And thanks to 82_28 for hipping me to this Philip K. Dick book on the implications of this same subject:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Penultimate_Truth
…The government and war engine remains on the surface; the elite "Yance-men". Their president, Talbot Yancy, delivers inspirational speeches to the tankers, motivating them to increase their production of leadies and win the war. The war does eventually end. However, the Yance-men design a conspiracy to maintain the wealth of the Earth for themselves. Yancy continues to describe devastation in televised speeches. The tankers continue to produce leadies.
Talbot Yancy is actually a computer generated simulacrum. The Yance-men program him from the "Agency" in New York. They live in immense villas on private parks, called "demesnes". The leadies are actually used by the Yance-men as personal servants and to maintain their estates. The Agency is run by the most vicious and greedy Yance-man, Stanton Brose, who is kept alive by pre-war artificial organs which he hoards.…