Economic Consequences of Armaments Production: Institutional Perspectives of J.K. Galbraith and T.B. Veblen

J.K. Galbraith’s short book, How to Control the Military, boldly championed political and institutional reforms to curb “the military power.” Galbraith stood out among economists for his advocacy of arms reduction negotiations with the Soviet Union. He rejected the hypothesis that the Soviet Union nurtured an aggressive expansionary military policy. At the same time, he maintained that the tenor of national policy and the shaping of national priorities emanated from the Pentagon. Galbraith’s assertion that the military was the dominant force within the “military-industrial complex” was never empirically demonstrated. Nor did he adequately address the crucial role that military outlays played in advancing major technological innovations which underwrote the accumulation process. Veblen offered a more comprehensive analysis of the role of military expenditures, correctly showing that forms of “waste” are highly functional to the institutional and ideological structure of the U.S. economy. Military Keynesianism constituted the evolution of his conceptualization.