Arms, Politics, and the Economy

Historical and Contemporary Perspectives

Robert Higgs

• Publisher: Independent Institute
• Year: 2026
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• eBook ISBN:
  9781598134445
• Subtopic: Military & Maritime History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

The U. S. Department of Defense is actually one of the world’s largest planned economies. Like all planned economies, it has gross inefficiencies. This book is a penetrating analysis of the military-industrial-Congressional complex, and offers new insights into how meaningful reform can be achieved.

Prior to World War II, the United States maintained insignificant military forces and weapons manufacturing industries during peace. But the weapons industry that has grown since the end of World War II inhabits an ill-defined zone between genuine private enterprise and complete government planning. Does this unprecedented military-industrial-congressional complex efficiently serve the public’s interest in national security?

In this book, eleven contributing scholars analyze such questions as whether overall military spending is too high or too low, why the military procurement system remains impervious to reform, and how special interests exploit the system.

This book does not leave readers with simple solutions; depoliticizing defense spending and eliminating military procurement mismanagement will not be easy. But this book does lay the foundation of understanding to help necessary reforms take place.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Foreword: The Political Economy of U.S. Defense
• Preface
• Introduction: Fifty Years of Arms, Politics, Economy
• Chapter 1: Baruch, the New Deal and the Origins of the Military-Industrial Complex
• Chapter 2: Public Goods, Politics, and Two Cheers for the Military-Industrial Complex
• Chapter 3: National Defense and the Public-Goods Problem
• Chapter 4: Blue Ribbon Defense Commissions: The Acquisition of Major Weapon Systems
• Chapter 5: The Sorcerer’s Apprentice: Public Regulation of the Weapons Acquisition Process
• Chapter 6: Models of Arms Transfer in American Foreign Policy: Carter’s Restraint and Reagan’s Promotion, 1977-1987
• Chapter 7: Contributions to Federal Election Campaigns by Government Contractors
• Chapter 8: Congress and the Defense Budget: Parochialism or Policy?
• Chapter 9: Patterns of Congressional Influence in Defense Contracting
• Chapter 10: Department of Defense Attempts to Close Military Bases: The Political Economy of Congressional Resistance
• Notes on Contributors
• Index
• Copyright