• ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    15 hours ago

    Now imagine if all that labour and resources that go into weapons industry was instead directed towards things like building affordable housing, infrastructure, providing healthcare, and so on.

    • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      arrow-down
      3
      ·
      10 hours ago

      Completely different kinds of industry. Swapping out those investments would put tens of thousands of hard working Canadians out of jobs.

      • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
        link
        fedilink
        arrow-up
        6
        arrow-down
        1
        ·
        9 hours ago

        Ah, yes those poor workers making weapons that are used to murder innocent civilians across the globe. My heart bleeds for them.

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            3
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 hours ago

            Nobody is forcing Canada to produce weapons that are used predominantly to massacre civilians either. Meanwhile, I’d much rather have a bullshit office job than have blood of children on my hands. But I guess some people are just utterly depraved.

        • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
          link
          fedilink
          arrow-up
          1
          arrow-down
          2
          ·
          9 hours ago

          Yeah, all those monsterous welders, machinists, fabricators, and foundry workers. They are literally the worst kinds of people. /s

          • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
            link
            fedilink
            arrow-up
            1
            arrow-down
            1
            ·
            8 hours ago

            They’re literally working in the industry of murder. Also, thought you just literally claimed that these skills were exclusive to people murdering industry. Turns out they could be applied to productive purposes that actually benefit people in Canada. Who knew!

            • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
              link
              fedilink
              arrow-up
              1
              ·
              8 hours ago

              They work in high-tech manufacturing. The majority of which is not exclusively defense tech. They make all kinds of stuff, including defense tech. The money made from those contracts, supports an entire industry that also makes everything else. Without it, there would be no Canadian domestic manufacturing industry left.

              And seriously…where do you think the money for all that comes from? Do you honestly think that foreign countries that are currently buying Canadian armored vehicles are just going to switch over to investing in Canadian healthcare? Or housing? It’s weird that you think Canadians can just reallocate that money to other things. You want to stop the manufacturing industry from taking those contracts…that money doesn’t get used for other things. It simply disappears from our economy altogether, and all those workers that relied on it, lose their jobs.

              • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
                link
                fedilink
                arrow-up
                1
                ·
                7 hours ago

                There’s absolutely no reason why labour and resources allocated to filling military contracts couldn’t be directed towards productive purposes. And seriously, what do you think money is exactly? It’s just an allocator. We have a fiat currency last I checked, and our government can issue as much currency as it wants. That’s where money comes from in case you didn’t know. We don’t have to be selling armored vehicles to other countries at all. Our government could be creating crown corporations and hiring workers to build things people in Canada need.

                The whole context of this discussion here is literally about using this industry for other things. 🤦

                • Archangel1313@lemmy.ca
                  link
                  fedilink
                  arrow-up
                  1
                  ·
                  4 hours ago

                  Ok. You clearly don’t understand how the economy works. Canada doesn’t have a central economy. The money comes from contracts paid by other countries that order goods from Canadian businesses. If you cancel those contracts, the money gets cancelled along with it. And that’s not even counting the lawsuits that would inevitably be filed by the countries that just got shafted.

                  The Canadian government can’t just “print money” to make up the difference, and then tell those private companies that they’re now making different things. Most of the technology involved is not transferable. Billions of dollars worth of equipment designed for making those things, would be wasted. And then on top of that billions more would need to be invested in new equipment designed for the new products you think they should be making instead.

                  This isn’t just some switch you flip, because the government has decided something. It takes years to make these kinds of changes…and in the meantime, all those companies that have agreed to deliver on their contracts are still legally obligated to deliver on those contracts.

                  • ☆ Yσɠƚԋσʂ ☆@lemmy.mlOP
                    link
                    fedilink
                    arrow-up
                    1
                    ·
                    4 hours ago

                    It’s truly adorable that you skimmed a Wikipedia summary of capitalism and decided to bless us with this masterpiece of financial illiteracy. You are crying about wasted factory equipment as if the sunk cost fallacy is not literally the first concept taught in basic microeconomics.

                    Rational economic actors do not base future production on unrecoverable past investments because capital naturally depreciates and markets constantly undergo structural adjustments. And you evidently have no clue how international trade actually works. When a sovereign nation enacts export controls to legally ban the sale of a specific good, those terrifying breach of contract lawsuits you are hyperventilating about are entirely preempted by standard force majeure clauses and basic sovereign immunity.

                    Furthermore, a government does not need a literal command economy to force an industrial pivot. The state does not have to seize factories or print money to dictate production. Even under capitalism there are plenty of historical examples of driving industrial policy by altering the regulatory environment and targeted fiscal subsidies. Maybe you should actually take an economics class before aggressively lecturing people on the internet about concepts you completely fail to grasp.