This is primarily aimed at our military or former military members from my perspective as a US Army veteran. Its just a random weird little thought I had after spending too much time reading over in Elections.
The US military is, nominally, a meritocratic section of our over-all democratic republic. Leaders, whether enlisted or commissioned are promoted and given (more) authority based on some standard of merit instead of pure popularity or ability to BS (although there is some of that too). In short, the US military is NOT democratic.
My question is based on my experience and is this;
In my time in the military, I served under 3 company commanders for the full stint of their time as CO at the company level.
Each Captain, about halfway through his time, would have a meeting with my section alone, without any of the NCOs or any other officers present, in short a BS session. I assume this was done with every platoon/section but we were always told that, because we were maintenance, ie support, instead of combat arms, our opinion was especially valued and it would tend to be very different from the rest of the unit. We were allowed and encouraged to speak freely and critically (but respectfully of course) on a wide variety of topics and issues. Without fail, the last question of these sessions was, would we follow this person into battle? The stated purpose of these sessions was for the commander to gauge morale and to help assess his performance as a commander.
My question is this, given that, for the US anyway, the military is meritocratic instead of democratic by nature, is what I have described a rudimentary form of democracy within a non-democratic system?
I would be especially interested in hearing input from officers
So long as people still have free will, every institution is in some way fundamentally democratic. You can do what you’re told, or you can suffer the consequences - but you always have a choice.
I’m not sure what time period you served. Relatively recently those sensing sessions were made mandatory by the Pentagon to help weed out toxic leaders and help with retention. The written part was seen by the commander’s commander. I was always in a combat arms unit and we didn’t go much for touchy feely bullshit. Bad commanders mostly self eliminated in combat arms.
I don’t know how things are in the U.S military, but my company commanders always worked closely with their people. It’s a hands-on job. If anyone ever had any complaints, they rarely hesitated to voice them.
mid 90s through the early aughts was my time of service.
I was never sure if these sessions were mandatory or just “strongly suggested” for the commanders. Each time, we were seemingly able to effect some change within the unit through these sessions. I dunno, could just be good or decent or effective command style (whatever adjective you like)…meh, now it seems silly.
Note to self; do not operate a motor vehicle, heavy machinery or start new thread for 3 hours after Elections Forum.
In my time as an active duty USAF O1 to O3 (the 80s basically), there were no such organized group meetings between senior officers and junior officers, nor between JOs & enlisted.
A smart leader knows his troops’ concerns. Listening to scuttlebutt and meeting directly with them is one way to do that. But not the only way. It’s not democracy by any stretch. It’s intel gathering. And yes, a form of feedback and comaradarie-building. Done well it’s very valuable. Done badly it can undermine the chain of command, morale, and good order. Thereby jeopardizing the unit’s ability to conduct its mission.
The US military is a military, with all the top-downness that implies. At the same time it’s made up of Americans. Who’re mostly raised with a bottom-up mindset. And more so every year. Troops must be led in a fashion they’ll respond to. The best results come when troops want to follow, not when they’re forced to follow. How to be the bearer of bad, perhaps deadly, news and still be willingly followed is the $64million question of leadership at all levels.
This body does provide “advice” to the royal hierarchy. It was created about 25 years ago by command of the King. How much the parliament’s purpose is to make the subjects feel like they have input and how much it’s to actually gather input is not a question I can answer. In either case it certainly doesn’t make SA into some sort of “rudimentary democracy”.
I’ve never been in the military, but what you’re describing sounds a lot like a basic quality circle. It was all the rage in manufacturing back in the 1980’s. The general idea is “employee involvement” – people who actually do the work may have some good ideas on how to improve things, even if management doesn’t perceive a problem.
I’ve never heard it described as “democracy.” After all, management (or the commander) still gets the final say on whether to follow your recommendations. In fact, one of its flaws is that morale can droop when management doesn’t act on the group’s input.
It’s nice to know someone in the military valued feedback, though.
I was the biggest ‘Gold Brick’ or the best & hardest ‘worker’ and a lot depended on the order giver.
Simply:
“PFC Gus, dig the ditch.” I worked hard.
“PFC Gus, let us dig the ditch.” ( He meant me. ) I could hide, be sick, need to pray, get a higher rank to send me to my room, etc…
“PFC Gus, let us dig the ditch.” And he then took off his shirt and WE dug the ditch. I was a digging fool and always tried to do more than my share.
It was that simple for me. And the ones above me who figured it out were the good ones. Surprisingly, there were a lot of good ones and they had my back. ( two way street that )
My Dad had it down pat about me and I never had any wiggle room. Bawahahahah