Hacker News Reader

Comment by a_bonobo | Hacker News Reader

You have a bunch of tech execs getting sworn in as lieutenant colonels for the Army Reserve, SF aligns itself with the White House just like Germany's big industry aligned itself with the NSDAP. It doesn't particularly matter whether an order is legal or not, it only matters if the ones in power want it.

View on HN

What would motivate them to join the army?

The power that comes with military contract-type money, connections, and influence.

That's the kind of situation that gives CEOs lifelong reputations (that they think it's in a good way).

The NSDAP-style alignments went both ways: if the industry bigwig joined the party, he got access to lucrative contracts and insider information. The NSDAP also helped strike down strikes for the bigwigs, and later, supplied slaves from concentration camps for cheap. In turn, the party got to deeply control the bigwig: don't toe the party line and you're either out, or you're in danger. Join the party and publicly demonstrate your allegiance to the leadership.

See the secret industry meeting from 1933 as the prime example: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_Meeting_of_20_February_...

It was a very mafia-like arrangement. Loyalty meant being rewarded with lucrative opportunities but it also meant you owed them and sooner or later they'd come back asking for one favour or another.

Nazis were very good at making both industrialists and military feel rich. The German stock market went up like a rocket between 1933 and 1941.

And the military higher-ups were bribed with constant personalized handouts. Hitler even paid a wealthy general’s entire divorce settlement from taxpayer funds, as mentioned here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bribery_of_senior_Wehrmacht_of...

” Such was the success of Hitler's bribery system that by 1942, many officers had come to expect the bestowing of "gifts" from Hitler and were unwilling to bite the hand that fed them so generously.[10] When Field Marshal Fedor von Bock was sacked by Hitler in December 1941, his first reaction was to contact Hitler's aide Rudolf Schmundt to ask if his sacking meant that he was no longer to receive bribes from the Konto 5 ("bank account 5") slush fund.”

With the level of corruption in the current US administration, it seems entirely possible that it’s heading in a similar direction. For example, why shouldn’t Trump award a billion units of his crypto coin to loyal military leaders? What law prohibits that and who enforces it?

Do you have any idea how the investors in the German stock market in that period made out after the war? I'm guessing that they probably lost a lot, especially in East Germany, but I'm interested in reading more detailed accounts or investigations of the situation.

It's also objectively the definition of fascism; a society where industry and party is working together as one body with the strong leader as the head.

Yup. All of those men will need to be investigated and, if appropriate, tried for corruption.

FOMO

Like the days of the British Army selling commissions, it's for corruption opportunities and cosplay.

Fascism is the last step in the merger between the state and corporate power, the state is currently trying its best to take the country there, and the sycophants who are ready to assist it are getting in line.

And if you want to close your eyes and believe things aren't that dire (they are), at minimum you have to admit that this is a regime that is incredibly blatant and open in its corruption and embrace of the spoils system. You'd have to be an utter idiot[1] to not try to weasel in to get your hand into the public purse.

---

[1] Or hold on to something resembling moral principles when mountains of money and power is at stake, which in that part of the business world is a synonym.

It gives them a chance for grift. They're going into an "innovation" unit whose job is to get the Army (or DOD more broadly, but they're in the Army now) to select particular technologies moving forward. Naturally, they'll recommend whatever their employer produces, and recommend to their employer that they expand into other areas so they can get the Army to buy that as well later on.

Good news, that sort of behavior is technically illegal even if the current administration is wildly corrupt already. So give it 4 years and they open themselves to the possibility of being courtmartialed for their grifting.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com