In this wide-ranging study Peter Custers seeks to highlight the importance of
the production and consumption of arms as a form of social waste within the
capitalist world order. The study encompasses critical economic theory,
historical studies of the rise of capitalism, conceptualizations of
international trade, and analyses of the inequities spawned by globalized
militarism. Drawing especially on Volume 2 of Marx's Capital, Custers creatively
develops some of Marx's classical themes. The individual circuit of capital
outlined in that work is utilized by Custers to demonstrate the generation of
various types of waste at each step in the military-nuclear and civilian-nuclear
production chains. He also proposes the new