Tag Archives: Opportunity Cost

If not on the military, then what?

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With regard to withholding military taxation such that it is spent on something else, a common challenge is “On what?”

On the Beeb news it says “Australia bushfires: Fundraiser reaches A$20m in 48 hours“.  The Australian government spends that much on their military every 8½ hours.

That story also says “Prime Minister Scott Morrison has called up 3,000 reserve troops to help“.  That is 3.7% of their armed forces.  15% of their reserves (i.e. civilians being called away from their day jobs) and 0% of their active personnel.

If 3.7% of the Australian military budget was permanently re-allocated to fire prevention (as opposed to ‘Oh shit, the whole country is on fire, maybe we ought to act now‘), it would provide AUS$765,000,000 annually.  Nearly 40 times what has been raised from charitable giving to help save the country.

Australia spends just over AUS$1,000 per capita on militarisation.  The fundraiser is equivalent to 20,000 people’s military expenditure, about 0.078% of the population.  Military expenditure is 1.9% of GDP and 5.1% of government spending.

Perhaps Australia should spend a bit less on battle tanks and a bit more on the land they drive around on.  The Leopard tanks they had from 1976 to 2007 were never used.  They currently have 59 M1A1 Abrams tanks; these have also never been used.  They would like to increase that to 90.  Each one costs about AUS$13m.  Just ⅔rds of a fund-raiser each.

I’ve fallen for it again

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Every year in January, at some point, I remember I need to update the “Global military spending so far this year” calculator on the Conscience web site to reset it.  So I check the web site, see it is clearly more than a year’s expenditure, go into the code and realise I don’t need to change it.  It changes automatically.

Globally we have already spent nearly £17,000,000,000 on the military.

Countries who will have already spent more than £17,000,000,000 on their own so far this year, in decreasing spend order:

  • USA
  • China
  • Saudi Arabia
  • India
  • France
  • Russia
  • UK
  • Germany
  • Japan
  • Korea, South
  • Italy
  • Brazil
  • Australia

I’m sure you can think of your own reasons how some of those countries could be spending their money elsewhere.  Such as Australia, which is currently on fire.

Incidentally, last year Iran spent about £10,200,000,000 on their military, 2.7% of GDP, so only slightly more than NATO countries are expected to ‘contribute’.  (The term ‘contribute’ is used in the context of NATO as it is, presumably, some sort of charity.)

<Sigh>.  Starting another New Year appalled at the waste.

A History of Britain in Numbers

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A History of Britain in Numbers, Episode 2 ‘State Makes War’: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/b052j579

“For a great part of Britain’s history, was the principal link people had with the state to die for it and to be taxed for the expense?”

Andrew Dilnot, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, 2012-2017

This programme was about the ‘fiscal military state‘.

18th century state spending on defence and war debt: 6 to 7% of GDP.  On all other state expenditure: 2% of GDP.  Over ⅔rds of national income was spent on defence, about the same as in ancient Rome.

During the Napoleonic Wars, %age of GDP spent on warfare: about 30%.  On everything else, about 2%.

Spending on the military during the reign of Queen Victoria, when Britain sustained an empire, 2 to 3% (about £16,000,000 in 1850, equivalent to £1,500,000,00 today).  Currently is is still 2 to 3%, but GDP has increased to about 25 times as much as it was in 1850.

 

 

 

 

Global military spending, 2016 to 2017

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On the Conscience:Taxes for Peace not War home page is a counter showing the global military spending so far this year.  It comes from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) figures.  We use those because they are not particularly controversial; they do not include lots of things a strict pacifist would like to see included.  As I start writing this, the number is based on their 2016 figures and is £509,860,928,935.

Yes, global spending on militarisation (essentially, preparing for killing people), is five hundred thousand million pounds.  A million pounds, spent, half a million times.

For comparison, nobody wants to spend the £11,000m to £23,000m it would take to cure the whole world’s 185m people with Hepatitis C.  But we have spent £509,000m on arms so far this year.

(Hepatitis C treatment is the most expensive medicine in the USA, link.  Details of the cost of curing it, link.)

Anyway, it is time for me to update the web site because military spending figures for 2017 have been released.  And it has gone up by about 1.1%, once inflation has been taken out.  As an absolute sum just the difference is about £47,287m.  Military spending in 2017 represented 2.2% of the global gross domestic product.

(For reference, feeding the world’s starving people would cost £23,000m, £132,000m or somewhere in between.)

So, I have updated the script and now the number, based on the new 2017 figures, is £524,852,595,454 so far this year.
£524,853,983,114
£524,854,467,457
£524,854,865,718
£524,855,841,115
£524,873,308,033…