In his farewell speech in 1961 President Dwight Eisenhower warned of the rise of the military-industrial complex and the dangers of acquiring unwarranted influence due to the existence and, sometimes, actions of that complex. Arguably the nation paid little attention to that warning, tumbling through one military misadventures after another.
However, what did go noticed, and imitated, was the immense expansion of the military’s power over policy and the immense wealth accumulated by those who supplied and promoted the aforementioned complex. Over time other similar complexes arose. The healthservices-pharmaceutical complex is one example and the rise of the information-technology complex is another.
Those who led the charge for turning America from being a manufacturer of plow shares into a permanent manufacturer of swords railed against Eisenhower’s warning as a conspiracy theory.
40 years after Presidents Eisenhower’s warning our country finds itself involved in ongoing military actions, our people are deeply divided and have lost faith in government and basic social constructs. But those companies of the complexes, and the titans that run them, have amassed vast quantities of power and wealth.