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Living in a militarized economy

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The scholar Seymour Melman has been working on the subject of America’s “permanent war economy” for as long as I can remember and yet many of the connections in this piece may seem unfamiliar, even unlikely, to most of you. Because the United States does not look like a classically militarized society, even those of us who are aware of the Pentagon’s massive, ever growing budgetary appetite, or our policy of garrisoning the planet, or the fact that we have been at war with someone or other somewhere or other most of the last half century, even those of us who speak of the “military-industrial complex” still tend to envision the US as an essentially civilian land and our economy as a largely civilian one. We don’t imagine ourselves as an essentially, a deeply militarized land, and so we don’t grasp the economic price we’ve paid domestically for that simple but overwhelming fact.

So give Melman’s piece some time. Let the connections he’s suggesting sink in. You don’t have to see it all or agree with it all to find him both thoughtful and provocative. When you read him you enter a mirror image world with all the emphases reversed. It’s worth the trip. Tom

In the Grip of a Permanent War Economy
Seymour Melman
Bear Left!
March 9, 2003

Now, at the start of the twenty-first century, every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy.

Civilian manufacturing industries are being swept away as a war-focused White House and a compliant Congress sponsor deindustrialization of the U.S.1 They favor production-in Mexico and China, where government powers bar independent unions. As production of both consumer goods and capital goods is moved out of America, unions and whole communities are decimated. Ghost towns are created across the country. That process is far along in industries that once invented machine tools, radios, and even TV’s. Now the decay proceeds in “new economy” industries like computers and “Palm” type devices. The U.S. firms that sell such equipment typically assemble components that are manufactured elsewhere.

Seymour Melman is Emeritus Professor of Industrial Engineering at Columbia University. His latest book is After Capitalism: From Managerialism to Workplace Democracy (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001). Research assistance by Benjamin Abrams.
To find selected papers by Seymour Melman, see the website www.After Capitalism.com.

To read more Melman click here

Now, at the start of the twenty-first century, every major aspect of American life is being shaped by our Permanent War Economy.

Civilian manufacturing industries are being swept away as a war-focused White House and a compliant Congress sponsor deindustrialization of the U.S.1 They favor production-in Mexico and China, where government powers bar independent unions. As production of both consumer goods and capital goods is moved out of America, unions and whole communities are decimated. Ghost towns are created across the country. That process is far along in industries that once invented machine tools, radios, and even TV’s. Now the decay proceeds in “new economy” industries like computers and “Palm” type devices. The U.S. firms that sell such equipment typically assemble components that are manufactured elsewhere.

Seymour Melman is Emeritus Professor of Industrial Engineering at Columbia University. His latest book is After Capitalism: From Managerialism to Workplace Democracy (Alfred A. Knopf, 2001). Research assistance by Benjamin Abrams.
To find selected papers by Seymour Melman, see the website www.After Capitalism.com.

To read more Melman click here