Horror Beyond Description: Noam Chomsky on the Latest Phase of the War on Terror

Chomsky: One informative discussion, in Business Week (Feb. 12, 1949), recognized that social spending could have the same "pump-priming" effect as military spending, but pointed out that for businessmen, "there's a tremendous social and economic difference between welfare pump-priming and military pump-priming." The latter "doesn't really alter the structure of the economy." For the businessman, it's just another order. But welfare and public works spending "does alter the economy. It makes new channels of its own. It creates new institutions. It redistributes income." And we can add more. Military spending scarcely involves the public, but social spending does, and has a democratizing effect.

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