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I believe you're misrepresenting the speaker's position. Failed commanders were not "fired" in the way a private sector employee gets fired. They were relieved

I believe you're misrepresenting the speaker's position. Failed commanders were not "fired" in the way a private sector employee gets fired. They were relieved of command and given easier jobs with exactly the same pay and benefits. Also, the military command structure is intentionally redundant in order to be robust against mass casualty events. Every commander has a line of succession consisting of people who are trained and ready to take command themselves, and in fact, usually have taken command at least a few times already when the commander is intentionally absent to give them practice. Private industry could do this if they want, but it would require cutting executive pay in half, hiring twice as many executives, and creating intentionally redundant positions that serve little purpose other than preparing the next cohort for leadership. This works for the military due to a unique combination of the organization itself not having a profit motive and the personnel valuing non-monetary accomplishment more than personal wealth. And, of course, the military is a monopoly. This also works because there isn't a different military that can offer your generals triple the salary and poach them away. If they want to be generals at all, they have no choice but to buy into the unique culture of the only military they can serve in. Theoretically, a foreign military could try to buy them away, but countries mostly seem to not allow foreigners to command their military units for security reasons and the possibility of being executed for treason and/or desertion is a pretty strong incentive not to leave even if you got an offer.

nonameiguess 4y ago
I guess I may as well add generals don't get there by being hired anyway. They're promoted from within. To get into the military officer corps in the first place, they absolutely do have to apply, many times, first to the academy, ROTC, or OTC, where they spend years being rigorously trained, tested, and evaluated before ranking the career field they want to be in, which they will only get based on where they rank compared to all other cadets in the same cohort year. An equivalent private sector practice would be not hiring leaders at all and only appointing them via internal promotion, but to get into the organization at all, you need to apply to a training academy first, then spend several years in that academy learning the organizational doctrine and culture and being evaluated and stack ranked before you're ever given a real job. Typically, the bottom 40% of so of cadets don't even get in at all and have to become reservists.

nonameiguess 4y ago

I guess I may as well add generals don't get there by being hired anyway. They're promoted from within. To get into the military officer corps in the first place, they absolutely do have to apply, many times, first to the academy, ROTC, or OTC, where they spend years being rigorously trained, tested, and evaluated before ranking the career field they want to be in, which they will only get based on where they rank compared to all other cadets in the same cohort year. An equivalent private sector practice would be not hiring leaders at all and only appointing them via internal promotion, but to get into the organization at all, you need to apply to a training academy first, then spend several years in that academy learning the organizational doctrine and culture and being evaluated and stack ranked before you're ever given a real job. Typically, the bottom 40% of so of cadets don't even get in at all and have to become reservists.