PENTAGON CAPITALISM

The story of the U.S. military’s capitalist transformation.

This study by Murphy, a historian at Brandeis University, tracks the remarkable structural transformations of the American military after World War II, as its booming dimensions accelerated the adoption of administrative controls and managerial practices used in the private sector. During the Cold War, the various arms of this massive, sprawling institution came to function—and still do—according to a curious blend of central planning and market dynamics. “Whether in accounting, education, or labor control,” the author writes, “business expertise changed the way the military used its human and physical resources, measured success, prepared its leaders, and related to industry and Congress.” Among the most fascinating topics explored here is the tension these changes generated during the Vietnam War, as the application of business models to combat operations—such as tallies of “body counts” as a key marker of achievement—came under (and ultimately survived) intense criticism. Also revealing is the exploration of the military’s adoption and promotion of scientific-management techniques originated by Frederick Winslow Taylor (along with various forms of resistance to them) and its implementation of a series of strategic adjustments, sometimes oriented along gender and racial lines, meant to extract maximal value from a ballooning labor force. The myriad implications of a turn to efficiency and cost-management—including the advancement of cutting-edge technologies, neoliberal economic policies, global capitalism, and American imperialism—are explained with admirable clarity. These subjects are ably drawn together to provide an illuminating overview of the history of the military’s role in America’s economic evolution after World War II. As the author concludes, “the Cold War military embodied the central contradictions of the American Century: coordinating both destruction and production—both coercion and persuasion—with its own distinctive brand of managerial expertise.”

An astute, absorbing analysis of a transformative era of military history.