ABSTRACT
Highly specialized and lavishly funded institutions dedicated to war making have become characteristic features of both industrialized and developing nations. Independently of variation in politics, ideology, history and culture, war-making institutions have been installed as state managements over the largest aggregations of industrial and allied enterprises, to serve the military functions of the state. Within the United States the cornerstone of this ideology is the claim that it took the onset of World War II to end the Great Depression and that the nation then enjoyed an abundance of guns and butter. In the United States, however, the 85 percent increase in average machine-tool prices, exceeding the 72 percent rise in worker earnings, marked the close of the classic process, which had induced industrial productivity growth. There has been a further effect of the military economy with far-reaching consequences for the viability of civilian production in the United States.
