141. Guaranteed Customers: The Underground History of American Education by John Taylor Gatto from archive.org

Guaranteed Customers 

Prior to 1860 Americans didn't demand a high level of national solidarity — a loose sort 
of catch-as-catch-can unity satisfied the nation in spite of the existence even then of 
patriotic special interest groups like Know-Nothings. Neither by geography, culture, 
common experience, or preference was the United States naturally a single country 
although it did possess a common language. But conformity had been ordered by 
corporate and banking interests from the Northeast, so one country it would become. 

Stupendous profits accrued to these interests from the Civil War, and its great lesson of 
national regimentation into squads, platoons, brigades, companies, regiments, and army 
corps was not lost on the winners. Warfare by its nature forces men to wear "value-ranks" 
openly for all to see, forces everyone to subordinate themselves to higher ranks, and 
higher ranks to subordinate themselves to invisible orders. War conditions men to rule 
and to be ruled. Modern war creates a society far different in type and scale from the 
ragged and bizarre individuality which emerged out of the American Revolution. With 
everyone dressing alike, eating alike, and doing everything else alike, maximum profit 
can be derived from the use of mass-production machinery in an ideal environment where 



the goods of production are swiftly wasted, and military "consumers" are literally 
forbidden the right to refuse to consume! A soldier must wear his uniform, eat his food, 
fire his rifle. To guaranteed customers through psychological drills is the very essence of 
the corporate world about to come into being. 

Industrial Efficiency