It is a jarring thought. While millions of people are losing their homes, their limbs, or their lives, someone else is checking a stock ticker and seeing green. It’s gross. Honestly, the sentiment that if you make money off of war you’re scum isn't just a radical protest slogan; it's a deep-seated moral reaction to the way our global economy is wired. We live in a world where "defense" is a line item on a balance sheet. When a missile hits a target, a subcontracting firm somewhere in Virginia or Bristol just hit their quarterly goals.
War is expensive. It’s the ultimate consumer of resources. But unlike building a bridge or a school, the "product" of war is destruction. When the primary driver of profit is the end of peace, we have to ask what that does to our collective soul. It’s not just about the big guys in suits, either. It’s about the systemic way conflict has been commodified.
The Reality of the Military-Industrial Complex
President Dwight D. Eisenhower warned us. He was a five-star general who had seen the worst of it, yet in his 1961 farewell address, he dropped a truth bomb about the "military-industrial complex." He saw it coming. He knew that if you create a massive industry that relies on permanent readiness for war, that industry will eventually need a war to justify its existence. It’s basic supply and demand, but with human lives as the currency.
Look at the numbers. They’re staggering. The top five defense contractors in the U.S.—Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Boeing, Northrop Grumman, and General Dynamics—pull in tens of billions of dollars in government contracts annually. When tensions rise in the Middle East or Eastern Europe, their stock prices often climb. To the average person, a war starting is a tragedy. To a shareholder, it’s a "market tailwind." That disconnect is why so many people feel that if you make money off of war you’re scum.
Private Equity and the New Face of Conflict
It’s not just about making the bombs anymore. It’s the logistics. It’s the private security firms. Remember Blackwater? They changed their name a bunch of times (now Constellis), but the model remains. We’ve privatized the front lines. When a government hires a private firm to handle security or interrogation, they’re outsourcing the moral and legal accountability.
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Private equity firms have also realized there’s a killing to be made in, well, killing. They buy up smaller component manufacturers—the folks making the specific screws for fighter jets or the specialized software for drone targeting. It’s a diversified portfolio of death. You might have a retirement fund that, through a series of complex index funds, is betting on the escalation of a border dispute. It’s pervasive. It’s everywhere.
Blood Money and the Lobbying Machine
Why does the war machine keep turning even when the public is exhausted? Follow the money. Defense contractors spend millions every year on lobbying. They aren't just selling products; they’re selling a narrative of fear. If the world feels safe, their order books go thin. Therefore, it is in their financial interest for the world to feel—and actually be—dangerous.
This creates a perverse incentive structure. If your bonus depends on selling more artillery shells, you aren't going to be the biggest advocate for a diplomatic ceasefire. You want the "kinetic solution." This is the core of the argument that if you make money off of war you’re scum. It’s the idea that you are actively incentivized to see peace fail.
The Revolving Door
The people making the decisions often end up working for the companies they were just regulating. It’s a classic Washington D.C. story. A general retires and joins the board of a major weapons manufacturer. A high-ranking Pentagon official moves into a senior VP role at a defense tech firm. They use their connections to secure more contracts, and the cycle continues. This isn't a conspiracy theory; it’s just how the business works.
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This "revolving door" ensures that the interests of the state and the interests of the war-profiteers are inextricably linked. It’s hard to tell where the government ends and the private sector begins. This blurred line makes it nearly impossible to have an objective conversation about national security that isn't tainted by the smell of a looming payout.
Is There Such a Thing as "Ethical Defense"?
Some folks argue that we need weapons for defense. "If we don't build them, the bad guys will." Sure, that’s a fair point on a geopolitical level. But there’s a difference between a nation defending itself and a private corporation lobbying for more conflict to pump its dividends.
The "scum" label usually gets applied when the profit motive overrides human rights. Take the case of companies selling surveillance tech to authoritarian regimes. They know that software will be used to track down dissidents and journalists. They sell it anyway. Why? Because the contract is worth nine figures. That’s the point where "defense" turns into "complicity."
The Human Cost of the Bottom Line
We talk about "surgical strikes" and "collateral damage." These are corporate words designed to sanitize the reality of what war-profiteering looks like on the ground. When a school or a hospital is hit by a missile made by a company that gave its CEO a $20 million bonus last year, the math feels wrong. It feels evil.
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Real people—mothers, fathers, kids—are the ones paying for those profit margins. When you look at the devastation in places like Yemen or Gaza, and then you look at the quarterly earnings reports of the companies providing the ordnance, the "scum" sentiment feels like an understatement. It’s a total failure of empathy in favor of the ledger.
Moving Beyond the Profit of Death
So, what do we actually do about it? If you're tired of the idea that if you make money off of war you’re scum, you have to look at where your own money sits. It’s a hard truth, but many of us are unknowingly part of the machine.
Divestment is a powerful tool. Just like the movement against "blood diamonds" or the push to pull money out of fossil fuels, there is a growing movement to divest from the arms industry.
Steps for Ethical Financial Alignment:
- Check your 401(k) or IRA. Most target-date funds or broad index funds include the major defense contractors. Look for "ESG" (Environmental, Social, and Governance) funds that specifically exclude weapons manufacturers.
- Support transparency legislation. Push for laws that require clearer disclosure of lobbying efforts by defense firms and longer "cool-down" periods for government officials moving into the private defense sector.
- Question the "Defense" budget. We’ve been conditioned to think that more spending equals more safety. Often, it just means more waste and more profit for contractors. Look at the audits—or the lack thereof. The Pentagon famously struggles to pass an audit.
- Boost Diplomacy. Fund the peacebuilders. Organizations like the International Crisis Group work to prevent conflict before it starts. If we invested 10% of our defense budget into proactive diplomacy, the war-profiteers wouldn't have a market to exploit.
The cycle won't break itself. As long as there is more money to be made in war than in peace, the world will stay violent. Refusing to accept conflict as a "business opportunity" is the first step toward a world where human life is worth more than a stock option. It starts with calling it what it is and refusing to look away from the blood on the money.