Something for Thoughtful Conservatives & Business people to Think About

One of the phenomenon's about the U.S. political scene that is certainly not true, but has a perception in elements of the Alt-Right is that only they are patriotic, liberals are not patriotic.  What feeds this is the tendency for our all-volunteer military to be staffed by white people from the middle class.  Now there are many people of other backgrounds in the military but this is probably one place where white people are still the majority so the perception begins with that.

Now I have never read Machiavelli but I have reason to believe that many neo-conservatives subscribe to Machiavelli's point of view, and so do I, which is why I have supported a strong military once I got over my Vietnam War brain fog.

Machiavellianism believes the many people are characterized and motivated by a "duplicitous interpersonal style, a cynical disregard for morality, a focus on self-interest and personal gain." (I copied that from Wikipedia).  The latter two items, self-interest and personal gain are the crux of why capitalism works so well as an organizer of society and much better than any other form of economic structure.  But most humans tend to recoil from those who act immorally and act with duplicity.  That after all is what religion tries to coach out of people, successfully for most, and why laws are in place to allow society the means to deal with those who violate social standards for self-limiting all of this behavior.

I went down this path because I read a column this morning on how the biggest leakers, viewed as treason by many who disagreed with what was leaked, are millennial's.  But also remember that our military has been largely staffed with millennial's for the last 12 years and is so today.

"Without intending to, employers and policymakers have engineered a cohort of workers that is bound to yield leakers. An important part of our training for the 21st-century labor market has been an emphasis on taking initiative, hustling, finding ways to be useful, not waiting around for someone in charge to tell us what to do. In a Pew survey of young workers, a majority said they wanted to be the boss someday or already were. And if we can’t boss anyone else, we can at least boss ourselves. The gig-economy service Fiverr, for instance, recruits “doers” who “eat a coffee for lunch.” We are each of us a start-up of one, encouraged to develop and chase our values even if we don’t make much money. That’s usually a good situation for companies, which get ambitious employees (if we’re privileged enough to have that title) at basement rates as long as they’re able to make a thin claim or two about charity or sustainability. However, depending on an army of righteous, initiative-taking mercenaries does have its downsides when it comes to national security."

And now we return to Machiavelli who cautioned against the use of mercenaries.   The all-volunteer military is close to the edge of this precipice in general.  But specifically, the GOP lead march to reduce taxation has starved the military to the point where they have to use contractors for many things.  There is no difference between a contractor and a mercenary as we have seen in Iraq and Afghanistan.

"One of the reasons Machiavelli advised against using mercenaries is that it’s a no-win situation: Either they’re not competent, or if they are, they’ll substitute their own judgment and goals for their leader’s. Snowden was so efficient at his cybersecurity job that his bosses at Booz Allen Hamilton’s Hawaii office were content to give him the run of the place, and since the government trusted his bosses, the National Security Agency was, in a very real way, relying on him. It’s the kind of mistake that will keep happeningbecause it’s unavoidable. What kind of boss can resist a brilliant young worker who doesn’t need instruction? At a cybersecurity conference, Snowden’s former supervisor Steven Bay explained that the recruit blew away his interview, and with the paucity of technical talent in Hawaii, Booz Allen felt lucky to have him."

"Employee loyalty is a two-way street, and for millennials, traffic has slowed to a crawl. Companies are investing less in workers. “Among the reasons cited for this,” according to the Wharton business school: “the recession, during which companies laid off huge swaths of their employees with little regard for loyalty or length of service; a whittling away of benefits, training and promotions for those who remain; and a generation of young millennials (ages 15 to 30) who have a different set of expectations about their careers, including the need to ‘be their own brand.’ ” In a nomadic world, one of the casualties is a decreasing sense of commitment to the organization."

You can see where this is going and while I was going to copy some more of the column, I decided to stop here and just put a link in so you can read the original author of my quotations.

Link to Malcom Harris column