The Guardian 13 February, 2008
Culture and Life
by Rob Gowland
South Australia and war
I was in Adelaide last weekend, for the SA State Conference of the CPA. And very pleasant and enjoyable it was too. Most pleasing perhaps was the high proportion of young comrades attending the conference and also elected to the incoming State Committee of the CPA.
The working class and small farmers of SA are of course relieved at the ousting of the Howard government. Now, like everywhere else in the country, they are anxiously waiting to see if the Rudd government fulfils any of Labor’s election promises.
Meanwhile, big business is getting on with the job of reshaping the state to suit the requirements of our local imperialists. They have already had experience of the money to be made from war contracts (euphemistically called "defence spending") with projects like the Collins class submarines that were built in SA.
Our big industrialists want more of that lovely lolly, thank you! And they can see a splendid opportunity opening up for them.
The one area (almost the only area, in fact) where the US and Britain cannot get China to make things for them is in the area of weapons systems (given that China is one of the intended targets for those same weapons). Here is a potentially secure niche manufacturing opportunity for Australian capitalists, and they are pushing hard to secure it.
Already they are talking of making nuclear submarines for the Royal Australian Navy. The price tag would be astronomical, as would the potential for corporate profit. And objections from troublesome left-wingers would be overcome by the fact that it would "provide jobs".
And of course, it would, but it has been shown time and again that the same level of investment spent on non-military manufacturing would actually provide considerably more jobs. Without having to take part in killing people or risk the nuclear pollution of great chunks of our country.
Capitalism, however, is unmoved by such arguments. Capitalism’s interest, as always, is in profits. And investment in military projects has a much higher profit margin than investment in peaceful projects.
In fact, as we all know from the various US scandals over defence contracts, the profits on such contracts are nothing less than an outrageous pillaging of the public purse. But it’s for "the nation’s defence", so no one can actually muster up the strength to stop it.
This is the vision splendid that our local big business interests see before them in South Australia: a vast complex of highly profitable enterprises designing and manufacturing armaments and weapons delivery platforms that are too expensive to produce in the USA or Europe.
And this is not idle speculation.
Already a security or exclusion wall — being called a "noise abatement wall" — is planned for the proposed site (on the Le Fevre Peninsula) behind which will also shelter ancillary services and support systems such as "technology hubs" to keep the flow of ideas and technicians coming.
An AIDEX-style trade fair is to be mounted in Adelaide in November. Part of its function will be to promote weapons purchases by the Australian government, with the public invited to come and uncritically admire the perverted application of new technology to new ways of killing masses of people at a distance.
Another part will be, as the SA State Committee of the CPA said in its Political Report, "to promote SA as a generous host to hi-tech weapons manufacturers".
This armament manufacturing would service the war plans of US and British (and perhaps even Japanese and EU) imperialism, and cost would not be an issue. A capitalist’s wet dream, made even more so by the knowledge that the business cannot go offshore to China, because China is the enemy, the intended target.
In fact, for Australian big business, this situation must seem "made in heaven". Manufacturing for the "no questions asked" US military procurement industry is a licence to print money.
It must have workers so it will provide jobs. Canny capitalism will use those workers and their jobs as a bargaining chip in combating any future attempts by state or federal governments to curtail or limit war industries in Australia.
The anti-war movement in this country will have to campaign solidly against this attempt to emulate the weapons manufacturing and hi-tech war profiteering of the US West Coast. There will be big dollar signs dangling before the eyes of our local capitalists and they in turn will be moving heaven and earth (especially with government) to make it all come to fruition.
It will not be enough to show our horror and anger at the attempted establishment of a large scale war industry here. We will have to campaign for government-supported investment in non-military industry and related job-creating programs.
We know that investment in peaceful enterprises produces more jobs per dollar spent than does investment in armaments. But only the government will make such investments, for private capital will go where it always goes: to the investment with the highest return, and to hell with the social consequences.