Bombs, bulbs and barrels: A critique of the United States nuclear complex.

摘要

The ultimate aim of this thesis is to show that the U.S. nation-state has, so far, failed to adequately manage nuclear fission and fusion technologies after fostering the conditions suitable for its discovery, development and application. As such, this thesis analyzes the social economic and political context of the origins and development of nuclear technologies in the United States (U.S.).;A theoretical framework for critiquing the U.S. Nuclear Weapons Complex is established by examining, in the Marxist tradition, the contradictory structures inherent within an industrial, capitalist society and the role that the state plays in regulating these structures. In an effort to comprehend the social and historical conditions that enabled nuclear fission/fusion technologies to emerge as such a powerful force in U.S. capitalism, analyses of the Manhattan Project, the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the development of a nuclear energy sector, the development and enforcement of nuclear technology regulations, the role of the military-industrial complex and the problems associated with nuclear waste disposal are also undertaken. These analyses are primarily accomplished through a case study of the Hanford Site in Washington State--the U.S. military's most important plutonium production facility and North America's largest nuclear waste dumpsite.;In its failure to manage these dangerous technologies safely, the legitimacy of the U.S. nation-state, as a mode of capitalist regulation, has been eroding. Environmental and human health concerns associated with the production of nuclear weapons (bombs), nuclear energy (bulbs) and nuclear waste (barrels) continue to deepen and unless substantive measures are taken to protect the public and the environment from the perils of nuclear fission technology, a state legitimation crisis may be on the horizon.