Military-industrial complexes

03 Mar 2004 17:05

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Their economic importance: in N. America, Europe, East Asia, third-world countries with large industrial bases like India and Brazil. Political influence. Vs. university-industrial complexes.

The US military-industrial complex is very weird, in many ways, not the least of which is that it's hardly capitalist --- or rather it exhibits very clearly the split between the interests of business and those of the market system. It uses market mechanisms, but largely to mobilize resources from outside; there is essentially no competition within the system, and extraordinarily little risk. (Large military contractors not only don't go broke, they hardly ever become small contractors.) The political economy here is something I do wish I understood better.

While we're on the subject, has anyone looked at the role of the US military-industrial complex in sparking the shift to the Sunbelt?

See also:
• American Foreign Policy
• The Cold War

Recommended:
• Thomas Oatley, A Political Economy of American Hegemony: Buildups, Booms, and Busts

To read:
• Stephen G. Brooks, Producing Security: Multinational Corporations, Globalization, and the Changing Calculus of Conflict
• Jacques S. Gansler
  • Defense Conversion: Transforming the Arsenal of Democracy
  • Democracy's Arsenal: Creating a Twenty-First-Century Defense Industry
• Ann Markusen, Peter Hall, Scott Campbell and Sabina Deitrick, The Rise of the Gunbelt: The Military Remapping of Industrial America [per Brad Plumer's recommendation]
• Melman
  • Pentagon Capitalism
  • The Permanent War Economy
• Kevin Narizny, "Both Guns and Butter, or Neither: Class Interests in the Political Economy of Rearmament", American Political Science Review 97 (2003): 203--220
• Alex Roland, Delta of Power: The Military-Industrial Complex
• Vernon W. Ruttan, Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technological Development [Review in the Journal of Economic History indicates that the sub-title is the real subject, and the title just one step above a throw-away line.]
• Todd Sandler and Keith Hartley, The Economics of Defense
• Rebecca U. Thorpe, The American Warfare State: The Domestic Politics of Military Spending