Infrastructure of aggression: military expenditure during the British industrial and the American informational mode of development shifts

Abstract

Nearly a decade into the 21st century it is evident that the post-WWII American economy unleashed a global socio-technological transformation as profound as any experienced since the early days of the British Industrial Revolution. Surprisingly however, few social theorists have attempted to specify causal mechanisms that are common to both the British Industrial and American Informational 'Mode of Development Shifts.' A mode of development shift entails a pervasive transformation in the technological infrastructure through which productivity gains are derived. This comparative historical study demonstrates that long-term large-scale military expenditure acted as an effective agent of infrastructural transmogrification in both Britain (1689-1784) and the United States (1940-1999) owing to an interacting set of conjunctional causal variables including: capitalistic defense contracting, efficient tax administration, sound public deficit finance, the institutional prerequisites to economic development, and insulation from attack. Consequently, defense expenditure and its vicissitudes fomented a cyclical pattern of radical technological evolution in advanced infrastructural sectors followed by rapid commercial diffusion thus initiating the Industrial and Informational Mode of Development Shifts.