THE CASE FOR CONVERSION
Gordon, Suzanne
THE CASE FOR CONVERSION BY SUZANNE GORDON The idea of economic conversion— from military to peaceful production—is under assault. Leading the attack is former conversion advocate Gordon Adams,...
...in practice, we must join struggles against union-busting tactics and concessionary bargaining trends, and for national and regional labor-law reform as well as plant-closing legislation...
...Their primary concern is not local economic change...
...It is also a way of changing people's consciousness, fundamentally altering how they view the world and their place in it...
...This argument often neglects the fact that capitalism and militarism feed upon each other...
...What Adams has missed is the radical promise of conversion, for conversion is not just a short-term economic tactic for resuscitating the faltering industrial plants of the Middle West and Northeast...
...Economic conversion misses the point," he now contends...
...Yet armament companies and civilian enterprises play by the same rules: greed, bribery, profiteering, union-busting, labor regimentation...
...Leading the attack is former conversion advocate Gordon Adams, director of the Defense Budget Project in Washington, D.C...
...In his speech and in subsequent articles and interviews, Adams explained his own conversion...
...By utilizing their on-the-job experience and insight into the production process, workers can participate in decisions about what alternative products to manufacture in their military plant, decisions that move toward creating a more peaceful and stable world...
...What's more, the advocates of conversion exaggerate the dangers military spending poses for the economy...
...Government supports, we must do more than present working people with models of economic conversion for particular military facilities...
...Aggressive conversion activity can both educate peace activists and provide an embattled labor movement with the kind of liberal support it so sorely needs today, all the while empowering individual workers to question our country's military and economic priorities...
...In addition, many peace activists tend to abstract military contractors from the rest of corporate America, painting them as somehow more sinister than their civilian counterparts...
...The most vociferous advocates of economic conversion" are not, he says, concerned with economic issues as much as with issues of war and peace...
...Indeed, business executives move across sectors with ease...
...If peace activists sincerely want to challenge the foreign and military policies the U.S...
...Despite an attack based on serious historical distortion and misstatement of fact, conversion still remains an effective component of any strategy to reduce military expenditure, alter America's increasingly bellicose foreign and military policies, and achieve lasting peace and disarmament...
...When progressives dispute the economic benefits of military spending, what they are really saying is, "Military spending is bad for us—for ordinary people, working people, poor and lower-income people...
...Helping working people and community residents plan for conversion is one way to illuminate the similarities between industries that operate in the military and civilian sectors...
...The middle-class background of most peace activists has obscured these similarities in the workplace and the boardrooms...
...The importance of economic conversion as a rallying movement for trade unionists and peace activists," notes Lance Compa of the United Electrical Workers, "lies in the political conversion it implies: the transformation of workers and their communities from passive, mute victims of employer decisions to active, shaping creators of new purposes for their skills and resources...
...nomic conversion, made a startling turnabout...
...As economists David Gordon, Teresa Amott, and Tom Ridell have noted, militarism may serve a distinct need in the system for investment and international expansion...
...Adams, moreover, accuses his former allies of bad faith...
...Such activity can build a bridge to trade unionists, who sometimes view the peace movement as distant if not irrelevant to their lives...
...He concedes military spending "can create economic problems," but contends that "it is not our primary source of economic problems...
...Proponents of conversion, Adams charges, mistakenly believe that the impetus for the arms race is generated in military plants themselves, rather than in the corridors of power in Washington...
...Nearly twenty-five years of analysis, organizing, and legislative effort aimed at local conversion and national legislation have borne little fruit...
...The detrimental effect of the arms race on the economy—a link which is questionable on the national level—is belied by empirical evidence in defense-dependent communities," Adams argues...
...When he addressed a "Women's Leadership Conference" in June of last year, Adams, who had long championed ecoSuzanne Gordon is director of the International Economic Conversion Campaign and co-editor of "Economic Conversion: Revitalizing America's Economy" (Bollinger, 1984...
...Peace advocates have relied on the argument that military spending is bad for "the economy" because it drains off scarce resources that could be used for improving America's competitive position in world markets and for restoring and expanding America's social programs...
...We must support, in principle, working people's right to organize collectively to improve their lives...
...Conversion is one of the most effective ways of educating middle- and upper-middle-class peace activists about the realities of corporate power and the necessity of challenging it...
...Many members of the peace movement who are genuinely appalled by those capitalists making money manufacturing weapons are not at all alarmed by the entrepreneurial, anti-labor values of those gaining wealth in the civilian sector...
...But what's bad for ordinary people is not necessarily bad for those who control the system...
Vol. 50 • September 1986 • No. 9
