Voices
War Profiteering
Humans have been indulging in war since the beginning of time. Our ancestors fought wars with other human clans, over food, land, shelter and security. But as time went on, wars became a mere means to brag about one’s strength and power at the expense of millions of lives. From World War 1 to World War 2, millions of lives were lost and many issues concerning mental health, physical health, generation trauma and many others cropped up. The influences of war still affect us even today and the dirty truth about war can be seen in the thousands of graves after these wars.
But even in the face of trauma, death and blood, there are people and institutions earning off from this business of blood. Turning a blind eye to the devastating consequences of war, these people are profiteering from it. War profiteering is when an individual or an Organisation derives profit from warfare by selling weapons and other goods to parties at war. This kind of profiteering was vastly seen during the American revolution, where more than 30 riots happened against merchants and businessmen who were profiting from war. In 1777, a mob of women beat merchant Thomas Boylston and confiscated his sugar trade for hoarding sugar and coffee and driving up the prices when in need. As the arms-race began speeding up during the cold-war, arms manufacturing companies started cropping up at large and now the CEOs of these companies earn billions of dollars by urging the developing countries to increase their arms usage. An example of this would be when a prominent arms company influenced the American Parliament. Arms Manufacturer Lockhead Martin donated 75000 dollars to Mac Thornberry, the chair representative of the House of Armed Services, who later passed a bill in the house which directly benefited Lockhead. Such trends are also consistent with the 9/11 era and America’s activity in Iran. After the US drone strike killing Iranian leader Qasem Soleimani, the share prices of arms manufacturing companies sky rocketed. After 2005, the average pay off arms manufacturing CEOs jumped from 8 percent to 108 percent.
So what can we do to stop these organisations from profiting off wars? We as consumers should be aware of the products which directly and indirectly come from these companies and cut off buying from them. A lot of these companies invest money in schools, consumer industries, so as peace promoting citizens, we should be against such organisations that encourage these companies. The government should take action against such businesses. In America, senator Bernie Sanders plans to deny federal contracts to companies which pay their CEOs excessively. A pay limit has to be set for such contractors. Such a plan should be adopted by all developing countries to nullify such profiteering. It is high time organisations and institutions stop feeding off blood money, which has the blood of millions of soldiers and innocent citizens on it.
