[roenxi]

And my counter-reading is that that cannot be all that important. If pulling together was what mattered in a clash between industrial powers, most societies would win most wars [0] because it isn't that hard to squash dissent if the generals want to.

The hammer gets bought down on dissenters, true enough. Happens in every big war, I count myself lucky that HN is remote and anonymous from some of the people I've talked to or I'm sure I'd have some nasty injuries from my views on the Ukraine war. But industrial production never has and never will be determined by how hard people wish for things and hold hands. Industrial production is a function of resource availability and capital investment. There is no strong need to get many people on side for either of those things and the people who handle capital investments tend to be a class that thinks alike so if a few are convinced then all of them will go along happily.

The pulling together is important insofar as bodies are required for the meat grinder and if you want to deploy literally everything in a war effort then work will be found for idle hands. But if we're talking about wartime manufacturing; it really isn't the major factor. The US is not industrially limited by its cohesion, it is limited by legislation written by people who are in the majority and enjoy a societal consensus which they are using to diminish industry.

[0] Which is logically impossible given that minimum of half the sides in wars must lose.