Lockheed Martin's Dangerous Power

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
new york city, New York, United States of America (Free-Press-Release.com) July 5, 2011 -- The sad truth about unfettered capitalism is that it is a revolutionary force, as Marx understood, that invariably devolves into a dangerous form of corporate socialism without regulations. Big corporations become so powerful that they create monopolies over their industries and accrue extraordinary control over the government. Their exorbitant wealth and power enables them to buy out competitors and pay off Congressmen through massive campaign contributions and lobbying efforts to subsidize their business and ignore criminal conduct.

One company that exemplifies this paradigm is Lockheed Martin, the biggest weapons contractor in the world, as William D. Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, explains in his bookProphets of War, Lockheed Martin and the Making of the Military-Industrial Complex. Lockheed Martin is “the nation’s top government contractor, with $36 billion in federal contracts in 2008 alone,” of which $29 billion came from the Pentagon, according to Hartung. This “comes to roughly $260 per paying household,” or a “Lockheed Martin tax.” Accordingly, the scope of its power is enormous, as the company has its hand in virtually every aspect of government, to which we will return.

A crucial way in which it has attained such power is through lobbying and campaign contributions, on which it spent $15 million in 2009 alone. It played a leading role in the post-World War II effort to create a permanent military budget by persuading Congress that it would be in the nation’s best interest to subsidize contractors at all times. During the 80s there was some controversy over the C-5B lobbying campaign. Those who lobbied to ensure funding for this new generation of fighter planes included the Pentagon, Air Force, Lockheed and its subcontractors, President Reagan, Senate Majority Leader Howard Baker, Secretary of the Air Force Verne Orr, and many others.

The only thing unusual about this campaign was that the General Accounting Office (GAO) issued a report calling for investigations of criminal violations of laws restricting executive branch officials from lobbying. Of course it was ignored. This was, in the words of whistleblower Ernie Fitzgerald, like “asking the King’s lawyers to prosecute the King’s men for doing the King’s business.” Indeed, this kind of lobbying activity occurs every year, according to Hartung:

“All the same elements are present when other weapons systems are up for debate: Industry and Pentagon lobbyists swarm Capitol Hill; pressure is ratcheted up on members of the Armed Services and Defense Appropriations Committees in the House and Senate, many of whom have had key defense production facilities placed in their states or districts; key members receive generous political contributions from the producer of the weapons system and its subcontractors… and official reports and testimony are created that make a one-sided case for the weapon system in question.”

This extraordinary power comes from the revolving door phenomenon. A 1969 report found that “over 2,000 military officers had gone to work for major defense contractors,” 210 of which went to Lockheed. The dangers were described by Sen. William Proxmire: “The easy movement of high ranking military officers into jobs with major defense contractors and the reverse movement of top executives in major defense contractors into high Pentagon jobs is solid evidence of the military-industrial complex in operation. It is a real threat to the public interest because it increases the chances of abuse… How hard a bargain will officers involved in procurement planning or specifications drive when they are one or two years from retirement and have the example to look at of over 2,000 fellow officers doing well on the outside after retirement?” This phenomenon is strikingly similar to how the SEC operates. The Madoff scandal, for example, revealed how investigators have strong incentives to look the other way because they know Wall Street jobs are waiting for them once they leave the SEC.

The government’s relationship with the military-industrial complex mirrors that of Wall Street in many ways...

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http://thebloodycrossroads.com/

capitalism     contractors     defense     Lockheed Martin     marx     pentagon     William D Hartung