‘The military dream of society’: The military-state,security and the recreation of organisational order

Abstract

This paper argues the military are a central force in creating industrial-capitalist organisational order. It suggests that in the interests of preparedness for organised violence, the military come to see work organisation as a problem and so develop an ‘organising logic’ built on surveillance, control, and hierarchy. Using Foucault on discipline, security and population, and Marxist understandings of modes of production, it demonstrates how the military ensured productive workforces. In so doing, it developed a production network – a security apparatus – located in the real subsumption of labour, technical and bureaucratic controls, deskilling, and separating strategy and operations to ensure control, productivity, and state security. These processes and organisational forms were then diffused to the private sphere to reshape organisational order.

This paper analyses the impact of military preparedness for organised violence on work organisational forms. ¹ It examines what is termed here the ‘military-state’ that is, the state organisation(s) tasked with preparedness for war for example, defence, conquest, (Alliez and Lazzarato, 2016), or spheres of influence (Weber, 1994: 75–79). Importantly, the need for this preparedness makes productiveness an organisational problem. The solutions deployed centralise surveillance and domination and these become foundational to military-infused organisational orders. This seems timely given geopolitics contemporary relevance for example, friend shoring, reworking supply chains, product development with an eye to conflict, etc., (Blackwell and Harris, 2016). Ongoing inter-state competition makes work organisation a long-standing military problem (Engels, 1855, 2020; Hintze, 1975: 180–215, Weber, 1994: 75–79). This competition aims at national supremacy, not profit. It builds on an organising logic that blends the political and the economic thereby allowing autonomy and importance to war and ‘force . . . as an economic power’ (Engels, 1855; Hintze, 1975; Marx, 1976: 916; Streeck, 2020).

Although some have analysed security and organisation theory for example, Weiskopf and Munro (2012), a recent Organisation special issue noted ‘organisation theory still appears unable or unwilling to’ analyse organised violence (Bloomfield et al., 2017: 442). What follows takes up this challenge. It argues that the military-state pursuit of security is a recurring influence on industrial-capitalist work organisation. ² That is, it often prototypes and diffuses organising forms to create wider organisational orders for example, digital economies. As such, what follows connects to the relations between security and production so central to earlier theorists for example, Smith, Engels, Bentham, Spencer, Weber, etc. (Alliez and Lazzarato, 2016; Hintze, 1975; Maleševič, 2010).

At a commonsense level, this military role is perhaps obvious. Security organising logic influences modern work organisation forms (Costea and Amiridis, 2017) for example, Zuboff’s (2015) ‘surveillance capitalism’ is founded on vanguard US military convergence technologies (Rosenberg, 1963) like the internet (Mazzucato, 2015). In the 19th century, the military-state encouraged automated factories and numerical control technology. These technologies became central to corporate organisation (Braverman, 1974; Noble, 1984). The military-state expanded logistics to enhance centralised command, which entered global business control structures (Cowen, 2014: 204; Maleševič, 2017). The US military used contracts to enable the development of major East and Southeast Asian firms and industries (Glassman, 2018). Finally, the military-state generated computing, nuclear power, cybernetics, robotics, operations research, automation, and information technologies, etc., which corporations now deploy to surveil and control labour and delayer organisations through data management (Leavitt and Whisler, 1959; Maleševič, 2017; Ruttan, 2006). Thus, war and military-states are actors prioritising surveillance driven organising logics.

The paper also suggests that organisationally society moves from one organised stage to another for example, small shop production to large factory forms or from bureaucratic paper forms to more intrusive electronic ones, (partially) because of military-state interventions. Hintze (1975) argues the military generates the state via internal and external surveillance and control, it embraces rationalisation, military service increases demand for democracy, and that the military, the political and the economic bleed into one another. In short, the military is instrumental to ‘step-changes’ in society. Using the example of the nineteenth century, the paper suggests the military-state contributes to similar changes at the organisational level because military-state modes of production, and accompanying organisational forms, penetrate the private sector to spread surveillance and domination thereby producing ‘step-changes’ in organisational order. Importantly, the paper is not arguing this influence is unidirectional. Rather, although it is militarily led, what is suggested is that organisational forms are produced, altered and produced anew via a security-led public-private nexus.

What follows focuses on the nineteenth century United States Ordnance Department because it developed the military’s armouries and managed dispersed production networks that were formative to industrial capitalism. Following Foucault (2007: 21), this network is referred to as the ‘security apparatus’ (Koistinen, 1996: 75–101; Ruttan, 2006: 21–32; Smith, 1977). In so doing, it uses the US Ordnance Department as a case study of the military-state creation and control of state and private armoury production networks, with a special focus on Harper’s Ferry armoury. The Ordnance Department was a foundational military-state actor in the US economy (Smith, 1987). This case study demonstrates how key military-state actors coordinated the creation and diffusion of knowledge and practises in state and private armouries, and then beyond these to emergent mass production industries. This historical example connects to contemporary military-state influences (Ruttan, 2006). These changes facilitated the transition from a traditional society with limited surveillance capacity over populations, to an industrial-capitalist society with more extensive and intensive surveillance mechanisms (Giddens, 1985: 172–197; Marx, 1976: 1019–1038). ³ Given the centrality of material production to the formation of ideas and subjectivities (Marx and Engels, 1970: 42–48), the military-state was key to the emergence of societies where class conflict manifests itself in workplaces (Giddens, 1985). ⁴ This military-state was designed from the 1820s onwards in response to Henry Clay’s push for an ‘American system’ of security located in internal improvement and protected industry (Hounshell, 1984: 15).

Within the ‘political economy of warfare’ (Koistinen, 1996), security focused on surveillance, standardised interchangeable parts, centralised authority, divisional organisational forms, machinery, and infrastructural improvements. The advances made were fundamental to the ‘American system of manufacture’, which enabled the military-state to disperse mass production to emerging industries and expand its global reach (Bloomfield et al., 2017; Fitch, 1883; Hounshell, 1984; Ruttan, 2006: 25–32; Smith, 1987). These changes were driven by the organisational reforms of the Secretary of War, John C Calhoun (1817–1825), whose managerial philosophy stressed centralised authority, staff and line management structures, strict personal and financial accountability, and bureaucratic hierarchy (Koistinen, 1996: 81–85; O’Connell, 1987: 92). Indeed, in 1821, the War Department produced ‘the first comprehensive management manual published in the United States’ (O’Connell, 1987: 93). The Ordnance Department mimicked this wider War Office change with its Regulations of the Governance of the Ordnance Department, which sought control over arms production (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 161). It was 221 pages long, detailed bureaucratic order, and separated strategic and line operational management. It was comprehensive for example, the appendix (Department of Ordnance, 1834: 217–221) covers jury service exemptions, prosecuting people/organisations for enticing artificers from state armouries, punishing neglect, etc. This bureaucracy targeted populations for example, state armourers, officers, or private employers. In short, Ordnance Department bureaucracy desired control of the security apparatus of state and private producers. What follows, uses this case study to demonstrate such desire.

The argument is structured to firstly, examine ‘military-state’ functions that is, military interest in organisation as a security issue, before analysing military influence on the state. Following this, it argues that through uniformity, surveillance and hierarchy the military-state created new work organisation forms that facilitated technical control and divided planning from doing. This technical control was supplemented by bureaucracy to further increase surveillance, separate strategy and operations and subsume labour in the production process (Marx, 1976: 643–654, 1019–1038). It then examines the undermining of traditional work cultures to generate contemporary work organisation forms. Finally, the paper concludes that rather than industrial-capitalist work organisation and societal forms springing from a diffused market governmentality, they are significantly influenced by the security apparatus of state and market production networks located in a military organising logic focused on surveillance, command, and hierarchy – a state-military-capital nexus (Werner, 2020: 183). But first, to military-state functions.

Military-state functions

The military is associated with state monopoly of violence and inter-state power balances (Bloomfield et al., 2017; Giddens, 1985; Hintze, 1975; Maleševič, 2017; Schmitt, 2003; Weber, 1948: 77–128; Werner, 2020). Foucault (2007: 21) argues early modern states regulated security via military-diplomatic and police-state functions – an ‘apparatus of security’. ⁵ The military-diplomatic role protects states from outside threats, whereas the police-state ensures populations achieve maximum productivity to increase security (Foucault, 2007, 2015: 53). Thus, the police-state focuses on production through circulating people, ideas, and goods. It builds an infrastructure of movement through standards, regulations, facilities, etc. to cultivate people and material flow, and develop productive subjectivities (Foucault, 2007: 325–327, see also Alliez and Lazzarato, 2016: 83–91; Hintze, 1975: 422–452). The police-state focuses on population health, wellbeing, sociality, etc. via attention to “what men do; it is interested in their activity, their ‘occupation’” (Foucault, 2007: 322). It concentrates on populations, rather than individuals, and increases the state’s ‘ability to administer itself’ through data, statistics, measurement, etc., or ‘biopower’ (Foucault, 2003: 223–248). Central to segmenting populations is a permanent racial civil war where suspect populations are surveilled and domesticated to increase population control. This seeks to improve state productive (and other) capacities to replace war and/or the domination of others as the primary state activity (Foucault, 2003: 215–238). This directs the state’s spotlight onto civil conflicts around the economy, production, and administration (things vital to war ‘mobilisation’, Costea and Amiridis, 2017). In short, police-state functions bend early modern state productivity towards defensive or aggressive security – productive states are stronger states (Engels, 2020: 156–164; Hintze, 1975: 180–215; Hobson, 1998; Koistinen, 1996).

Police-state functions and the security apparatus supposedly wither as society moves to governance through market self-regulation (Foucault, 2003, 2008: 242–248). Here, because populations become ‘political problem[s]’ to be controlled through data, rather than via disciplining individuals (importantly, however, these complement one another, Foucault, 1981: 139), biopower gives life by ‘explicit calculations’ and works on aptitudes, optimizing forces, etc. (Foucault, 1981; 141–143). Under market governance, the economy emerges as an institution where populations self-manage so police-state and security apparatus functions become ‘pointless’ (Foucault, 2007: 344). Military-diplomatic functions remain as outward facing organised violence, but police-state functions transfer to market institutions, self-regulating individuals, etc. so it becomes today’s criminally focused police. However, in this paper, Foucault’s military, rather than the market, absorbs some ‘old’ police-state functions to maintain the security apparatus because war remains a central state concern. The military becomes a ‘permanent military apparatus’ (Foucault, 2007: 305) interested in conflict beyond actual war for example, it organises production. The military-state increasingly focuses on preparing for war, science, staying competitive with its rivals, accumulation, etc. (Alliez and Lazzarato, 2016; Costea and Amiridis, 2017; Engels, 1855, 2020; Koistinen, 1996; Ruttan, 2006). In so doing, its gaze fixes on raising ‘the population’s’ productivity so it becomes central to surveilling populations (Foucault, 2007: 36–44) and disciplining individuals (Foucault, 1977) via expanding work and state organisation (Giddens, 1985). Here, the military becomes the ‘military-state’ that directs the security apparatus production network.

The military-state ensures preparedness for war by controlling work through the ‘apparatus of security’, which surveils and manages populations as sets of risks (Foucault, 2003: 242–243, 2007: 20; Giddens, 1985: 35–60). The security apparatus is not a stand-alone organisation, but ‘a milieu’ of institutional and organisational production and circulation forms (Foucault, 2007: 21) for example, a state and private firm production network. The military-state analyses uncertainty for example, are skilled workers a risk, does technological investment pay off, should production be controlled through state firms, private firms, or a combination thereof, should knowledge be circulated, etc. in doing so, it diffuses solutions to the security apparatus. What follows contends that the military-state coordinates and administers risk to disperse centralised technical and bureaucratic surveillance of populations across state and private sectors. As such, it hastens the shift from traditional to industrial-capitalist work forms with endemic class conflict (Giddens, 1985). Central to this is ‘a technologically and otherwise specific mode of production – capitalist production – which transforms the nature of the labour process and its actual conditions (Marx, 1976: 1034 italics in original).

This governance entails three changes: one, the police become a regulating force for capitalist property rights and accumulation two, the military’s outward facing organised violence role remains and three, the military inherits security apparatus police-state activities to create mass production networks of circulating goods and people, controlling and socialising labour populations, and affecting work organisational forms to entwine states and markets so that the security state does not wither. These functions are firstly, circulated across different leading state militaries as they mimic and compete with one another (Engels, 1855, 2020; Koistinen, 1996: 79; Maleševič, 2017: 462; McNeill, 1982; Smith, 1987); secondly, they circulate from hegemonic militaries to their civilian workforces (Smith, 1977); and thirdly, they circulate beyond the military civilian workforce to the wider economy (Ruttan, 2006). In short, military-state processes reshape work organisation and working populations, generate and diffuse knowledge through circulating technical and bureaucratic surveillance, and separate strategy from operations to generate a new organisational order (Costea and Amiridis, 2017; Koistinen, 1996: 89–101; Ruttan, 2006: 21–32). Before examining this, we analyse the military influence on the state.

The military influence on the state

The under-examined nature of the military in organisation studies is surprising given its shaping role. For example, Hintze (1975: 308) suggests conflictual relations between European states engendered Western rationalisation to foster the ‘rational state’ without which capitalism cannot survive (Weber, 1981: 338–352). Central to this was the bureaucratised rational military (Giddens, 1985: 7–34; Weber, 1981). Importantly, the military helped build uniform, routinised disciplines essential to industrial-capitalist work organisation. As Weber (1978: 1155) expressed it, ‘Military discipline gives birth to all discipline’, which only later spreads (with military help) to ‘the large-scale economic organisation’ (Weber, 1948: 221–224, 253–264; Maleševič, 2010: 3–8 claims war generates large-scale organisation). Thus, discipline and rationalisation developed ‘the bureaucratic structure [that] goes hand in hand with the concentration of the material means of management in the hands of the master’ (Weber, 1948: 221). As such, the military is foundational to the discipline and rational bureaucracy of industrial-capitalist organisation (Alliez and Lazzarato, 2016: 71; Giddens, 1985).

Furthermore, the military is a source of societal power (one of four, Mann, 2012). However, as a power source it is bound to economic power. It is ‘promiscuous’ (Mann, 2012: 19), and requires organisational means to deliver its violence – logistics, control, material resources, etc. This embeds it in the economy to further entwine the military-state, industry and capitalism (Alliez and Lazzarato, 2016: 109–114; Engels, 2020: 156–164; Hintze, 1975: 180–214). The military-state and industrial capitalism become symbiotic for example, the military-state facilitated industrialisation in Britain, Russia, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan (Glassman, 2018; Hobson, 1998: 307–311), and it was central (alongside luxury goods) to creating the mass markets (and mass production systems) necessary to industrial capitalism and hence class societies (Giddens, 1985: 63–70; McNeill, 1982: 144–184; Satia, 2018: 66–100, Weber, 1981: 302–314). As we will see, organisational forms built on surveillance, discipline, and hierarchy (Hintze, 1975: 180–214; Giddens, 1985: 147; Maleševič, 2010: 1–14), and biopower exercised through data management to segment populations (Foucault, 2003, 2007), are important to this entwining. Thus, although organised violence generates technological innovation (Giddens, 1985: 112–115), it is organisational change, and its influence on the work form, which is more important (Giddens, 1985: 122–147; Maleševič, 2010: 17–49; Weber, 1978: 1155–1156, 1994: 309–369).

Centrally, for what follows, the early nineteenth century military-state established military-led production networks comprised of state and private organisations – a security apparatus to link industrial production to organised violence (Koistinen, 1996 – an ongoing process, Harris, 2014). This military-state development is important for three reasons. Firstly, echoing Giddens (1985: 122–146), industrial capitalism marks a decisive break with earlier societies to create class societies. This change is dependent on mass production, which structurally generates work discipline, and embeds class conflict within workplaces (Giddens, 1985: 65–68). Secondly, surveillance, routine, calculation, and centralised authority are integral to this industrial capitalism and to labour’s subordination to capital (Marx, 1976: 643–654, 1019–1038), which is both newly structured by the workplace and the expanded state (Giddens, 1985: 122–146). The military-state is central to both expansions. Thirdly, the bureaucratic, Taylorised organisation, often trumpeted as making the US the preeminent twentieth century economy, developed within the earlier military-state security apparatus of state and private production.

These developments emerge because of inter and intra-state conflict over accumulation and the need to control productivity (Alliez and Lazzarato, 2016; Costea and Amiridis, 2017; Foucault, 2007; Giddens, 1985; Hintze, 1975). Alliez and Lazzarato (2016: 65–82) suggest a Eurocentrism in Foucault so that he underestimates security’s tendency to colonialism and primitive accumulation. This paper suggests another weakness that is, hegemonic militaries maintain the vitality of war as a state activity to remain involved in structuring production and circulation – often with an eye to colonialism. In the US industrialisation process, the military-state produced and diffused knowledge, production systems, and labour and organisational control forms to facilitate industrial-capitalism and the transition from traditional societies. That is, a shift from limited surveillance capacity to intervene in the lives of populations, to an industrial-capitalist society wherein surveillance and intervention are extended and intensified (Giddens, 1985: 172–197; Harris, 2014; Zuboff, 2015). Surveillance and modern organisational forms were (and are) often premiered by the military-state (Koistinen, 1996).

To sum up, the military-state created and dispersed work forms to organise society through surveillance, standardisation, calculation, technology and bureaucracy. This development enabled the rise of industrial capitalism to reorder social relations and remake organisations by concentrating control, dispersing production, circulating people and goods and expanding the state (Foucault, 2007; Giddens, 1985; Hintze, 1975: 422–452; Marx, 1976: 1019–1038). Military-state diffusing of knowledge, circulating practises and organising logics to the private sector enabled capital to re-organise work and enhance surveillance, to which we turn.

The ordnance department: Surveillance, uniformity and command in civilian work

The Ordnance Department significantly structured early industrial organisation by co-producing and circulating important aspects of modern work organisation. For example, it pursued mechanisation through uniform interchangeability without which continuous flow mass production, and its organisational forms, were impossible. Mass production depends on interchangeable parts – every iPhone15 is the same, every iPhone15 socket takes every iPhone15 charger, etc. The US security apparatus is the first production network to achieve mass continuous flow production built on interchangeable parts. This is the forerunner to organisation encapsulated by Ford’s assembly line or Foxconn’s Longhua plant of 300,000+ detail workers (Freeman, 2018).

As a military-state, the US used private armoury processes throughout its network to affect the wider economy (Koistinen, 1996: 78–81; O’Connell, 1987; Ruttan, 2006; Smith, 1987). It divided strategy and operations, fragmented and routinized labour processes, introduced measurement, quality controls, mechanisation, and bureaucratic systems to manage individuals, factories, and networks in ways organisations would later adopt that is, the real subsumption of labour to capital (Koistinen, 1996: 75–101; Marx, 1976: 643–654, 1019–1038; Smith, 1977, 1981). The Ordnance Department generated ‘a system’, which involved ‘specific regulation of the total production process from the initial distribution of stock to the final accounting of costs’ (Koistinen, 1996: 78–81; Smith, 1981: 73). It sought control beyond its immediate organisational environs, by influencing production planning, quality assurance, mechanisation, distribution, and cost accounting through dispersed supplier contracts (Ruttan, 2006: 21–32; Smith, 1981). Through state and private production networks, the military-state created a security apparatus to intervene in work forms. It designed new material and operational spheres and restructured organisational processes and cultural values. In short, the military-state attended to ‘what men do’ (Foucault, 2007: 322).

Central to this were surveillance, domination and deskilling (Koistinen, 1996: 78–80; Ruttan, 2006: 22–25). US armouries developed new divisions of labour and technology to coordinate labour processes. A 1809 portent of these intentions was the state armoury abandonment of apprenticeships – ‘[T]his change denoted a fundamental shift away from traditional craft patterns, indicating with the new methods of organisation workmen so well versed in every branch of gun making were no longer required’ (Smith, 1977: 64). The military-state planned an organised future where traditional formal subsumption of craft workers was undermined, command centralised, Taylor-like production systems, and new forms of flow and mobility introduced – Braverman’s (1974: 77) surveilled ‘detail worker’. It was moving from traditional craft oversight to industrial-capitalist forms of extensive and intensive surveillance (Giddens, 1985: 7–34).

In 1816, to simplify production within complex coordinated divisions of labour, the state-owned Harpers Ferry Armoury divided musket-making into 55 tasks (up from 34 in 1815), lock-making specialities into twenty-one separate operations (up from 2 in 1807), and work on musket mountings and barrels into 18 and 9 tasks respectively. From 1815 to 1825, the state’s Springfield Armoury – the most advanced armoury – increased occupational specialisms from 34 to 100 (Smith, 1977: 81–84). Under military-state auspices, arms transitioned from traditional manufacture to industrial-capitalist detail work, machinery, and large-scale production (Koistinen, 1996: 75–85). In so doing, the military-state ensured the arms industry was further advanced than US capitalist organisation generally (Koistinen, 1996: 78–85; Rosenberg, 1963) that is, a vanguard actor prototyping the future (Marx, 1988: 85–92). Through these advances and their wider circulation, post 1850s US arms manufacturing became globally important (Fitch, 1883). Focused on measure and quality control (Department of Ordnance, 1834), these simplified and expanded divisions of labour increased production’s uniformity and sought ‘regularity, continuity and predictability’ (Koistinen, 1996: 84). This increased work organisations as places of discipline and surveillance that is, as ‘administrative power’, wherein the timing and spacing of a population’s activity moved towards commanded industrial capitalism (Giddens, 1985: 47–50, 66–68; Marx, 1976).

In pursuing measurement and quality control, the Ordnance Department created a ‘Model Office’ to enhance surveillance and generate standards and measures for example, gauge technology (Koistinen, 1996: 78–80: Ruttan, 2006: 21–32). Gauges were marked to authenticate their uniform quality and size (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 6). Different standardised gauges were held centrally as master gauges, dispersed to each armoury, and to inspecting officers. Technology ‘ensure[d] simplicity and uniformity in the pattern and calibre [of ordnance] for the land services’ (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 13). The security apparatus deployed gauges guaranteeing uniformity from ‘purchase, fabrication, or contract’ that is, network military-state standards overrode state or private ownership (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 10). To alter operational processes, the military-state established uniformity and interchangeability through technical inspection (and bureaucracy, see later) to intensify surveillance. Security driven operational changes took a triple form – one, military-state battlefield capacity, two, civilian productive capacity to equip the military-state, and three, the wider economic capacity to shape productivity within ‘the political economy of warfare’ (Costea and Amiridis, 2017; Koistinen, 1996: 75–101). This last capacity was acknowledged by The Secretary of War’s Annual Report (November 24, 1828), commenting

Indeed, the [Ordnance Dept.] reports . . . exhibit the Army of the United States not in the light in which standing armies in time of peace have usually been regarded, as drones who are consuming the labour of others, but as a body of military and civil engineers, artificers, and laborers, who probably contribute more than any other equal number of citizens not only to the security of the country but to the advancement of its useful arts (quoted in Smith, 1987: 40)

As an increasingly ‘permanent military apparatus’, military-state preparedness for war was shaping the market through its ‘useful arts’ and the expansion and intensification of surveillance in state and private organisations. These ‘arts’ enabled it to wage territorial, colonial and other wars for example, the 1823 Monroe Doctrine, which essentially challenged European claims in the Americas to undermine the European World Order (Schmitt, 2003), and conflicts with Britain, Mexico, Native American nations, and Spain (Koistinen, 1996: 89–93). Territorial security necessitates internal control (Costea and Amiridis, 2017; Hintze, 1975: 180–215; Koistinen, 1996; Maleševič, 2017; Weber, 1978: 1150–1156), and the military-state used minute divisions of labour, surveillance, and technology to manage production, control internal territory, expand via conquest and enhance security (Foucault, 2007).

So, how did the military-state influence production? One route was quality assurance. Until 1819, eyes, not technology, performed quality inspection. As such, it was not uniform but ‘subjective’ (Smith, 1977: 75). Through technical gauges, the Ordnance Department’s centralised judgment replaced previously dispersed quality control in state and private armouries. Standardisation ensured lock mechanism dimensions, bores, barrel parts, etc. were fixed and monitored (Koistinen, 1996: 78–80: Ruttan, 2006: 22–25). Private contractors had to meet these standards to access contracts (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 6–15, today see Glassman, 2018). The Ordnance Department demanded quarterly inspection of state and private armoury production. This uniformity ensured that one, knowledge and authority were centralised in ‘objective’ technology and/or command systems coordinating routines and two, knowledge and authority were circulated throughout the wider security apparatus production network (and, as we will see, the wider economy). Because quality inspectors circulated ‘best practice’, these processes allowed the military-state surveil, measure, evaluate, compare, and contrast work across populations and sites (Department of Ordnance, 1834; para 103–110, especially pages 16–28). In security’s interests, surveillance was extended and intensified to further entwine politics and economics (Engels, 1855, 2020; Giddens, 1985: 228–234; Hintz, 1975: 422–452; Streeck, 2020).

These ‘scientific’ and ‘objective’ standards created uniformity and eroded traditional craft-worker inspection through ‘mechanical’ systems. Technology (gauges) replaces instruments of labour (eyes), not the work (Marx, 1976: 500 ft. 15). Gauges supplanted embodied tools with dispersed technology ensuring inspection and surveillance shifted from subjective to objective centralised processes to enable mechanisation (Koistinen, 1996: 78–83; Smith, 1987: 59–60). Furthermore, through uniform standards, it intensified technical developments to remedy human error. Circulating centralising technology to state and private sectors ‘signalled an end to craft-oriented inspection and the beginning of a new mechanical tradition’ (Smith, 1987: 60), to hasten industrial-capitalism’s intensified centralised judgement and create the real subsumption of labour to capital (Marx, 1976: 1019–1038). Thus, through the security apparatus, the military-state encroached on craft forms by claiming the scientific right to judge. Gauges encapsulated this desire to command labour populations and production through uniformity (Koistinen, 1996: 75–101). The seemingly technological was primarily aimed at organisational surveillance to redistribute power towards centralised administration to alter how population segments would think, act, and judge (Marx and Engels, 1970: 42–48), and to transform the mode of production (Marx, 1976: 643–654, 1019–1038).

Pursuing uniformity, the Ordnance Department intensified material and operational changes through machine control over labour processes (Ruttan, 2006: 22–25). As the Ordnance Department’s second in command expressed it, ‘uniformity of work is scarcely attainable by manual labour’ (quoted in Smith, 1987: 68). For example, successfully bidding for ‘uniformity of work’, Harpers Ferry armoury machine innovation created 63 inspection gauges. Combined with increasing specialisation, gauges limited the ‘essentially wrong’ (Smith, 1977: 225) workers could do and centralised control in new hierarchical organisational forms. New divisions of labour and machinery divided populations into skilled and unskilled, limited worker discretion, and lessened skill requirements – ‘the number of skilful mechanics required is therefore quite limited for the manufacture of rifles’ (John H Hall written communication with Ordnance Department, quoted in Smith, 1977: 239). Additionally, state armouries created two technology forms. One, ‘primary machines’, which the military-state diffused to many industries via ‘convergence technologies’ (Hounshell, 1984; McNeill, 1982; Rosenberg, 1963) enabling capital ‘to take over all branches of industry not yet acquired and where only formal subsumption obtains’ (Marx, 1976: 1036 italics in original). Two, ‘secondary machines’, which produced final products (Koistinen, 1996; Ruttan, 2006; Smith, 1977; 227–228). By the mid-1830s, Harpers Ferry armoury created machines making high quality uniform products that were ‘very little dependent on manual labor’ (Col. George Talcott, see Smith, 1977: 222). Thus, machines were deployed not simply because they were technologically necessary, but because organisational control made monitoring and/or labour population replacement desirable.

Limiting dependence on labour was not accidental. From 1827 to 1850s, Harpers Ferry invested $149 589.89 in machinery and its chief technologist was deployed primarily ‘to refine and further develop mechanised techniques for their [rifles] manufacture’ (Smith, 1977: 209). In the 1830s, machines were constructed that needed little or no supervised materials fed into them, ceased working when pieces were finished, and three or four machines were operated by one machinist in redesigned workspaces (Smith, 1977: 240). These capital intensification processes restructured divisions of labour, enhanced surveillance, determined finished product quality, increased production, segmented populations and replaced skilled with unskilled labour, increased the circulation of materials and people, altered class relations, and organisationally transitioned society to an industrial-capitalist surveillance society (Giddens, 1985; Koistinen, 1996; Marx, 1976: 1019–1036).

In 1834, increased circulation, surveillance, control, and technology generated the first mass production goods made from interchangeable components across multiple sites. These parts were delivered from one factory to another so that a perfect clone was reproduced in the Springfield Armory with parts from Harpers Ferry and vice versa (Smith, 1977: 212) that is, a modern multi-site but centrally controlled production supply chain. By 1841, ‘the first fully interchangeable firearms to be made in large numbers anywhere’ were produced – designated ‘one of the great technological achievements of the modern era’ (Smith, 1981: 77). This achievement was not merely technological, it prototyped flow production and supply chains to modify the mode of production. It increased the quantity and quality of firearms through minute divisions of labour, surveillance, technical control and engendered new unskilled labour populations. It shifted work from a traditional formal subsumption to an industrial-capitalist class-based form to restructure social relations of real subsumption (Giddens, 1985; Marx, 1976: 1019–1038). As Marx (2014: 119) commented ‘Social relations are intimately attached to the productive forces. In acquiring new productive forces men change their mode of production, and in changing their mode of production, their manner of gaining a living, they change all their social relations. The windmill gives you society with a feudal lord, the steam-mill, society with the industrial-capitalist’ to produce the proletariat.

Like a ‘war economy’ (Noble, 1984; Ruttan, 2006; Weber, 1981: 338–352), cost was not a primary concern – the Ordnance Department stressed potential savings to Congress, but focused on new mechanical processes (Smith, 1977: 220). State security drove change via productive performance, capital intensification, and centralised surveillance (Smith, 1977: 324–326). This organising logic guided (and guides) military-state work organisation because surveilled uniformity ensured faster production, repair, distribution, etc. It quickened the population’s circulation because greater control intensified work, workers had less skill, needed less training, rotated quicker between jobs, to make production spatially mobile, labour populations more accessible, and circulation processes swifter. Through work organisation and faster production and circulation, the military-state helped the state ‘administer itself, to manage, and guarantee . . . State power’ (Foucault, 2003: 223) – as organizations moved towards industrial-capitalist forms (Giddens, 1985; Marx, 1988: 85–92). Bureaucracy, as we next see, was central to this.

Bureaucracy and the altering the organisation of civilian work

In the early 1830s, the military-state enhanced regulations to create a ‘uniform system in the Operations of the Ordnance Department’. It assured state security by knowing what weapons needed repairing, replacing, their locations, quickest route to arms, etc. (Smith, 1977: 58). Rules were applied to security apparatus civilian workforces and data was fed-back generating individual responsibility (Department of Ordnance, 1834; para 2) that is, the modern state capacity to reflexively gather and act on data (Giddens, 1985: 7–34). This push towards centralised management through state bureaucracy, organisational standards, resource control, population management, and individual discipline severed links to traditional dispersed craft-led workplace authority (Giddens, 1985; Koistinen, 1996: 75–101; Smith, 1977: 52–69). In the new system, bureaucratic regulation and data shaped ‘what men do’ to instil obedience in ‘the military dream of society’ (Foucault, 1977: 169).

Bureaucracy was central to this (Weber, 1948). For example, nine separate forms were used to inspect muskets, carbines, rifles, cartridges, etc. Form 38 recorded the ‘Quarterly Inspection Reports of Muskets, (Carbines, common Rifles, or Pistols)’ to detail where munitions were made and who inspected them. It tracked inspection’s duration, numbers examined, workmanship, materials used, dimensions, accepted ratio per 100 received, and it left space for comments. The form had 36 elements for example, barrels, triggers etc., was printed, signed by inspectors, and required two further signatures – a Major of Ordnance (Superintending Inspector of the Contract Services) and the US Inspector of Arms (Department of Ordnance, 1834: 166–167). In comparison to the other 56 forms, nothing is noteworthy about Form 38. These forms demanded details across different areas for example, lumber, artillery, guns, leather, buildings, etc. From them, ‘Model Office’ managers gathered quarterly and annual consolidated inspection reports on each armoury’s line operations. These reports were informed by ‘accounts’ of tools and materials used, rough and finished work delivered to, and received from, assistant armourers, etc. This bureaucracy collected data creating new norms guaranteeing remote work was ‘conformable to established models’ (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 19; Giddens, 1985; Koistinen, 1996: 81–85).

Bureaucracy controlled finance, payroll and other expenditures by insisting superintendents signed them off. Regulations demanded populations – ‘classes of work[ers]’ – were recreated and different skill levels across tasks designated so ‘each workman thereon employed, shall be assigned work under some one class; shall be denominated of that class’ (Department of Ordnance, 1834; para 24). This undermined dispersed traditional craft self-regulation because ‘objective’ bureaucratic categories demarcated skills and pay. Bureaucracy allowed calculation across different fields for example, a ‘fair day’s work for every variety of work under each class’ (Department of Ordnance, 1834: 7), it ensured ‘fairness’ because work classes received different pay, and it measured pay against ‘work done’ (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 24–25). Through data, rules, and statistics separate populations were generated, managed, surveilled, and dominated.

Bureaucratic control subordinated market-based firms, but importantly, it also enhanced knowledge and practise within such firms through the security apparatus. Both private and state ordnances were checked against invoices to ensure accuracy, condition, and were signed and dated. If ordnances were not in good order, officers inquired about fabrication and transportation, who signed them off, and reported this information via Form 12. If damages resulted from neglect, repair costs were deducted (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 67–69). Inspecting officers delivered quality control and were ‘held strictly responsible’ for products. To ensure diffused knowledge held by private armouries was deployed correctly, premises were inspected to guarantee military-state standards. Assistant armourers took an oath of ‘faithful discharge’ and were circulated so they did not ‘inspect the arms manufactured at the same private establishment oftener than twice in succession’ (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 108). Private armouries were monitored, and Forms 37–46 were completed – inspectors dismantled and reassembled products and, if transported onwards, re-boxed and resealed them. Private contractors completed Forms 47 and 48 stating what was delivered, logistics, price of individual parts, box numbers, and verifying statements (Department of Ordnance, 1834: para 104–105, 183–185). Military-state bureaucracy diffused knowledge and practice via rules, standards and inspection (Koistinen, 1996: 78–80), but bureaucracy also concentrated control throughout a spatially dispersed production network. Here, the military-state increased surveillance both within the workplace, but also to the wider society by general state bureaucratic expansion (Giddens, 1985: 122–146; Weber, 1948: 196–224).

The military-state and the transition to industrial-capitalist work

Military bureaucracy emerges because soldiers were early separated from the means of production to create waged labour (Weber, 1948: 221–224), which increased military effectiveness through greater control (Feld, 1975). Bureaucracy generates societal domination (Maleševič, 2017) via its ‘pacification of large states of the plains’ (Weber, 1948: 222), colonial wars (Alliez and Lazzarato, 2016; Arendt, 1994: 271–289), and the concentration of control (Beetham, 1985: 196–240), etc. Thus states, as territorial resolutions of crisis (Giddens, 1985; Gilmore, 2002: 16), use bureaucracy to control space and populations (Giddens, 1985: 122–146; Weber, 1948). Bureaucracy is foundational to controlling civilian labour because productivity becomes central to security. Bureaucracy pacifies in three ways: it structures the ‘permanent military apparatus’ (Foucault, 2007: 305); it dominates ‘helpless’ citizens (Weber, 1978: 1402–1403); and it domesticates and divides workers through hierarchy and labour control within (and between) organisations (Edwards, 1979; Foucault, 2015; Weber, 1948).

Military-state bureaucracy undermined labour to strengthen technical control over labour processes (on how bureaucratic controls strengthen technical control, see Edwards, 1979). Bureaucracy’s controlling role is explicit in the 1842 Clock Strike. The Chief of the Ordnance Department commented ‘We say to the Armourers – here are our regulations; if you will not abide by them – go elsewhere – for we know that as many good or better workmen can be had at any moment. They answer – no, we will not leave the armoury. We insist on working for the United States and will fix our own terms!!!’ (quoted in Smith, 1977: 274). With technical control achieved, the military-state demanded that its rules be obeyed because it could now judge machinists, artificers, etc. as adequate/inadequate. Skill no longer ensured autonomy because increased divisions of labour, technical control, surveillance and regulation made work visible. Alongside uniformity and technology, bureaucracy eradicated traditional craft practises.

Unsurprisingly, the military-state’s controlling drive created resistance. In 1829, Harpers Ferry produced its ‘Yellow Book’ of regulations outlining (new) worker responsibilities and banning traditional onsite behaviours for example, gambling, loitering, drinking alcohol, unexcused absences, etc. Harpers Ferry maintained work customs longer than other security apparatus armouries for example, in 1816, Springfield Armoury introduced such changes and private armouries insisted on longer workdays (Smith, 1987). These new regulations undermined the existing work culture (Smith, 1977: 255–257). This created conflict for example, in 1830 the then superintendent was murdered. This resistance was ‘successful’ because Harpers Ferry’s changes slowed throughout the 1830s. By the 1840s, the difference between Ordnance Department mandated productivity and that of Harpers Ferry, threatened security. For example, the (1830s) Harpers Ferry superintendent was conciliatory, expanded employment, productivity declined, and deficits grew. Craft labour maintained its formal subsumption traditions, for example, working 5 hours a day and opening workshops dawn until dusk thereby allowing workers exercise control over time and space (Roediger and Foner, 1989: 48). In response, the Ordnance Department demanded that military-state personnel, not state employed civilians, directly manage state armouries and are appointed by the military, not the Secretary of State. In 1841, military management was granted, and the new superintendent enforced the 1829 regulations. He mandated a 10-hour day and installed a clock that ‘served to emphasise [the] rigorous discipline, regularity, and specialisation’ (Smith, 1977: 271).

The period 1843–1893 was crucial to American industrial-capitalist development (Gutman, 1973: 540). The Harpers Ferry work re-organisation occurred at the start of this period. However, Harpers Ferry had established, but not enforced, the work organisation rules central to this industrial-capitalist transition in the 1820s. Importantly, anticipating industrial capitalism, other state armouries adhered to these industrial-capitalist regulations prior to Harpers Ferry (Koistinen, 1996: 77–83). Space, time, population management, and discipline were essential to this new organising (Gutman, 1973; Smith, 1977; Thompson, 1967). Harpers Ferry exemplifies the push from task to time-oriented work organisation. Thompson (1967: 56–63) argues this transition prioritised wage relations, because employers implemented time-based work relationships. Labour’s traditions were sabotaged by new workspaces and practices for example, factories, technology, bureaucracy, etc. In work task orientations people work longer or shorter hours depending on the task, however, to emerging industrial-capitalist societies ‘labour appears as wasteful and lacking in urgency’ (Thompson, 1967: 60). Moral outrage was expressed about existing practices for example, workers insistence on ‘a 4-day week with a 3-day weekend’ (Gutman, 1973: 559; Thompson, 1967: 73), and linked high pay to idleness (Thompson, 1967: 81). ‘Idleness’ subverts productivity generating a military-state organisational problem (Costea and Amiridis, 2017; Foucault, 2007). In contrast, managing populations through new norms and disciplining individuals through new administrative powers to organise space and time, enforced constant effort for example, the modern factory and the real subsumption of labour (Giddens, 1985: 47–50, 66–68; Gutman, 1973; Marx, 1976; Roediger and Foner, 1989; Thompson, 1967). The military-state was at the transformational forefront of this new administrative power and organising.

The ‘clock’ dispute represents this transition because once labour lost labour process control, disputes over time became central to labour relations to centralise class conflict in workplaces as struggles over time shape social relations (Giddens, 1985; Roediger and Foner, 1989). The military-state’s contention was ‘the men have been used to high wages and were in the habit of working from 4 to 6 hours per day – and being absent whole days or a week’ (quoted in Smith, 1977: 274). The strike concerned who organised work’s terms and rhythm to determine the state’s ‘capacities, its potentialities’, which were now organised around security (Foucault, 2003: 223). As a vanguard actor, the military-state directed security apparatus undercut traditions through ‘unilateral controls’ – ‘there was no choice – an alien factory discipline characterized by time-oriented goals and impersonal bureaucratic constraints had to be absorbed’ (Smith, 1977: 273 emphasis in original). The military-state pushed towards new administrative powers (importantly, this was also emerging elsewhere e.g, Lowell textiles). In the 1840s, Harpers Ferry vigorously implemented changes to align it with the security apparatus. Military-state uniformity required remaking labour populations as new subjects (Smith, 1981) that were obedient to centralised control. New industrial-capitalist work organisation was the order of the day, which later became the organisational norm for much of the economy.

The military-state diffusion of practice and knowledge

Central to state security (and capital accumulation) was the military-state diffusion of work organisation practice and knowledge. The military-state diffused industrial-capitalist organisation by circulating practice and knowledge within the security apparatus and then circulating practice and knowledge from the security apparatus to the wider economy. Internally, the military-state pursued ‘good’ practice for example, the Springfield and Harpers Ferry armouries exchanged information on wages, shop procedures, raw materials, personnel, machinery and innovations (Smith, 1987: 51) to enable control. Harpers Ferry was compared to Springfield and ‘good practice’ diffused to eliminate production network unevenness. However, diffusion also penetrated the wider private sector to spread real subsumption of labour to capital via revolutionising the mode of production (Marx, 1976: 1036). Within the broader security apparatus, the traffic between the military-state and private sector travelled both ways. The military-state developed machine tools and technology, detailed standards, and innovated practises but, as part of this apparatus, the private sector also innovated and shared knowledge. Within the security apparatus, the state and private sectors, circulated knowledge and change, but they also circulated these to the wider economy. The military-state deliberately diffused knowledge, practice, and people to the wider economy to increase technological convergence and productivity (Koistinen, 1996: 80; Ruttan, 2006: 25–27).

Colt’s Hartford armoury garnered knowledge from military-state contracts and trained mechanics who diffused this know-how to develop nascent mass production industries for example, sewing machines, bicycles, machine tools, etc. (Hounshell, 1984: 49–50). Wheeler and Wilson Sewing Machine Company was founded by craftsmen from Colt, Springfield Armoury and Roberts and Lawrence-Sharp Rifles, a Colt employee (Lewis Wilkinson) redesigned McCormick Reaper Company’s production processes to encourage mass production, H. M. Leland – ex Springfield Armoury - helped develop Browne and Sharpe manufacturing (machine tools), Willcox and Gibbs (sewing machines) and Cadillac and Lincoln automobile companies (Hounshell, 1984: 1–14). The bicycle, as a transitional technology essential to the future auto industry, was developed through interactions between sewing machine and arms companies – often sharing the same factory space (Hounshell, 1984: 189–1216; Ruttan, 2006). Finally, transportation’s organisation was significantly developed by security apparatus circulation (see below). Thus, the security apparatus was not the outer limit of people, practices and knowledge circulation. It is hard to imagine twentieth century US work organisation without this military-state innovation and input (Hounshell, 1984: 15–66; Koistinen, 1996: 75–101; O’Connell, 1987; Ruttan, 2006: 21–32; Smith, 1977: 325–326). In short, like other militaries at the time (Engels, 2020; Hintze, 1975; McNeill, 1982) and contemporary militaries (Glassman, 2018; Harris, 2014; Werner, 2020), the military-state diffused new knowledge and ways of organising.

The security apparatus also improved productivity through machine tools. At the end of the nineteenth century, the US produced more than the next leading four economies combined, and uniformity, mechanisation, command, and circulation were central to this (Gutman, 1973; Hounshell, 1984: 19). Indebted significantly to the security apparatus, the machine tool industry mechanised the economy to alter social relations (Koistinen, 1996; Marx, 1976: 1019–1038, 2014: 145; Rosenberg, 1963; Ruttan, 2006: 21–32). Machine tool firms were built and strengthened through contact with the military-state for example, Ames Company and American Machine Works. This occurred because the military-state disbursed resources to machine tool producers for example, from 1845 to 1854, Harpers Ferry purchased $34,986 worth of machinery. Freely provided security apparatus knowledge often created the standards used to build the machines the military-state then purchased. Security apparatus private sector companies applied military-state resources, knowledge, and machine building techniques to circulate production processes and organisational forms throughout the wider economy, which made capitalist labour control and accumulation easier (Koistinen, 1996: 75–101; Marx, 1976: 643–654; Rosenberg, 1963; Ruttan, 2006: 21–32; Smith, 1977: 285–290). Thus, military-state led mechanisation to dominate labour, increase production, shape capital’s production operations, technology, and organisational forms to facilitate the transition to industrial-capitalism with its associated workplace driven class conflict (Giddens, 1985; Marx, 1976).

This diffusion was not accidental. Pre-1820, in meetings about standardisation, the Ordnance Department invited state and private armoury personnel to pursue its project (Ruttan, 2006: 25–32; Smith, 1987, 51, 1977: 104). Central to participation was that contracted firms worked to military-state standards, which were increasingly industrial-capitalist in form. Contracts were monitored and future contracts were tied to current performance and to updating operations, sharing innovations, distributing information, etc. (Smith, 1987: 61–76). As such, the military-state ensured that knowledge and new ways of working circulated throughout and beyond the security apparatus. To circulate knowledge and practises quicker, the Ordnance Department insisted state armouries freely diffused knowledge (Ruttan, 2006: 21–32). State workshops were open to private firms, allowing them to examine ‘drawings, borrow patterns, and obtain any other information related to their special interests’. The quid pro quo was contractors shared their inventions on a royalty free basis to gain future contracts (Smith, 1987: 76). Thus, as a vanguard actor, the military-state diffused practice and knowledge across state and market sectors (Koistinen, 1996: 75–101, see also Costea and Amiridis, 2017; Engels, 1855, 2020). This spread industrial-capitalist processes to generate a step-change in organisational order.

Importantly, the Corps of Engineers pursued similar diffusion processes (Koistinen, 1996; O’Connell, 1987). In the 1820s, the military-state mandated the Corps diffuse practices and knowledge by building canals and railways with less knowledgeable private firms (as noted, military production was more advanced than that of capitalist firms, Koistinen, 1996: 78–85; Rosenberg, 1963). The state reasoned such infrastructure would increase circulation, state prosperity, security, and territorial conquest (Foucault, 2007: 21; Giddens, 1985: 122–147; Koistinen, 1996: 85–101). The Corps contracting system spread ‘good practice’ by demanding detailed information from private contractors. To enter the security apparatus, firms submitted to standardised recording systems, production processes, etc. As such, alongside mass industries, arms and machine tools, the security apparatus influenced another seminal sector that is, transport (Koistinen, 1996: 81).

In so doing, it acted as a template for the emerging multi-divisional form with its separate divisions within a unitary structure (Chandler, 1977). Chandler (1981: 151) acknowledges the military-state role in generating interchangeability but suggests the multi-divisional structure begins with staff (strategic) and line (operational) divisions in the railways. ⁶ However, the War Department had seven divisions/departments and used a staff and line form from 1815 onwards that is, before railways (Koistinen, 1996: 75–101; O’Connell, 1987). As described, the Department of Ordnance (1834), was built on War Department structures, and deliberately constructed itself via staff and line forms for example, ‘Model Office’ staff devised strategy operationalised by line employees or contractors. Considering this, O’Connell (1987: 89) asks if the military-state provided the organisational template for American capitalism? The Corps was central to diffusing multi-divisional organisation. The Baltimore and Ohio Railway’s first management procedures were provided by ex-Corps staff. In the 1820s, the railway asked the Corps for an organisational template (O’Connell, 1987: 98–101). Additionally, at senior executive level the Western Railroad Company employed a former Corps officer who was also an ex-Baltimore and Ohio employee (Captain William G McNeill), and it seconded a serving Corps officer (Captain William H Swift). It tasked the latter with developing its organisational structure. Using his military experience, Swift created departments with different functions, staff and line managers, etc. and diffused military-state organisational knowledge (O’Connell, 1987: 109–110). In 1839, after a series of accidents, the Western was mandated to reassess its organisational form. In response, it hired another Corps military alumnus – George W Whistler. Whistler’s military experience fed into the ‘Report on avoiding collisions and governing employees November 1841’ – a report viewed as ‘one of the seminal works in the evolution of railway management’ (O’Connell, 1987: 110–113).

Chandler (1977: 96–106) suggests both the Western and the Baltimore and Ohio organisational templates informed the Erie Railways structure, which he credits with creating the multi-divisional form. The Erie separated strategy and operations along six lines: 1. Division of responsibilities, 2. Power to enact responsibilities, 3. Measurement of actions to ensure they are carried out, 4. Detecting dereliction of duties promptly, 5. Information flowing to authority, 6. Information to rapidly find errors and those responsible (Chandler, 1977: 102). However, a very similar structure was central to the (earlier) military-state for example, the War Department (Koistinen, 1996: 75–85; O’Connell, 1987) and the Ordnance Department’s (1834) organisational forms and production networks. Chandler may underplay this military-state role because his focus is on the small private enterprise to multi-divisional form transition, rather than security-led production networks. However, he underestimates the military-state influence on operational and organisational structures (O’Connell, 1987). ⁷ The military-state created an apparatus embedded in military, governmental, private, and public production networks that were controlled through technical and bureaucratic means and the separation of strategy and operations (Koistinen, 1996: 75–85). Ex-military personnel took this technical and bureaucratic organising logic to the railways, which later became the ‘seminal’ multi-divisional form (Koistinen, 1996; O’Connell, 1987; Smith, 1987). As such, alongside work, technology, bureaucracy, etc., modern multi-divisional structures were influenced by the military-state to create a new organisational order.

Conclusion

This paper argues the military-state significantly influences work organisation. Central to this is state security – externally (as commonly understood), but importantly internally through increasing productivity to wage war. This means that as a vanguard actor, the military-state is interested in populations (the ‘activities of men’), production and surveillance to recreate organisational order in ways organisation theory somewhat downplays. ‘Force . . . as an economic power’ encourages the real subsumption of labour to capital and an organising logic rooted in surveillance, hierarchy and control (Bloomfield et al., 2017; Costea and Amiridis, 2017; Marx, 1976: 916). As such, military-states maintained the security apparatus and facilitated society’s transition from a traditional (formal subsumption) to an industrial class society of real subsumption (and later to further step-changes in organisation e.g., automated factories, robotics, IT, etc.). Early military-state desire to control labour, create obedience, and increase productivity through uniformity, generated deskilling and the replacement of craft with minute divisions of labour, technical control, and work-flow redesigning. The security apparatus then circulated technical control to the private sector. Technical control cannot generate population control on the scale demanded by the military-state organising logic, so it necessitated bureaucratic control and organisational forms for example, multi-divisional structures and class-based industrial capitalism (Giddens, 1985). Hence, the military-state was key to changing the mode of production and as such, social relations (Marx, 2014).

In the 19th century, the military-state could not produce the security required for the industrial era, so it designed a tightly managed state and private security apparatus to enhance production’s effectiveness and in doing so, military-states anticipated industrial-capitalist society (Koistinen, 1996: 78). This encouraged centralised controls in dispersed networks. The efficacy and diffusion of the military-state’s technical and bureaucratic controls spread to the private sphere. Like contemporary capitalism (Harris, 2014), central to these organisational forms are surveillance, predictability, hierarchy and better control of labour. As highlighted at the top of this paper, computing, nuclear power, cybernetics, robotics, internet technologies, etc. all start in the military-state, and its security apparatus, acting as a vanguard. All help alter the mode of production and social relations, but also all have surveillance, predictability, hierarchy and better labour control embedded in them (Braverman, 1974; Leavitt and Whisler, 1958; Noble, 1984). Thus, the military-state via the work organisation helps to extend and intensify surveillance and domination as an ongoing societal logic.