The Soviet military sector and technological progress

Abstract

This paper analyses technological trigger effects of the Soviet military and civilian sectors, while using an untraditional approach to technological change which is based on a contemporary Leontief‐Marx‐Sraffa model. It is argued that on theoretical grounds one would expect the basic industrial sectors, whose output is required directly or indirectly in production of all commodities, to have a greater effect on the global technological evolution than the comparable non‐basic sectors. Since production of military hardware constitutes a non‐basic industrial activity, whose output is not used as input in any goods‐producing branch of the economy, technological change taking place in the military sector cannot induce any input‐output multiplier effect on the other sectors of the production system. Therefore, the impact of the arms‐producing industry on the economy‐wide technological progress is predicted to be weaker than that of a comparable basic sector. This phenomenon is confirmed by empirical analysis o...