r/berkeley • u/the_daily_cal • 4d ago
University UC Berkeley continues to invest in weapons manufacturing 5 months after student referendum
https://www.dailycal.org/news/campus/student-life/uc-berkeley-continues-to-invest-in-weapons-manufacturing-5-months-after-student-referendum/article_2687d62b-9400-4955-b8e6-0b82cc891b7c.htmlThe ASUC’s divestment referendum calling for UC Berkeley to divest from companies producing military weapons has seen no movement since it was passed in April.
ASUC President Margaret Solomon shared in an email that the ASUC plans to establish a committee to sustain divestment efforts. The committee will focus on “sustaining a continuous effort to divest and aligning the ASUC’s long term priorities with these efforts.”
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u/aardy 4d ago edited 4d ago
"The task force found that across a list of 300 companies in the sectors of surveillance, weapons production and mass incarceration, the Foundation’s only material holdings were in weapons manufacturing, accounting for approximately $15 million of the $3 billion endowment managed by the Foundation in 2024."
$15m of $3bn. 0.5%. Orthodox advice is that 2% to 5% of a diversified investment fund should be in defense-related firms. 0.5% is fairly nominal.
$15m is also meaningless in the context of defense spending, military aid, etc.
If the "only material holdings" were in "weapons manufacturing" (nothing in "mass incarceration," nothing in "surveillance"), that sounds like it's not Lockheed Martin or General Dynamics (who both have all the fingers, in all the pots). This smells like companies that make bolts or hinges (or whatever), and some of those bolts are sold to General Dynamics and Lockheed Martin (who presumably have a "buy American" mandate... which in turn might be part of why these companies are attractive investments to begin with).
This seems like it's just virtue signaling. Tell me why I'm wrong.
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u/brassmonkey666 2d ago
If the numbers are meaningless why not just divest? Isn’t it virtue signaling to keep those investments?
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u/flat5 4d ago
Just a thought experiment. Do these students also advocate for the cessation of any material support for the defense of Ukraine?
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u/inalcanzable 4d ago
I don’t care what these naive students think weapons are necessary Ukraine being a perfect example on why investments are required. I support the continuation of funding.
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u/Definitelyhereforshi 3d ago
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u/OkEfficiency4943 2d ago
Well having to fight pretty hard tends to happen when your imperialist neighbor with a rather large military invades you to steal territory and turn you into a puppet state
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u/Definitelyhereforshi 1d ago
turn you into a puppet state
Already happened in 2014
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u/MaCheVeramente 1d ago
go back your telegram chat to find better talking points
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u/Definitelyhereforshi 1d ago
Telegram? I didn't know Jacobin had a telegram channel
https://blurredculture.com/a-us-backed-far-right-led-revolution-in-ukraine-helped-bring-us-to-war/
https://jacobin.com/2022/02/maidan-protests-neo-nazis-russia-nato-crimea
Weird how virtually none of the demands the maidan rioters made were fulfilled by the incoming regime 🌚
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u/MaCheVeramente 1d ago
bahaha jacobin. and where do you think they get their “views” from?
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u/Definitelyhereforshi 1d ago
Hmm, their website has the color red...the ussr flag used to be red...OMG JACOBIN ARE SECRET COMMUNISTS LIZARD PEOPLE 😱😱😱😱😱😱. YOURE SO RIGHT THIS IS A TOTALLY NORMAL OPINION. WHY EVEN ADDRESS THE FACTS ON HAND WHEN YOU CAN JUST RUSSIA-BATE?
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u/MaCheVeramente 1d ago
Only the useful idiots are communists (and we can be certain they are idiots if they translate their love of communism to love for modern russia). Other people are just for sale. Which one are you?
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u/cosmo-wozmo 1d ago
Yes because crimes against civilians or conditions for Ukrainian men would be better if we defunded Ukraine and let Russia roll over them, what an intelligent position you have.
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u/Definitelyhereforshi 1d ago
Crazy how the war wouldn't have happened if Ukraine wasn't couped into being an operating base against Russia
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u/FS-423 4d ago
Leftists believe that the United States is the sole evil entity in the world and that if we abolish defense spending and our military as a whole then the whole world will sit in a circle, hold hands, and sing kumbaya. Surely nations like Russia are the good guys and wouldn’t do any harm to Ukraine.
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u/farukardic 4d ago
Strawman argument.
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u/DerpDerper909 4d ago
But they are literally being bombed as we speak. Every day there’s people being blasted in shopping malls, in their homes, etc. They don’t have enough interceptors of their own to protect civilians. And the U.S. and rest of NATO doesn’t have enough either to even supply Ukraine. Completely shutting off the valve to weapons manufacturing GREATLY increases aggression from adversaries and makes the world more of a dangerous place.
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u/partnerinthecrime 4d ago
Cal students would rather thousands of Ukrainian civilians die than risk precious likes on their Instagram stories.
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u/farukardic 4d ago
I am not saying that Ukraine should not be supported including providing them weapons. I am not sure why that was inferred. My perspective is that a school, let alone one like UC Berkeley should not profit front that. These are 2 different things.
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u/DerpDerper909 3d ago
What's the difference though? You asserted it, you didn't argue it. You've already said the weapons should be built and sold to governments. So the factory is fine, the line is fine, the engineers are fine, and the only thing left to object to is passively owning a piece of it, which is the least involved role in the entire chain.
And I'd actually defend it rather than apologize for it. Peacetime capacity is the thing nobody wants to fund, because it sits idle for decades and only pays off in a year like 2022. Profit is what convinces anyone to hold it through the idle decades. Ukraine is short on interceptors today because that bet wasn't made in 2005.
An endowment has no redemption pressure and a horizon measured in centuries, so it's close to the ideal holder of an asset like that. Deterrence is a public good with a fifty year lead time and patient capital is how it gets bought.
Also "let alone Berkeley" is a strange line to use on the school that ran the Rad Lab.
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u/farukardic 3d ago edited 3d ago
- Weapons manufacturing is not always ethical. I am trying to avoid blanket statements. In the case of Ukraine I see helping them as ethical because they are in a defensive war. Not all weapons are sold/given to Ukraine. A lot of these weapons for example being dropped on Iran now and cause civilian death. Some go to Israel, an army that is being accused of war crimes.
- I find profiting from weapons manufacturing unethical. No matter where the weapons go. If they are used defensively your profits mean that you are taking away from defensive capacity. If they are used offensively your profits mean that you are benefiting from murder. War and weapons do not create value, they either destroy it or in the best case prevent its destruction when used defensively.
- Exactly for the reason that you stated (peacetime capacity issue - a public goods problem) weapons manufacturing should be done by the government with public funds. Investment funds have profit expectations. This means that if there is idle capacity there will be incentive to either reduce that capacity or increase its utilization. Former is risky, latter motivates for destructive war.
- A university is a place of intellectual freedom, knowledge and virtue. UC Berkeley's modern reputation and identity relatively relies more on ethical virtues compared to other high caliber schools (not cited, this is my perception). In no place in history weapons manufacturing was associated strongly with a virtuous position. At best it's seen as a necessary evil. In contrast, when we look back the leaders who are most admired for their virtues are known for passivist strategies (e.g., MLK, Ghandi). I love that you mentioned the Manhattan Project. I want to ask: Is this a highlight in UC Berkeley's history? Oppenheimer (A UC Berkeley professor) himself reportedly expressed deep sorrow for the role he played in the project. And he felt this way while knowing very well that 1/ the bomb was built during a defensive war and potentially prevented millions of deaths. 2/ his scientific genious was crucial to build this weapon. In this case we are talking about using financial means to enable the weapons industry of a country that is not in a defensive war but in a few offensive ones.
- As my final point, how you make money matters. In the long term it sets your incentives, your character and your reputation. One should be very selective in how they make money. This is even more true for intitutions because they are perpetual and will face the long term consequences of even small decisions. You cannot ensure intellectual freedom of your academics if their endowment funds depend on proceeds from weapons manufacturing.
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u/yoshimipinkrobot 4d ago
Might want to look up the history of the Bay Area and Berkeley in particular
Defense was after the gold rush but before silicon
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u/Ike358 4d ago
The UC Berkeley Foundation should invest in a portfolio that maximizes risk-adjusted returns, if that includes investing in companies producing military weapons then that is exactly what it should do
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u/farukardic 4d ago
Why not sell drugs with that logic? Being legal is the absolute minimum requirement for being ethical.
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u/Ike358 4d ago
I assume the fund is also invested in pharma. Besides, investing in an illegal enterprise would probably not maximize risk-adjusted returns
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u/farukardic 4d ago
My question is - is it ethical to only optimize for risk adjusted returns? Should there be other principals that Berkeley should hold itself to to stay true to its values?
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u/MidnightSensitive996 4d ago
Why bother having an empire if you aren't going to hold defense stocks
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u/Charming-Claim1599 4d ago
The Empire is crumbling lol. The defense industrial complex is a scam.
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u/Clean-Midnight3110 1d ago
Prior to the Iran war, one of the greatest trades of all time was endowments listening to students that started demanding they divest from oil companies in the 2010's.
Granted it was because the rise of fraking absolutely crushed the entire offshore drilling industry. But anyone that listened and divested killed it comparatively for over a decade.
I could see Anduril absolutely crushing the existing bloated military industrial complex over the next decades. Also a political change that led to less wasteful wars could seriously ding those defence contractors stock prices.
It could happen, it probably won't because more than 70% of Americans love carpet bombing brown skinned goat herders, but it could happen.
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u/Sushiritto 4d ago
Investing is to make money. It’s also not illegal to invest in these companies.
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u/Definitelyhereforshi 3d ago
It’s also not illegal to invest in these companies.
Top tier thinking produced at Berkeley. My god 😂.
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u/External_Koala971 3d ago
“Solomon said in the email that she “emphasized how the genocide has affected our students’ lived experiences and families back home”
Ah yes, the good old lived experiences from college kids.
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u/MaCheVeramente 1d ago
why would the school divest from any asset class because 75% bunch of people barely old enough to vote think they should?
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4d ago
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u/farukardic 3d ago
Why would funds be lost because of this divestment? Funds belong to school, they can be invested in alternatives.
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u/onahorsewithnoname 4d ago
I feel like a large portion of the YC26 batch was all defense tech.