The Economy of Death

New York: Atheneum, 1969. First Edition [stated], presumed first printing. Hardcover. Very good/Good. 21 cm. [6], 201, [1] pages. References. Index. DJ has some wear, soiling, tears and chips. Inscribed by the author on fep. Richard Jackson Barnet (May 7, 1929 - December 23, 2004) was an American scholar-activist who co-founded the Institute for Policy Studies. After publishing his first book, Who Wants Disarmament? (1960), a study of U.S.-Soviet disarmament negotiations, Barnet joined the State Department in 1961 as an aide to John J. McCloy in the U.S. Arms Control and Disarmament Agency. Barnet left government service in 1963 to co-found, with Marcus Raskin, the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). He served as its co-director until 1978, and remained active at the institute he had helped create until his retirement in 1998. IPS was the first influential politically activist think tank according to Sidney Blumenthal, who said that the structure of IPS served as a model for the ideologically antagonistic Heritage Foundation. Derived from a Kirkus review: This is a full-scale assault on the assumptions, procedures, and consequences of military spending aimed at getting the average taxpayer up in arms. Barnet argues that the trillion dollar investment in defense and offense since World War II, predicated upon distorted priorities and perpetrated in semi-secrecy, has undermined America's capacity to solve its real problems and contribute positively on the World scene. He demolishes the defense budget and beards all the Vested Interests in their dens, exposing their stakes in the disastrous misallocation of funds. Barnet outlines a strategy for choosing life: a rather grand program of national conversion and a more realistic call to improve the machinery for setting national goals and for Congressional review and Control of foreign-policy commitments. Barnet expects assistance from student activists, concerned scientists, worried businessmen, and conscientious legislators. Very effective.