According to some sources, Chavez has attempted to integrate the military with the civilian population as much as possible, to the point of having it take on civilian tasks like food distribution, construction assistance, and transport. He has called this a "civil military union."
Critics have argued, however, that this has militarized civilian society. Placing a plethora of active and/or former military officers in the civil bureaucracy and/or in state enterprises boosts military culture in those institutions. Another angle of criticism is the excessive flexibility in the spectrum that stretches from Marx and Engels'
"Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture" and
"In future the armies shall be simultaneously labour armies, so that the troops shall not, as formerly, merely consume, but shall produce more than is necessary for their upkeep" - on one end - all the way to the notorious "business empire" of enterprises run by the People's Liberation Army.
Another aspect of militarized culture is the language used in popular discourse. Military language such as "battalions," "platoons," "patrols," and "squadrons" have been used extensively, and in electoral discourse of all places.
So far, this recent example has been a progressive instance of militarized culture, a key aspect of peasant patrimonialism which, in turn, goes back to the ancient social contract exchanging
A)
Protection from shepherds and their flocks gone astray, more heavily armed marauders, etc.
B)
Execution of populist peasant vengeance against hated landlords, nobles, foreign merchants, etc.
With
A) Absolutism
B)
Personality cults regarding the central authority providing the aforementioned protection and execution.
Going back to just after middle antiquity, what were the other instances of militarized culture that were progressive?