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NEW YORK -- Feb. 21 -- On December 16 of last year Seymour Melman, friend and mentor, passed away. Born in 1917 at the time of the Russian revolution, Melman shared the hope for creating a better world that spurred many activists on the left during the 20th century. A Professor of Industrial Engineering at Columbia University, Melman had served as the Chairman of SANE and later as Chair of the National Commission for Economic Conversion and Disarmament. A periodic contributor to The New York Times and The Nation, he was the author of numerous books, pamphlets, and articles including: Decision Making and Productivity (1958), The Peace Race (1962), Pentagon Capitalism (1970), The Permanent War Economy (1974), Profits without Production (1983), The Demilitarized Society (1988), and (most recently) After Capitalism (2001). The readers of these books included a wide variety of political leaders including George McGovern, Jerry Brown and Ralph Nader. In his writings Seymour Melman examined the characteristics of the U.S. economy as it existed in reality rather than in theory. Thus he drew his attention to militarization—to the scale of wealth devoted to the military establishment and the extent of its economic, political and cultural power over American society. Starting in the 1960's, Melman began writing about deindustrialization—the decay of U.S. production capability. Most importantly, he sought to convey the damage done to everyday Americans by the militarization and deindustrialization trends and he devoted incredible amounts of energy to marshalling support to reverse those trends. A memorial service honouring his life and work will be held Monday February 28th at 11 AM at Columbia University, in Low Library, 116th Street between Broadway and Amsterdam, New York City. ###
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