In several ideologies, the concept of "useless occupations" appears. For example, in Chinese legalism as put into practice under Qin ShiHuang, there were only 2 types of jobs deemed useful for the lower orders: soldier and farmer. In nominally communist countries, the industrial worker/peasant was proclaimed to be of more worth than certain occupations deemed bourgeois. Also, in the STEM vs. humanities debate, STEM-supporters often argue the humanities have little to no use?
How could a modern state reduce the number of occupations to as small possible (by merging roles together) and still remain functioning to fight a decades-long total war?
For example, since civilian politicians could be viewed as unnecessary, the entire government apparatus could be replaced with soldiers and the military bureaucracy, with the entire civilian population placed into varying "National Service" jobs, which would be those deemed "most directly valuable" to the war effort, like mining, factory work, etc. with a small fraction for those jobs deemed less directly useful but still necessary like doctor, engineer, teacher etc.
The regime could also pursue an antiintellectual bent by eliminating astronomy and paleontology as impractical and claiming that since the universe has always existed, and so has humanity, such speculations as useless.
How could a modern state reduce the number of occupations to as small possible (by merging roles together) and still remain functioning to fight a decades-long total war?
For example, since civilian politicians could be viewed as unnecessary, the entire government apparatus could be replaced with soldiers and the military bureaucracy, with the entire civilian population placed into varying "National Service" jobs, which would be those deemed "most directly valuable" to the war effort, like mining, factory work, etc. with a small fraction for those jobs deemed less directly useful but still necessary like doctor, engineer, teacher etc.
The regime could also pursue an antiintellectual bent by eliminating astronomy and paleontology as impractical and claiming that since the universe has always existed, and so has humanity, such speculations as useless.