Why Illegal Wars Make Markets High

“K” is both the shape of immiseration and the permanent war economy.

We’re living in a moment where flagrantly illegal wars are ravaging the human condition. And I don’t just mean in the places where bombs rip through the flesh of the innocent. I also mean in the places in whose name savagery is waged. The ability to secure a decent, stable life in even the bosom of empire has been declining precipitously. And while Trump and the counter-revolutionary project he’s unwittingly carrying out is accelerating immiseration, it is, by various measures, a secular trend:

These circumstances have aroused the curiosity of the business press. Markets are doing well and corporate profits are high, yet human insecurity is growing amid globe-ruining imperial wars of choice. How to explain this?