What challenges did those tasked with overseeing this newly enlarged and increasingly diversified uniformed and civilian workforce face? How did the military go about managing military work using these new business principles of management?

Yeah.

I'm really glad you highlighted this because this is the part of the book that I became most interested in over the course of working on it, which is just the significance of the US defense establishment as an employer, both in sheer scale and qualitatively, as you're saying, and what were the unique relationships and consequences of that reality.

So the, the military had long relied on the work of civilians from camp followers to arsenal and shipyard workers and coerced construction laborers in overseas colonies.

But, uh, during and after World War II, the scale of the military, both domestically and overseas, becomes really different, as we [laughs] keep coming back to.

So in sheer size, there's many more people and sites and activities and high-tech projects.

One thing that this means is there's a lot more paperwork, a lot more administrative work, and as in the private sector, clerical work is really feminized in the military.

Can you elaborate on what you mean by that and this contradiction? How does studying the modern US military help us to better understand the relationship between states and markets, including the neoliberal state?

So can you help us understand kind of what Taylorism is in this context and why it's being chosen, even though I kind of thought it had died?

Yeah, and I really thought the same thing.

I think I would say most people do really, but there is this revival of Taylorism in the military starting in the late 1940s.

It's a revival because some key techniques of scientific management were actually banned in federal workplaces until then.

So back in Frederick Taylor's own time in the 1910s, the military's attempt to use scientific management on civilian workers at its arsenals was met with a strike that successfully convinced Congress to ban time study in military work.

But after World War II, there's a push from some personnel experts within and outside the military to remove this ban, which Congress does in 1947.

So... after that, through the 1950s, you see a surge in management engineering initiatives that use a lot of these old time and motion study techniques.

But if we look sort of now or more recently, the longer term impact, how much does the kind of embedding of these two things right now that it's not either or, how much does that change the conceptualization of what the US military even is and what it does and how it operates, either within the institution or in terms of what external audiences expect?

And so how did that debate go? Did the people wanting to get rid of all of these things win? Did they purge it all after Vietnam?

Well, there was a very vocal and, uh, and, and visible backlash against business management after McNamara's departure, and there was a real, uh, successful targeted purging of programs in offices that were associated with him and his whiz kid team.

So, uh, for example, systems analysis, uh, those functions were, uh, demoted and rebranded in most cases.

And, uh, more broadly, several management schools were closed or rebranded in the 1970s as well.

And there's this kind of general trend towards emphasizing more specific technical management functions like logistics rather than broad concepts of management that had kind of fallen under suspicion.

But while there is this, this backlash, it was als- at the same time, it was not a kind of a complete one.

It was not a complete, uh, success or purging, 'cause you can see that in, first of all, the, the continued leadership at the Pentagon.

Um, but if we look sort of now or more recently the longer term impact, how much does the kind of embedding of these two things, right, now that it's not either/or, how much does that change the conceptualization of what the US military even is and what it does and how it operates, either within the institution or in terms of what external audiences expect?

And so how did that debate go? Did the people wanting to get rid of all of these things win? Did they purge it all after Vietnam?

Well, there was a very vocal and visible backlash against business management after Matt Demeter's departure.

And there was a real successful targeted purging of programs in offices that were associated with him and his WizKid team.

So...

For example, systems analysis, those functions were demoted and rebranded in most cases.

And more broadly, several management schools were closed or rebranded in the 1970s as well.

And there's this kind of general trend towards emphasizing more specific technical management functions like logistics rather than broad concepts of management that had kind of fallen under suspicion But while there is this this backlash, it was also at the same time, it was not a kind of a complete one, it was not a complete success or purging, because you can see that in the first of all, the continued leadership at the Pentagon, so David Packard came from HP to be Deputy Secretary of Defense just a year after McNamara's departure and came in talking about bringing participatory management to the Defense Department.

But if we look sort of now or more recently, the longer term impact, how much does the kind of embedding of these two things right now that it's not either or, how much does that change the conceptualization of what the U.S. military even is and what it does and how it operates either within the institution or in terms of what external audiences expect?

And so how did that debate go? Did the people wanting to get rid of all of these things win? Did they purge it all after Vietnam?

Well, there was a very vocal and, uh, and, and visible backlash against business management after McNamara's departure, and there was a real, uh, successful targeted purging of programs in offices that were, uh, associated with him and his whiz kid team.

So, uh, for example, systems analysis, uh, those functions were, uh, demoted and rebranded in most cases.

And, uh, more broadly, several management schools were closed or rebranded in the 1970s as well, and there's this kind of general trend towards emphasizing more specific technical management functions like logistics rather than broad concepts of management that had kind of fallen under suspicion.

But while there is this, this backlash, it was als- at the same time, it was not a kind of a complete one.

It was not a complete, uh, success or purging 'cause you can see that in, i- first of all, the, the continued leadership at the Pentagon.

So, uh, David Packard came from HP to be Deputy, Deputy Secretary of Defense just a year after McNamara's departure and came in talking about bringing participatory management to the Defense Department.

Um, but if we look sort of now or more recently the longer term impact, how much does the kind of embedding of these two things right now that it's not either/or, how much does that change the conceptualization of what the US military even is and what it does and how it operates either within the institution or in terms of what external audiences expect?

And so how did that debate go? Did the people wanting to get rid of all of these things win? Did they purge it all after Vietnam?

Well, there was a very vocal and visible backlash against business management after Matt Demeter's departure.

And there was a real successful targeted purging of programs in offices that were associated with him and his WizKid team.

So For example, systems analysis, those functions were demoted and rebranded in most cases.

And more broadly, several management schools were closed or rebranded in the 1970s as well.

And there's this kind of general trend towards emphasizing more specific technical management functions like logistics rather than broad concepts of management that had kind of fallen under suspicion.

But while there is this this backlash, it was also at the same time, it was not a kind of a complete one, it was not a complete success or purging, because you can see that in First of all, the continued leadership at the Pentagon.

But if we look sort of now or more recently, the longer term impact, how much does the kind of embedding of these two things right now that it's not either or, how much does that change the conceptualization of what the U.S. military even is and what it does and how it operates either within the institution or in terms of what external audiences expect?

And so how did that debate go? Did the people wanting to get rid of all of these things win? Did they purge it all after Vietnam?

Well, there was a very vocal and, uh, and, and visible backlash against business management after McNamara's departure, and there was a real, uh, successful targeted purging of programs in offices that were, uh, associated with him and his whiz kid team.

So, uh, for example, systems analysis, uh, those functions were, uh, demoted and rebranded in most cases.

And, uh, more broadly, several management schools were closed or rebranded in the 1970s as well, and there's this kind of general trend towards emphasizing more specific technical management functions like logistics rather than broad concepts of management that had kind of fallen under suspicion.

But while there is this, this backlash, it was als- at the same time, it was not a kind of a complete one.

It was not a complete, uh, success or purging 'cause you can see that in, i- first of all, the, the continued leadership at the Pentagon.

So, uh, David Packard came from HP to be Deputy, Deputy Secretary of Defense just a year after McNamara's departure and came in talking about bringing participatory management to the Defense Department.

Yeah, that's really interesting to see the kind of immediate impacts, but then the longer term ones, um, that are kind of being embedded in these discourses going from being, as you described earlier, being very much kind of you're either one or the other, to going "Well actually, hang on, how can, you know, both of these audiences get sort of spoken to?" But particularly on that topic of kind of further military thought sort of going forward, um, if we kind of take more, you know, obviously a lot of this is happening quite a number of decades ago now, um, but if we look sort of now or more recently the longer term impact, how much does the kind of embedding of these two things right now that it's not either/or, how much does that change the conceptualization of what the US military even is and what it does and how it operates either within the institution or in terms of what external audiences expect?