Next time some overeducated underemployed collectivist is whining: “Books not bombs, maaan” you’d do well to clue them in that more public spending on books will inevitably lead to more bombs, because as Hayek explains in The Road to Serfdom: “Once the communal sector, in which the state controls all the means, exceeds a certain proportion of the whole, the effects of its actions dominate the whole system.”
According to “US Government Spending” a spectacular site that enables you to see how the government is wasting your money, Education and Defense Spending were tied at an even .9 trillion dollars or 15% each in 2011! Pensions, Health Care, and Welfare account for 45% or 2.8 trillion dollars. The government’s remaining slush fund was marked “other.”
Regarding “Books not Bombs” though, a collectivist able to follow even loose reasoning should understand that the reallocation of government spending, without a decrease in overall spending, will eventually lead to inflated government budgets that necessitate the use of force just to ensure that their coffers remain full.
So, next time you encounter the “books not bombs” crowd, you might request that if their commitment is against violence as a matter of principle (and not just selective violence) that the least they can do is chant “No bombs for books, maaan.”