When on Friday 8. August 2025, the German Chancellor and former executive of BlackRock, Friedrich Merz announced that Germany will no longer approve German weapons exports for use in the Gaza strip (as a response to the Israeli government’s formal decision to take over Gaza City), the share value of Rheinmetall AG sharply dipped from an intraday high of 1732€ on the 7th of August to closing at 1620€ the on 8th of August. So, obviously, those who sold at 1732€ count themselves very lucky. Of course, I am not suggesting that any of those involved in the decision making process within the German government will have warned their asset managers that this was about the happen. The timing was of course impeccable, as trading stopped shortly after the announcement.
The development of the share value in that week indicates that the highest it closed at was on Wednesday the 6th of August (at 1783€), before the sharp drop of about 8%. The sharpest drop, howeverm was on the 7th of August, before the official announcement too place. One might suspect that the richest people are also the luckiest. One peculiar aspect of the timing, however, was that Rheinmetall AG published its Q2 results a day before the government’s announcement. This might explain the timing of the latter. At least it avoided the suspicion, that there was any trading based on insider information.
Because the arms industry is not really operating on a free market, but completely dependent on political decision making, market analyses have to take into account the volatility of international politics. For asset managers that have significantly invested in the arms industry, a halt to the war in Ukraine could spell a disaster, unless of course, they sell quickly, having already made huge profits. Similarly, the growing isolation of Israel due to the genocide in Gaza is also likely to reduce the share value of weapons manufacturers that rely on support from EU countries such as Germany.
The specific intersections between international politics focused on security and the arms industry are obviously a direct threat to democracy. It is clear that most people do not want war as most people do not benefit from it. The exceptions are countries that can boast massive military superiority (the USA; Russia, Israel), because here most ordinary people do not have to worry about the consequences of going to war, except of course for those who will be asked to fight (and their loved ones).
One of the side effects of Zionism has been the enormous toll this has placed on Israeli citizens. Because of the way in which the Zionist state had established itself through the use of force, it has also embraced a very expansive militarization and securitization of society. The costs are not only the loss of life but also life-long physical disabilities, PTSD and suicide. I am not stating this to generate sympathy for the executioners of the violence of Zionism, but to stress that the price being paid is rarely paid by those who demand for the price to be paid. To grow up in a Zionist state is to have to believe that violence is necessary because one is superior. Security thrives on the cultivation of insecurity; the illusion of superiority thrives on the cultivation of neurotic narcissism.
This also applies to other nations that have a history of waging war without seemingly having to risk defeat. In both Russia and the USA, militarization has proven to be a significant amplifier of proletarianization.
The intersections between war and economy are a well-researched field but at the same time, barely affects social sciences such as sociology, political science and even economics itself. On top of this, the rapidly expanding significance of information and disinformation – which has always been a central aspect of warfare as well as economics – is eroding the very possibility that there is any rationality at play here. Israel, having subjected the western world to relentless propaganda and misinformation since its inception in 1948, plays a pivotal role in the world’s warfare and security economics. Not only does it use the occupied territories as live laboratories for security and military research and development, it also is recipient of immense financial and military support.
Warfare propaganda, political propaganda and economic propaganda are not separate domains. Whereas its role in the former is strategically necessary, and in the second it is probably existentially inevitable, economic propaganda and misinformation would be considered illegal if it relates to quarterly business reviews and stock market trading. The fact that it is now demonstratively happening in countries such as Russia, the USA and Israel is actually corrupting the very basis of financial capitalism.
The fact that capitalism has never really been about free markets should perhaps already serve as a warning signal that it may also never have been about accurate information. Finance capital does not primarily relate to material production, but to the mental-affective dispositions such as fear and hope. These affects are most easily manipulated. The link between risk and extortion is exactly that. By manufacturing fear, a government can manipulate a population to accept a lower standard of living in exchange for higher military expenditure. Benjamin Netanyahu himself has made a lifelong political career on the basis of manufacturing fear through continuously associating Palestinians with terrorism, thereby securing a ready-made platform for continuing the economically disastrous spending on warfare and militarized security, which only benefits the wealthiest of this world.
Warfare and Security are easy ways to accumulate wealth for those who control political decision making and also have enough capital to spend on stocks and bonds. Manipulating fear and hope is easy if you control the means of propaganda. The Israel-USA axis, driven by a vast concentration of capital in the hands of a very small group of people, has been able to exploit the continued need for militarized security to sustain the violence of the Zionist project.
However, there is a second aspect. When analysing the economic activities of assert managers such as BlackRock, it is remarkable how much they are investing into real estate. At the same time, when analysing real estate development in Cyprus, we can see the activities of Israel buying up thousands of acres of land to establish gated communities for Jewish settlers. Israel has shown the way in how to use settlement as a means of warfare as well as a way to secure economic profits. In Cyprus, such developments are driving up the prices of rent and thereby squeezing out locals from property, forcing them into high-rent accommodation.
Israel uses land control to also control water supply. This is how the Zionist government controls Jordan and Syria. It pays off to pay attention to property and real estate development not just in terms of house and rent prices, demographics but also in terms of control over infrastructure, such was water, energy and transport. It will be clear that those who accumulate capital through warfare, security, settlement and energy supplies are always the same. This is why in the last instance, every war is always a class-war.
The world is now in a post-apocalyptic phase. The velvet gloves are showing wear and tear.
Disaffected Sociology 
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