The Role of the Military in the Economic Decline

Abstract

In contrast to the curtailment of public investment in productive infrastructure, the military has continued to grow by leaps and bounds since the Camelot days of the Kennedy administration. Today, the extent of military spending in the United States is almost incomprehensible. During the final days of the Cold War in 1990, the Military Industrial Complex was employing about 6.5 million military and civilian personnel—about one of every ten workers—in more than 135,000 factories (Mel-man and Dumas 1990). According to the conservative estimates of the Office of Management and Budget, national defense made up 26 percent of the fiscal 1990 budget.