One Percent

In her recent book, Rachel Maddow pointed out how in today’s world, wars are fought by only one percent of the population. Now that there is no longer a draft, very few individuals or families are affected by the government decisions to wage war. This problem is further compounded by the growth of private, non-government enterprises that are now part of the game of war. With such a small percentage of the population having to deal with the horrors of war, the government is far more likely to be in a position to get public approval to wage war. While Rachel did not make this point in her book, one cannot help but notice that not only is there a small percentage of citizens involved in waging war there is also a very small number of citizens paying for the costs of war. In fact, there are more Americans that profit from the increased expenditures of a war then those who actually suffer from the need for the increase in tax revenue to pay for the war. Very few of the volunteer military come from families in the upper half of income and wealth. Looking at the unemployment numbers, too many returning veterans who leave the military fail to find employment and therefore fail to benefit from the time and sacrifice they made when they volunteered to serve in the military. Add to that the privatization of the “war machine” and it is easy to see that the inmates have taken over the asylum. Less involvement in was as well as less involvement in the costs of government has resulted in exploitations that benefit very few to the detriment of everyone else.