War Is a Racket

We do conscript capital to fund military spending, through taxation. It’s levied across the whole society according to ability to pay. There are always arguments about who should pay what, but thats what democratic politics is there to mediate.

Of course there is an argument that since individuals face conscription into the military, so why not conscript industry? But of course the US government had already laid down the legal basis for this by 1935 when this book was published. In fact they did so during WW2 in the form of commandeering, the power to compel any producer in the country to accept war orders, along with the imposition of price controls.

SPOILER ALERT

The extremely skilled and elusive hacker which they're investigating, the one that has been plaguing/blackmailing corporations for 5 years, turns out to be mostly* an illusion. The corporations and ruling political party leadership worked together in a scheme to create fake cyber attacks, get them highly publicized, and then profit from government relief/bailout money. Regular people believe someone is terrorizing the country's multinational companies, when in reality, it's just a racket.

*The legendary hacker is actually out there, but their actual role in the story is somewhat of a plot twist.

  Politicians hide themselves away
  They only started the war
  Why should they go out to fight?
  They leave that role to the poor
  -- "War Pigs"

Ferengi Rule of Acquisition #35: Peace is good for business.