>> Simply put, the scale of spending on prisons, though
>> growing rapidly, will never match the military budget;
>> nor will prisons produce anywhere near the same
>> ‘technological and industrial spin-off.’"
It's an analog, not a 1:1 match. I don't get his complaint. Some of the same names come up in both contexts: Raytheon, Haliburton, et al.
>> I don't think it's significantly the 'labor' part ...
>
> But I think that's the message people get.
Before looking at the wiki page, I formed much the same opinion: the analogy seems apt, because a small number of well-connected and lobby'd firms have basically secret access to public dollars for something that most people aren't even for. They've had to be convinced that it's "good for us" (who here "wanted" a cold war?) and the dollars far outweigh the actual "use" of what gets bought. So maybe I'm not "people" ...?
Simple example: the supersonic plane that GWB "flew" when he was in the service was designed, prototyped, developed, built, deployed, maintained, retired, and scrapped over the course of 25 years without ever having seen a single combat mission. Who benefited from that program? Certainly not "the National Defense" ...
So: who benefits from the latest technological gizmos that get developed, procured, and retired in the prison world?
I'll see your Parenti and raise you a Mike Davis (widely thought to have coined the term Prison Industrial Complex), and as a bonus here's Ruth Gilmore on the subject:
http://www.paglen.com/carceral/pdfs/ruth_gilmore.pdf
/jordan