Military Organization and Society by Stanislaw Andrzejewski

Author:Stanislaw Andrzejewski [Andrzejewski, Stanislaw]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Sociology, General
ISBN: 9781136253119
Google: sbqAAAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2013-08-21T05:49:17+00:00

INFLUENCE OF SIZE

The larger the group, the more important is the co-ordination of the actions of its members; particularly in an emergency. We should expect therefore, that, other things being equal, the larger the group, the more prominent should be the monocratic and hierarchic traits in its organization. It is a well-known fact, moreover, that as the size of a collectivity increases it can be dominated by a proportionately smaller minority; one policeman can hardly keep down 100 civilians but 1,000 policemen can easily keep down 100,000 civilians. This is because the advantage derived from being organized grows more than proportionately to the numbers involved. There is, moreover, another factor of great moment which has been analysed with great perspicacity by N. S. Tima-sheff. I cannot do better than quote from his Introduction to the Sociology of Law (Cambridge, Mass., 1939, p. 186):

‘The difficulty of transforming subjective attitude of dissatis-faction into a social force strong enough to overthrow a power structure grows with the dimensions of the system. In a small system … it is obvious to every member that the power relationship consists merely of the dispositions of the partners but even within a group of two … there is a certain tendency to see not two, but three elements, viz. the dominator, the dominated and the power relation itself. Such an idea is often unconscious and, of course, not very permanent, since an effort on the part of the subject or negligence on the part of the dominator, such as his failure to use his power, are sometimes sufficient to destroy the illusion of this third element of the objective relation uniting the two, and even to destroy the power relationship itself.

‘As has been observed by Simmel … the situation changes completely when the group is increased and consists no longer of two, but of three members. In a system of three elements, A, B, G, there are three links, AB, AC, and BC, and for every member one of the links is independent of his will, is ‘objective5 … With every new member the number of links which are objective for each one increases very fast…. Now almost every ‘objective5 link means …. a reinforcement of the necessity of submission, because in every group-member the submission reflexes are reinforced by the submissive attitudes of the others. … A power system is not a mere sum of the submissive attitudes of the subjects…. The senti-ments … of others are objective facts. One has to submit even if one is disgusted and rebellious; and every group-member has to do the same.’

In view of the above, it is understandable why the numerical growth of the armed forces—which may occur either through the natural growth of the population, or through the expansion of the state, or through the extension of military service —fosters their hierarchization and monocratization. There can be little doubt that it does. No examples can be found of large armies not organized monocratically. Those which are not so organized are invariably small.

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