In the debate on the incidence and dynamics of new industrial complexes, technological innovation has been treated as exogenous, and endogenous entrepreneurial growth forces have been stressed at the expense of state actions, interregional interactions, and geographical transfers of capital and labor. In this paper it is argued that technological paths are deliberately chosen and that the state, through its commitment to cold-war armament, has been a major source of demand for and underwriter of the new flexible technologies and new product lines so central to the new industrial districts phenomenon in the USA. The emergence of specific agglomerations, such as Los Angeles, Orange County, Silicon Valley, and the Boston area's Route 128, and the parallel failure of the industrial heartland cities to host military-related high-tech development, are the products of concerted locational choice and developmental efforts by military personnel, politicians, boosters, and military-industrial corporate managers, Military-led innovation has furthermore contributed to the rise of accelerated and institutionalized innovation and to the emergence of new macroeconomic pathologies, such as state debt, accelerated deindustrialization, and a worsening income distribution.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AdamsG, 1981The Iron Triangle: The Politics of Defense Contracting (Council on Economic Priorities, New York)
2.
AIA, 1990, “Aerospace facts and figures, 89/90”, Aerospace Industries Association, Washington, DC
3.
AndersonR, 1983A Look at Lockheed (The Newcomen Society, New York)
4.
ArmitageMMasonR, 1983Air Power in the Nuclear Age (University of Illinois Press, Urbana, IL)
5.
Burgess-WiseD, 1988Ford in the AirCorporate History Office, Ford Motor Company, Detroit
6.
Business Week1989, Special issue on“Top 1000 business corporations”, 10 December
7.
ClaytonJ, 1962, “Defense spending: Key to California's growth”Western Political Quarterly15280–293
8.
ClaytonJ, 1967, “The impact of the cold war on the economies of California and Utah, 1946–1965”Pacific Historical Review36449–473
9.
CohnC, 1987, “Nuclear language, and how we learned to pat the bomb”Bulletin of Atomic Scientists June, pp 17–24
10.
DavisW, 1984, “The pentagon and the scientist”, in The Militarization of High Technology Ed. TirmanJ (Ballinger, Cambridge, MA) pp 153–179
11.
DOD, 1984Prime Contracts by Country Department of Defense (US Government Printing Office, Washington, DC)
12.
DumasL, 1986The Overburdened Economy (University of California Press, Berkeley, CA)
13.
EvangelistaM, 1989Innovation and the Arms Race: How the United States and the Soviet Union Develop New Military Technologies (Cornell University Press, Ithaca, NY)
14.
FallowsJ, 1981National Defense (Random House, New York)
15.
FlammK, 1988Creating the Computer: Government, Industry, and High Technology (The Brookings Institution, Washington, DC)
16.
FordHCrowtherS, 1926Today and Tomorrow (Doubleday, Page and Company, Garden City, NY)
17.
FullerJ, 1945Armament and History (Charles Scribner's, New York)
18.
GertlerM, 1988, “The limits to flexibility: Comment on the post-Fordist vision of production and its geography”Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers13419–432
19.
HallP, 1990, “The generation of innovative milieux: An essay in theoretical synthesis”, WP-505, Institute of Urban and Regional Development, University of California, Berkeley, CA
20.
HallPPrestonP, 1988The Carrier Wave: New Information Technology and the Geography of Innovation, 1846–2003 (Unwin Hyman, London)
21.
HarrisonB, 1989, “The big firms are coming out of the corner: The resurgence of economic scale and industrial power in the age of ‘flexibility’”, paper presented at the International Conference on Industrial Transformation and Regional Development in an Age of Global Interdependence, Nagoya, Japan, 21 September; copy available from author at School of Urban and Public Affairs, Carnegie Mellon University, Pittsburgh, PA
22.
HarrisonBBluestoneB, 1988The Great U-Turn: Corporate Restructuring and the Polarizing of America (Basic Books, New York)
23.
HarveyD, 1988, “The geographical and geopolitical consequences of the transition from Fordist to flexible accumulation”, in America's New Market Geography Eds SternliebGHughesJ (Center for Urban Policy Research, Piscataway, NJ) pp 101–134
24.
HenryDOliverR, 1987, “The defense buildup, 1977–85: Effective production and employment”Monthly Labor Review August issue, 3–11
25.
HillCDeitrickSMarkusenA, 1990, “Converting the cold war economy”, paper presented at the Annual Conference, American Collegiate Schools of Planning, Austin, TX, November; copy available from the author
26.
HolleyIJr, 1953Ideas and Weapons: Exploitation of the Aerial Weapon by the United States During World War I (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT)
27.
HurleyA, 1975Billy Mitchell: Crusader for Air Power (Indiana University Press, Bloomington, IN)
28.
JanowitzM, 1960The Professional Soldier: A Social and Political Portrait (The Free Press, Glencoe, IL)
29.
JonesN, 1973The Origins of Strategic Bombing (William Kimber, London)
30.
KaldorM, 1981The Baroque Arsenal (Hill and Wang, New York)
31.
KelseyB, 1982The Dragon's Teeth: The Creation of United States Air Power for World War II (The Smithsonian Institute, Washington, DC)
32.
KunzmanK, 1988, “Military production and regional development in the Federal Republic of Germany”, in Defence Expenditure and Regional Development Ed. BrehenyM (Mansell, London) pp 49–66
33.
KurthJ, 1973, “Aerospace production lines and American defense spending”, in Testing the Theory of the Military-Industrial Complex Ed. RoseS (D C Heath, Lexington, MA) pp 135–156
34.
KurthJ, 1990, “The follow-on imperative in American weapons procurement, 1960–1990”, paper presented at the Conference on Economic Issues of Disarmament, Notre Dame University, 1 December; copy available from the author at Department of Economics, Swarthmore College, Swathmore, PA, USA
35.
LaceyR, 1986Ford: The Men and the Machine (Little, Brown, Boston, MA)
36.
LotchinR, 1979, “The metropolitan-military complex in comparative perspective: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and San Diego, 1919–1941”, in The Urban West Ed. NashG (Sunflower University Press, Manhattan, KS) pp 19–30
37.
LotchinR, 1982, “The city and the sword in metropolitan California, 1919–1941”Urbanism Past and Present141–16
38.
LoveringJ, 1987, “Militarism, capitalism, and the nation-state: Towards a realist synthesis”Environment and Planning D: Society and Space5283–302
39.
LoveringJ, 1988, “Islands of prosperity: The spatial impact of high-technology defence industry in Britain”, in Defence Expenditure and Regional Development Ed. BrehenyM (Mansell, London) pp 29–48
40.
LoveringJ, 1990, “Fordism's unknown successor: A comment on Scott's theory of flexible accumulation and the re-emergence of regional economies”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research14159–174
41.
LuriaD, 1990, “Automation, markets and scale: Can ‘flexible niching’ modernize US manufacturing?”International Review of Applied Economics4127–165
42.
MacIsaacD, 1976Strategic Bombing in World War II (Garland Publishing, New York)
43.
MannoJ, 1984Arming the Heavens: The Hidden Military Agenda for Space, 1945–1995 (Dodd, Mead, New York)
44.
MarkusenA, 1985Profit Cycles, Oligopoly and Regional Development (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA)
45.
MarkusenA, 1986a, “Defense spending: A successful industrial policy?”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research10105–122
46.
MarkusenA, 1986b, “The militarized economy: Reforming US growth and productivity”World Policy Journal2495–516
47.
MarkusenA, 1989, “The economic, industrial and regional consequences of defense-led innovation”, in Knowledge and Industrial Organization Eds AnderssonABattenDKarlsonC (Springer, Berlin) pp 251–269
48.
MarkusenA, 1991, “Government as market: Industrial location in the US defense industry”, in Industry Location and Public Policy Eds HerzogHSchlottmannA (University of Tennessee Press, Knoxville, TN) pp 137–168
49.
MarkusenA, 1992. “Why shifting gears isn't easy: Structural barriers to converting the US economy”, in The Economics of Disarmament Eds ChatterjeeMBrauerJ (New York University Press, New York) forthcoming
50.
MarkusenACampbellS, 1990, “The occupational, industrial and regional distribution of defense-related economic activity”, paper presented at the annual meetings of the Regional Science Association, Boston, MA, November, copy available from the author
51.
MarkusenAMcCurdyK, 1989, “Chicago's defense-based high technology: A case study of the ‘seedbeds of innovation’ hypothesis”Economic Development Quarterly315–31
52.
MarkusenAHallPGlasmeierA, 1986High Tech America: The What, How, Where and Why of the Sunrise Industries (Allen and Unwin, Boston, MA)
53.
MarkusenAHallPDeitrickSCampbellS, 1991The Rise of the Gunbelt (Oxford University Press, New York)
54.
MarkusenAYudkenJ, 1992Dismantling the Cold War Economy (Basic Books, New York)
55.
MelmanS, 1983Profits with Production (Alfred A Knopf, New York)
56.
MenschG, 1979Stalemate in Technology (Ballinger, Cambridge, MA)
57.
MingosH, 1968, “The rise of the aircraft industry”, in The History of the American Aircraft Industry: An Anthology Ed. SimonsonG (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA) pp 20–54
58.
NevinsAHillF, 1954Ford: Expansion and Challenge, 1915–1933 (Charles Seribner's, New York)
59.
NevinsAHillF, 1962Ford: Decline and Rebirth, 1933–62 (Charles Seribner's, New York)
60.
NieburgH, 1966In the Name of Science (Quadrangle Books, Chicago, IL)
61.
NobleD, 1984The Forces of Production (Alfred A Knopf, New York)
62.
PioreMSabelC, 1984The Second Industrial Divide: Possibilities for Prosperity (Basic Books, New York)
63.
PowaskiR, 1987March to Armageddon: The United States and the Nuclear Arms Race, 1939 to the Present (Oxford University Press, New York)
64.
RaeJ, 1968Climb to Greatness: The American Aircraft Industry, 1920–1960 (MIT Press, Cambridge, MA)
65.
SaxenianA, 1990, “The origins and dynamics of production networks: The Silicon Valley”, paper presented at the Conference on Networks of Innovators, Montreal, May; copy available from author at Department of City and Regional Planning, University of California, Berkeley, CA
66.
SchoenbergerE, 1988, “From Fordism to flexible accumulation: Technology, competitive strategies, and international location”Environment and Planning D: Space and Society6245–262
67.
ScottA, 1986, “High tech industry and territorial development: The rise of the Orange County complex, 1955–1984”Urban Geography73–45
68.
ScottA, 1988, “Flexible production systems and regional development: The rise of new industrial space in North America and Western Europe”International Journal of Urban and Regional Research12171–186
69.
ScottA, 1990, “The technopoles of Southern California”Environment and Planning A221575–1605
70.
ScottAAngelP, 1987, “The US semiconductor industry: A locational analysis”Environment and Planning A19875–912
71.
SherryM, 1987The Rise of American Air Power: The Creation of Armageddon (Yale University Press, New Haven, CT)
72.
StorperM, 1989, “The transition to flexible specialization in the US film industry: External economies, the division of labour, and the crossing of industrial divides”Cambridge Journal of Economics13273–305
StowskyJ, 1986, “Beating our plowshares into double-edged swords: Assessing the impact of pentagon policies on the commercialization of advanced technologies”, WP-17, Berkeley Roundtable on the International Economy, University of California at Berkeley, CA
75.
TieboutC, 1966, “The regional impact of defense expenditures: Its measurement and problems of adjustment”, in Defense and Disarmament Ed. BoltonR (Prentice-Hall, Englewood Cliffs, NJ) pp 125–139
76.
United Auto Workers, 1988US Aerospace Industry Review(UAW Research Department, 8000 E Jefferson, Detroit, MI 48214, USA)
77.
van CreveldM, 1989Technology and War (The Free Press, New York)
78.
WeidenbaumM, 1970, “The transferability of defense industry resources to civilian users”, in The Economic Impact of the Cold War Ed. ClaytonJ (Harcourt, Brace and World, New York)
79.
WeissM, 1987The Rise of the Community Builders: The American Real Estate Industry and Urban Land Planning (Columbia University Press, New York)
80.
WhiteW, 1974US Tactital Air Power: Missions, Forces, and Costs (Brookings Institution, Washington, DC)
