On US state armaments expenditure: any views on whether this can be seen as a form of hidden state intervention in the US economy and the extent to which attempts are made to consciously plan it?
Doug wrote: It's been a huge subsidy to some sectors of U.S. capital, like computing and aerospace. The computer industry would never have gotten off the ground in the 1950s without the Pentagon; private industry didn't get interested in buying the things until the 1960s. Wall Street wouldn't touch it in its early days either. The industry is still living off basic inventions funded by the Pentagon - like databases and graphical interfaces.