Siegel forgets the signal difference: the income to support this vast bureaucracy comes from outside.
Socialism works up to a point, but is far from optimal economically. The military is an example of how expensive socialism is: far too little is accomplished with far too much cost.
It is also coercive, which is the hallmark of any military. Is that the model for a entire society?
Most don’t think so, including people in the military. They accept the privation as a necessary sacrifice, typically temporary.
The meritocratic aspects are true up to a point. But like any organized group, individuals advance in many ways, many times unfairly.
Siegel isn’t the first to note these points. It’s well known.
But at least others have been willing to make the counter points.
Siegel isn’t, and omits one militarized socialist society which you’d think someone of his ethnicity would not: National Socialism in Germany, circa 1933 - 1945.
Self-loathing Jews are a dime-a-dozen at places like that and most of the rest of the MSM. If Soros had a time machine he could easily recruit 10,000 more Kapos (Funktionshäftling) to go back with him among our so-called intelligentsia.
I don’t think he forgot it. He just didn’t mention it. In its funding, the military is also just as socialist, in that it runs on “other people’s money” the same as civilian socialism, and would fall apart just as fast if that money were to ever run out.