Volume 15, Number 2 · July 23, 1970
Military America
By Robert L. Heilbroner
Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War
by Seymour Melman
McGraw-Hill, 290 pp., $8.50
The thesis of Seymour Melman's terrifying book can be briefly stated. There exists within the democratic capitalist political economy of the United States a second political economy that is neither capitalist nor democratic. Technically subordinate to the larger entity, this second political economy has in fact become the acknowledged master of the industrial core of the primary economic system, and the silent master of crucial areas of its political life. Each year the directorship of this inner state, through appeals of mixed fear and patriotism, renews its control over the richest portion of the nation's resources, which it then disburses to its industrial satrapies.
Review, 3111 words
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