Military Institutions and the Labor Process: Noneconomic Sources of Technological Change, Women's Subordination, and the Organization of Work

Military institutions have strongly and persistently affected other social and economic institutions, a reality largely ignored by modern scholars of whatever political persuasion. The problem begins with an inability--or unwillingness-to understand military institutions on their own terms. Conservative and Marxist economists alike, for instance, can offer no theory to explain either the causes or the effects of innovation in military technology.' Weaponry clearly changes for reasons that may owe little or nothing to the marketplace, and novel weapons may alter every aspect of society.2 This is not merely a matter of the sporadic impact of a specific war or wars, or even of war in