During the early years of the Cold War, American business was unusually united in its suspicion of vastly increased military spending, especially if it risked a budget deficit. An important exception was the aircraft industry, which unlike most other sectors had trouble finding adequate civilian demand after World War II reconversion. Facing mounting losses and in many cases the real risk of firm failure, representatives of firms manufacturing airframes and engines sought government assistance. This came in the form of the President's Air Policy Commission of 1947-8, whose report recommended substantial emergency military appropriations to ensure the survival of the industry. These recommendations, in turn, were easily passed through Congress, resulting in the most significant extension of military-industrial activity until the Korean War and cementing the outsized role of the newly formed Air Force in the new political economy of defense procurement.
The Air Policy Commission (also known, for its chair, as the Finletter Commission) was a historically pivotal instance of capitalist cooperation. In my paper, I explore two dimensions of this cooperation. First, the episode helped forge a new pattern of competitive collaboration between business and the state, in which government outlays would provide liquidity and solvency to an industry deemed essential to the national interest. The industry would remain private, rather being nationalized, and competition between multiple capitalist firms, rather than a single consolidated entity, would remain the ideal. This pattern is recognizable today in the commonplace phenomena of bailouts and "too big to fail." Second, the Commission evinced a notable degree of cooperation between different firms, who converged on a self-diagnosis as a desired remedy. My analysis emphasizes public presentations by executives and the nationwide tour of the air plant undertaken by Commission members to study the problem.