[lbo-talk] ruling class

Carrol Cox cbcox at ilstu.edu
Wed Mar 29 14:15:23 PST 2006


Doug Henwood wrote:
>
> but I don't agree on
> the military. The US military largely follows orders from civilians.

This is actually a quite important point. Some real confusion in anti-war movements over tactics and content of agitation is grounded in a failure to recognize how consistently the u.s. military honors the principle of civilian control. When Truman, at a time when his popularity was at a low ebb, fired MacArthur there was a lot of wounded shrieking in Congress but on the whole he had no trouble whatever in carrying through that decision.

Now the tie between individual generals & admirals and their future bosses in this or that corporation is another thing, but this "military-industrial complex" is no challenge at all to the principle of civilian control.

Carrol



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