Chuck Spinney's review of Manufacturing Green Prosperity

Jon Rynn, a protege of the late Seymour Melman, has written an important book. Building on Melman's seminal works, Rynn's aim is to propose nothing less than alternative political-economic paradigm to shape recovery policies aimed at reversing the catastrophic deindustrialization process that has been a cancer eating away at our economy since the 1960s. That this cancer metastasized after 1980 is now clearly visible in retrospect, taking the form, in alia, of stagnant wages impoverishing a shrinking middle class, a rapidly worsening distribution of income in favor of the super rich, a collapsing merchandise trade balance, a massive loss of production jobs, a crumbling infrastructure, a deregulation of industry and finance enriching corporations at the expense of the people, an out-of-control Pentagon that is now spending more in inflation adjusted dollars than it spent at the height of the cold war, not to mention the rise of political gridlock, a dumbing down of the education system, all lubricated by the vapid sound bytes of an enervating mass media.
Rynn's sweeping synthesis and recommendations will be controversial, and no-one, including this reviewer, will agree with all of them. But that is beside the point. Rynn has written a very important book that should be read and debated vigorously by concerned citizens across the ideological spectrum -- all one has to do is to drive through our nation's rust belt to see why our future depends on just the kind of debate Rynn's book will stimulate.
Franklin "Chuck" Spinney is author of the book, "Defense Facts of Life: The Plans/Reality Mismatch", Westview Press, 1985, a retired Pentagon analyst (after 33 yrs service), and author of over 60 articles, including op-eds in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Los Angeles Times, Cleveland Plain Dealer, Baltimore Sun, Challenge: The Magazine of Economic Affairs, and Proceedings of Naval Institute. Spinney appeared on the cover of Time Magazine, Mar 7, 1983, and was profiled by Bill Moyers in one-hr, Emmy award-winning issue of "Now" (August 1, 2003).