ABSTRACT
This chapter explores the relationship between US institutions (social, political, economic, and ideological), arms spending, and the State in the post-World War II period. Pervasive arms spending throughout this forty-five-year period has given rise to a new set of institutions and institutionalized ways of conceiving and doing. The focus on arms spending is hardly a narrow one. At the federal level military spending constitutes the lion’s share of all “discretionary” outlays—e.g. spending which can be controlled by the State in the short term. As a consummate practitioner of dichotomous forms of analysis and interpretation, Veblen was wont to stress the division between instrumental, or functional human activities. The Keynesian State emphasizes full-employment policies and economic stabilization, achieved through large-scale intervention into the market process.
