That phrase may be the most misunderstood in the modern political lexicon.
Eisenhower wasn’t saying we shouldn’t have a military industrial complex, or that government shouldn’t control it. He was concerned about the lack of public control over that capacity. Specifically, he was concerned about the media and other unelected forces defining competitors as enemies and disagreement as endless conflicts where unlimited sums would be spent and modern political discourse and institutions would be unable to restrain it. He was concerned about moral hazards. Not just the moral hazard of letting people borrow money from the government and then vote themselves loan forgiveness but also continuing to vote for wars so Des Moines didn’t lose jobs. Or as Chito and Aston put it, we can’t cut the federal budget because that will put people out of work, we need the government to grow to stimulate the economy.
He spoke at length about balance between the public and private economy. Between public good and the politically desirable and how those things can subtly differ. And how to have institutional control over the decision making process surrounding that balance.
He identified two main threats to that balance at the time he left office. The standing army/military industrial complex that had tremendous political and financial influence at the grassroots at the time was arguably manipulating public policy to become self perpetrating. He wasn’t worried about Halliburton as much as he was local and state governments pandering to them because the public lacked the awareness or political power to restrain both.
More importantly (and more presently), he also warned of the federal “task force of scientists.” And the revolution on college campuses where the thirst for government research contracts, and the desire to maintain them, had become a “substitute for intellectual curiosity.” He was concerned that the federal government would “dominate” the universities through the threat of withheld funding. He was absolutely terrified that “public policy could itself become the captive of a scientific and technological elite.” IOW Fauci and his bureaucratic apparatus.
People can’t throw around their concerns about Dick Cheney without conceding something dangerous and disastrous happened with CoVid policy.
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