrationality of war itself. In the meantime, an expensive arms race under cover of the military metaphysic and in a paranoid atmosphere of fright. Is an economically attractive business to many utopian capitalists. It has become the business way of American life. End quote, the language there the paranoid atmosphere of fright. It is an economically attractive business. Yeah, it is. He continues. I cannot here examine the economics of World War Two, but it is relevant to understand that the corporate elite of America have ample reason to remember it well in the four years following 1940 some 175 billion worth of prime supply contracts, the keys to control of the nation's means of production were given to private corporations. Naturally enough, two thirds went to the top 100 corporations. In fact, almost 1/3 went to 10 private corporations. These companies were granted priorities and allotments for materials and parts. They decided how much of these were to be passed down to subcontractors. They were allowed to expand their own facilities under extremely favorable amortization and tax privileges. In general, these were the same corporations that operated most of the government owned facilities and obtained favorable. Options to buy them. After the war, it had cost some $40 billion to build all the manufacturing facilities existing in the United States in 1939 by 1945 an additional 26 billion worth of high quality new plant and equipment had been added. Two thirds of it paid for directly from government funds. Some 20 billion of this 26 billion worth was usable for producing peacetime goods. If to the 40 billion existing, we add this 20 billion, we have a 60 billion productive plant usable in the post war period. In 1939 the top 250 corporations owned about 65% of the facilities then existing during the war, they operated 79% of all new privately operated facilities built with government money. As of September 1944 they held 78% of all active prime war supply contracts. The economic boom of World War Two, and only that pulled the USA out of the slump of the 30s. After that war, a flood of pent up demand was let loose. To this was added the production of war materials to conventional and unconventional sort the result, as everyone knows, was the great American prosperity of the last decade. End quote. Think about what Gerald Celente says, Even though I do not by any means agree with him on everything, I agree with him on this, when all else fails, they take you to war. Yeah, they do. Economy is in the dumper time to hit the war button. People are mad. There's a bunch of domestic squabbles and problems going on. Some guy needs to get re elected, or some other party wants to take control boom, smash the war button. He also writes, In the winter of 1957 58 another recession began in the United States. By late March, some 6 million were unemployed. The mechanics of this recession were generally familiar. There was an over extension of capitalist investment in the early 50s, perhaps due to favorable tax amortization, then the rate of capital formation dropped. There was an increase in the installment debt, a mortgaging of future income, especially during 1955 at the same time, there has been an arrogant rigidity of prices set by corporate administrators. In fact, some prices, for example, steel were administered up rather than down, even in the face of declining demand and production was cut end quote. Then you wonder why JFK didn't want to play bullshit with those bastards. But look at the point that he's making. Here. You have this big economic boom in the in the form of warfare, and all of this war production and these private corporations are feeding and suckling off the government teat. There's some crony capitalism for you. So much for a free market. What a joke. So there's this pent up demand. People have money again. They're rolling in some greenbacks. So they start spending Hey, the good times are back again. But uh oh, by the winter of 5758 there's another recession. It's going back in the dumper, probably time to hit the war button again. Of this recession, he writes, The recession could, of course, be fought by vigorous price reductions, even imposed by government price controls by a cut in taxes to increase purchasing power, and by a very large public works program, perhaps for school facilities. Such means which are theoretically at the disposal of the capitalist slump fighter are now generally accepted by liberal and conservative economists. Perhaps such means would be economically adequate. They do not, however, seem to be politically acceptable to everyone involved in the decisions. They do not seem to be altogether acceptable to the capitalists of the Eisenhower administration. End quote. Still in the same chapter, I'm on page 63 of the paperback copy I got from the library, imperialism has generally meant the political and if need be the military protection of businessmen and their interests in foreign areas. End quote. I'm thinking also of an early episode that I recorded about PB success and bananas. You don't mess with the United Fruit Company. You don't try to make land reforms. You don't try to change anything for people that are poor, you sit down, you shut up, and you do what's best for corporations. There have been many writers that have observed that it seems like whatever is best for these corporations is also best for the Charlie India Alpha. Hmm, isn't that one big coincidence? He also talks about the interests of the oil companies, and he quotes Senator Kefauver as saying, if the resolution is passed, the Congress would, in effect, be giving up its right to debate the question of whether our national interest does in. Fact warrant intervention by United States troops to prevent the nationalization of concessions held by giant oil companies. End quote, now I just send in the Charlie India alpha to topple a democratically elected leader if he decides that he's going to nationalize the oil fields. It's like, no, fuck you guy. You got to get out of here. If you're wondering where's the beef? It's called the causes of world war three. So does he say what they are? Yes. Page 82, of this paperback copy in chapter 13, called crackpot realism, he writes, The immediate cause of World War Three is the military preparation of it. I immediately thought, I know I've said this before, but I'm going to reference it again. I immediately thought of that scene in The Avengers where Thor says, Your experimentation with the teseract is what drew Loki to it. It's what brought him here. You are signaling to all of the other realms that the earth is ready for a higher form of war by messing with this thing. It's like putting out a beacon that says, Hello, we're ready to step it up. We see this also in Stanley Kubrick's 2001 A Space Odyssey. That Monolith is breached. The perimeter around it is is is breached, which allows these extraterrestrial forces to know that mankind has not only perfected space travel, but has perfected atomic weaponry, and it's a signal that they're ready for a higher form of war. Evolution is taking place, or devolution, if you prefer to look at it that way, the immediate cause of World War Three is the military preparation of it. Just simply by acting that it's a fait accompli and stockpiling all these weapons and getting into nuclear brinksmanship, it's a signal we're ready for world war three. Bring it on. The nature of the arms race is such that it is not and cannot reasonably be considered a cause of peace, given the new weaponry and the strategic impasse, it cannot be considered a means of any nation's defense. For the distinction between attack and defense is now meaningless. End quote. He also writes, it is in the continual preparation for war that the power elite now finds the major basis for the furthering of the several and the coinciding interests of its members. The military metaphysic justifies their fumbling control and their competition over the enlarged and centralized means of violence, production and administration for the professional warlords, this metaphysic is a natural assumption. It is in line with their training and in line with their professional interests and their personal careers. End. Quote, I think that's an interesting entanglement, because you have these hyper elites that use the military, sort of like their own defense branch. You are going to defend our interests. We want you to go in and make trouble here, not because it's what's really best for John and Jane Q Public in America, because we want you to defend our interests, our corporate interests, our business investments. And then you have people again. I'm going to reference Kubrick, Dr Strangelove, you have somebody along the lines of like a jack D Ripper. That's like, sure, whatever, whatever warfare we've got to engage in, let's do it. This is what I'm built for. This is what I'm here for. We skip down just slightly for the corporate executives. The military metaphysic often coincides with their interest in a stable and planned flow of profit. It enables them to have their risks underwritten by public money. It enables them reasonably to expect that they can exploit for private profit now and later, the risky research developments paid for by public money. It is, in brief, a mask of the subsidized capitalism from which they extract profit and upon which their power is based. End quote, Mm, hmm, yes, isn't it funny how that works? Dog Eat, dog meritocracy, survival of the fittest for everyone else, but for the fat cats and the cronies and the corporate CEOs. No, they get bailouts. They're not supposed to have any kind of moral hazard. No, no, no, no, no. If they make a bad investment and it goes sideways on them, they get bailed out to the tune of 99 or 100 cents on the dollar, while all the rest of us are left to twist in the wind. He also talks about how politicians get into this rhetoric of we, we're in this together. We've got to fight this battle together. We've got to overcome this enemy together, when in reality, it's like, Wait a minute. You don't really speak for us. There's no we to this. We were not in the room. We don't get to make all of these decisions. The power brokers do, the hyper elites and the people who actually pull the strings and control the. World, they make the decisions, but we, as members of the public do not, but it's all part of the rhetoric. Hey, we have to band together. We have to defeat this enemy. This enemy is your enemy too. Also think about some of the martyrdom we've heard. These people are coming after me because they want to get to you. I'm like a shield. I stand between you and the hyper elites. So if they hurt me, if they damage me, well, the next thing is they're going to come for you, and it's like, wake up. We're already screwed. Give me a break. But to Mills point, we're not in the room making these decisions about who is the enemy and who goes to war and for what reason. It's all this rhetoric to try to get people to buy in and think that some bullshit war that we're fighting over oil or to protect someone's corporate interests, or to keep some leader from nationalizing the oil fields or from giving land to peasants that don't hardly have anything. Well, it's in our best interest. So what do you think? Do you think war is inevitable? Do you think that World War Three already has happened? Like Vincenzo talks about, we've already had world war three. It was the Cold War, and it started as soon as world war two ended. So now the next war will be World War four. Do you think that there's just going to be one squabble after another after another, and that's just the way the world works? Do you think that's a false trap that we've been put into? Do you think, as Mills talks about, the ultimate cause of world war three will be the fact that we've prepared for it. We anticipate it. We've gotten into nuclear brinksmanship and an arms race with these other nations, and that ultimately will be the cause, whether it happens by accident. We've seen those narratives in films like Dr Strangelove and fail safe, both of which I've recorded podcast episodes about whether somebody maniacally hits the red button on purpose, or whether somebody hits it on accident and can't recall a missile and we all go up in flames or fall out. Is it inevitable? Is this just a psyop? There are some conspiracy theorists who believe that nuclear weapons don't even exist. Why? Shit you not. They think that the whole thing is a Psy-op to keep people afraid that there really is no nuclear brinksmanship because there's no nuclear weaponry, period. What do you think?

Stay a little bit crazy, and I will see you in the next episode.

Thanks for listening. If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe to this podcast and share it with others.