Front Cover -- Copyright -- Dedication -- Contents -- Acknowledgments -- Introduction -- Part I: The Nature of the State, Democracy, and Crisis Policymaking -- 1. If Men Were Angels: The Basic Analytics of the State versus Self-Government -- 2. Do Slavery and Government Rest on the Same Rationalizations? -- 3. Democracy and Faits Accomplis -- 4. Blame the People Who Elected Them? -- 5. The Song That Is Irresistible: How the State Leads People to Their Own Destruction -- 6. A Dozen Dangerous Presumptions of Crisis Policymaking -- 7. The Political Economy of Crisis Opportunism -- 8. War Is Horrible, but . . . -- Part II: Closer Looks at Key Actors and Critical Events -- 9. Who Was Edward M. House? -- 10. How U.S. Economic Warfare Provoked Japan's Attack on Pearl Harbor -- 11. Truncating the Antecedents: How Americans Have Been Misled About World War II -- 12. Wartime Origins of Modern Income-Tax Withholding -- 13. A Revealing Window on the U.S. Economy in Depression and War: Hours Worked, 1929-1950 -- 14. The Economics of the Great Society: Theory, Policies, and Consequences -- 15. Nixon's New Economic Plan -- Part III: Economic Analysis, War, and Politicoeconomic Interactions -- 16. Recession and Recovery: Six Fundamental Errors of the Current Orthodoxy -- 17. Benefits and Costs of the U.S. Government's War Making -- 18. To Fight or Not to Fight? War's Payoffs to U.S. Leaders and to the American People -- 19. Military-Economic Fascism: How Business Corrupts Government and Vice Versa -- 20. Caging the Dogs of War: How Major U.S. Neoimperialist Wars End -- 21. Cumulating Policy Consequences, Frightened Overreactions, and the Current Surge of Government's Size, Scope, and Power -- Part IV: Review of the Troops -- 22. Review of War, Revenue, and State Building: Financing the Development of the American State.

23. Review of New Deal or Raw Deal? How FDR's Economic Legacy Has Damaged America -- 24. Review of Churchill, Hitler, and "the Unnecessary War": How Britain Lost Its Empire and the West Lost the World -- 25. Review of The Pearl Harbor Myth: Rethinking the Unthinkable -- 26. Review of Unwarranted Influence: Dwight D. Eisenhower and the Military-Industrial Complex -- 27. Review of Is War Necessary for Economic Growth? Military Procurement and Technology Development -- 28. Review of After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy -- 29. Review of Magic and Mayhem: The Delusions of American Foreign Policy from Korea to Afghanistan -- Index -- About the Author.

Taking a close look at the dense fabric that our government weaves between war, state power, and economics, this collection of essays reveals the growing authority—and corruption—of the American state. Covering topics from the Lyndon Johnson presidency to the provocatively titled article “Military-Economic Fascism" on the military-industrial-congressional complex, it argues that the U.S. government consistently exploits national crises and then invents timely rhetoric that limits the rights and liberties of all citizens for the benefit of the few, be they political leaders or various industrialists in the areas of defense and security. As its title suggests, this book presents a clear narrative of trends and events—from the United States' entry into World War II to the origins of income tax—causing individuals to question whether those in power are truly blind to the effects and causes of their policies.

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Electronic reproduction. Ann Arbor, Michigan : ProQuest Ebook Central, 2018. Available via World Wide Web. Access may be limited to ProQuest Ebook Central affiliated libraries.