Seymour Melman

Seymour Melman (born December 30, 1917 in New York City; died December 16, 2004 in Manhattan of an apparent aneurism) was a professor emeritus of Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science[1] (http://www.engineering.columbia.edu/) who wrote extensively for fifty years on "economic conversion," the ordered transition from military to civilian production by military industries and facilities. Author of "The Permanent War Economy" and "Pentagon Capitalism", this economist, writer, and gadfly of the military industrial complex, died in his Manhattan home of an aneurysm on December 16, 2004.

Contents

1 Education 2 Books 3 Quotations 4 Further reading 5 External links

Education

He studied at the De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx and received his undergraduate degree from the College of the City of New York in 1939. After graduation he received a travel fellowship and traveled to Palestine and Europe between 1939 and 1940. Upon returning to the United States he served for two years as the secretary of the Student Zionist Federation. Soon after the attack on Pearl Harbor, he served in the US Army as a First Lieutenant in the Coast Artillery Corp. Afterwards he served on the National Industrial Conference Board. He became a graduate student at Columbia University in January, 1945 and received his Ph.D. in June, 1949.

Melman was the former President of the Association for Evolutionary Economics, Vice President of the New York Academy of Sciences, co-chair of SANE (Committee for a Sane Nuclear Policy), chair of The National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament, and currently a participant in the Reindustrialization of the United States Project.

In 1976 SANE's New York City conference on "The Arms Race and the Economic Crisis" featured Melman, and won an economic conversion plank in the Democratic party platform.

Books

• Dynamic factors in industrial productivity (New York, Wiley, 1956)
• Decision Making and Productivity (1958)
• Inspection for Disarmament (1958) editor
• The Peace Race (1961)
• No Place to Hide Fallout Shelters-Fact and Fiction (1962) editor
• Disarmament; Its Politics And Economics (1962) editor
• Our Depleted Society (1965)
• In the name of America; the conduct of the war in Vietnam by the armed forces of the United States as shown by published reports, compared with the laws of war binding on the United States Government and on its citizens Director of research, Seymour Melman. Research associates: Melvyn Baron [and] Dodge Ely. Publisher [New York] Clergy and Clergy and Laymen Concerned about Vietnam, (1968)
• The defense economy; conversion of industries and occupations to civilian needs (New York, Praeger 1970)
• Pentagon Capitalism: The Political Economy of War (NY: McGraw-Hill, 1970)
• The war economy of the United States; readings on military industry and economy (New York, St. Martin's Press [1971])
• Profits without Production (October 1983) ISBN 0394518950
• The Permanent War Economy: American Capitalism in Decline [1974] (rev. ed.; NY: Simon & Schuster, 1985). ISBN 0671606433
• The Demilitarized Society: Disarmament & Conversion (Montreal: Harvest House, 1988). ISBN 0887722210
• Rebuilding America: A New Economic Plan for the 1990s (Westfield NJ: Open Media, 1992).
• After Capitalism: From Managerialism to Workplace Economy (NY: Knopf, 2001). ISBN 0679418598

Quotations

"The joy of accomplishing production. It's a great thing. The work I've been doing now for some time is writing an article, writing a book, or researching something. It's an accomplishment. It's a great thing. No, more exactly, it's living. It's being alive. To be productive is to be alive."

Further reading

• "The Economics of War and Peace (Interview with Seymour Melman.)" Village Voice, April 26, 1983

External links

• MBEAW Seymour Melman (http://www.mbeaw.org/resources/voices/melman.html) Monterey Bay Educators Against War
• Ralph Nader The Pentagon Connection (http://www.counterpunch.org/nader01202003.html)
• After Capitalism (http://www.aftercapitalism.com/index2.html) includes numerous articles.
• In the Grip of a Permanent War Economy (http://www.bear-left.com/original/2003/0309permanent.html) by Seymour Melman from Bear Left!
• Seymour Melman Papers (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/libraries/indiv/rare/guides/Melman/index.html) 1958-1999 at Columbia
• Revival of Manufacturing Sought by Columbia's Industry Expert, Seymour Melman (http://www.columbia.edu/cu/news/01/12/seymourMelman.html) By Suzanne Trimel. Includes Video Interview and photo
• After Capitalism (http://www.aftercapitalism.com/) multiple resources
• "Ralph Nader on Seymour Melman" (http://www.commondreams.org/views04/1220-28.htm) by Ralph Nader, 12/20/2004 after Melman's death.