Sard's Permanent War Economy

http://solidarity-us.org/atc/198/permanent-war/
Date Written:  2019-01-01
Publisher:  Against the Current
Year Published:  2019
Resource Type:  Article
Cx Number:  CX23469

A long biographical essay on Edward Sard who founded the theory of "permanent war economy."

Abstract: 
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Excerpt:

The theory of the "Permanent War Economy" has played a rather important role in the debates of the radical left from the late 1940s to the 1980s. C. Wright Mills applied it in his The New Men of Power: America's Labor Leaders (1948) and in The Causes of World War Three (1958).

The founder of this theory was Edward L. Sard (1913-1999), born Edward Solomon, a brilliant Marxist economist who wanted to remain invisible to a wider public and operated under five different names. Until now his life and work have been shrouded in mystery. The present essay is intended to give some information on Sard’s political biography and the origins of the theory of the Permanent War Economy. His successive pseudonyms will serve as a means of mapping his development.

Subject Headings

• War Economy