Seymour Melman
Seymour Melman (born
December 30,
1917 in
New York City) is a professor emeritus of
Columbia University's Fu Foundation School of Engineering and Applied Science
[1] who has written extensively for fifty years on "economic conversion": the ordered transition from military to civilian production by military industries and facilities.
Education
He studied and the De Witt Clinton High School in the Bronx and took his undergraduate degree in the College of the City of New York in 1939. After graduation he received a travel fellowship and spent 1939-40 travelling Palestine and Europe. 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 PhD in June, 1949.
Melman is 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
Quote
"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."
External Links
Other Articles
"The Economics of War and Peace (Interview with Seymour Melman.)" Village Voice, April 26, 1983