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You are both incorrect.
First the Prussian Army was Prussian all the way down the officers (mostly) but beneath that sphere it acquired a decidedly polyglot character. Normally the number of Prussian subjects is pegged somewhere between 20 and 30% for war and 40% for peace of the enlisted men with the rest having volunteered, been shanghaied or bought somewhere else.
Frederick the Great preferred his subjects to stay and home at be industrial and industrious to fill the warchest.
Second, the Prussian Army was not a full-time army. Most of the prussian subjects were there as part of a kind fo proto-conscription and had a lot of free time but very little money on their hands. Which endowned any garrison town with a huge cheap labour force in the form of the soldiers and there dependents (which, btw is at least in German lands a regularly recuring theme: Soldiers are only employed 'half-time' or even less by their respective commanding authority and work on the side to make ends meet). Also those same subjects would rejoin the regular workforce (under the canton system your term of service was, dejure, lifelong but in times of peace it consisted of two years of drill to get you battle ready and a two month refresher every years after that) as being 'on leave' from the army. Also certain groups (nobles, clerics, citizens, people from provinces crucial to the economy, certain trades) were completly free from the Kanton system.
Third, Prussia did not have many wars and therefore not many casualties (which in any case would only affect the citizen very marginally since they normally did not serve, and the peasant population only at 20% to 30 % of the butchers bill).
So in general I don't think 'the free labour went to army is correct' even more since after 1815 the Kanton System was replaced by a system of conscription.
Then everybody (for a very judiciously trimmed version of 'everybody') was to join the army for 7 years though that played out as 2 or maxiaml 3 years of actual staying in the barracks and 5 (or 4) years in the reserve (at home, ready for work) with people of at least Oberschulreife being able to volunteer for one year and then become reserve officers (which made them available to work after 1 year).
There was also a system of deferment, that is you could pay somebody to do your service in your stead, but that was generally frowned upon since the Wehrdienst was seen as a service of honor.
Also, thanks to a fast growing population, the army never drafted all the man they should have, leading to a shortfall in training, but, at the same time, more free workforce.
TL;DR:
No, the Prussian Army did not suck up all the Manpower.
First the Prussian Army was Prussian all the way down the officers (mostly) but beneath that sphere it acquired a decidedly polyglot character. Normally the number of Prussian subjects is pegged somewhere between 20 and 30% for war and 40% for peace of the enlisted men with the rest having volunteered, been shanghaied or bought somewhere else.
Frederick the Great preferred his subjects to stay and home at be industrial and industrious to fill the warchest.
Second, the Prussian Army was not a full-time army. Most of the prussian subjects were there as part of a kind fo proto-conscription and had a lot of free time but very little money on their hands. Which endowned any garrison town with a huge cheap labour force in the form of the soldiers and there dependents (which, btw is at least in German lands a regularly recuring theme: Soldiers are only employed 'half-time' or even less by their respective commanding authority and work on the side to make ends meet). Also those same subjects would rejoin the regular workforce (under the canton system your term of service was, dejure, lifelong but in times of peace it consisted of two years of drill to get you battle ready and a two month refresher every years after that) as being 'on leave' from the army. Also certain groups (nobles, clerics, citizens, people from provinces crucial to the economy, certain trades) were completly free from the Kanton system.
Third, Prussia did not have many wars and therefore not many casualties (which in any case would only affect the citizen very marginally since they normally did not serve, and the peasant population only at 20% to 30 % of the butchers bill).
So in general I don't think 'the free labour went to army is correct' even more since after 1815 the Kanton System was replaced by a system of conscription.
Then everybody (for a very judiciously trimmed version of 'everybody') was to join the army for 7 years though that played out as 2 or maxiaml 3 years of actual staying in the barracks and 5 (or 4) years in the reserve (at home, ready for work) with people of at least Oberschulreife being able to volunteer for one year and then become reserve officers (which made them available to work after 1 year).
There was also a system of deferment, that is you could pay somebody to do your service in your stead, but that was generally frowned upon since the Wehrdienst was seen as a service of honor.
Also, thanks to a fast growing population, the army never drafted all the man they should have, leading to a shortfall in training, but, at the same time, more free workforce.
TL;DR:
No, the Prussian Army did not suck up all the Manpower.
Cool, but you see I said the military and landowners sucked up all the surplus not that the army sucked up all the manpower. If you tax an agricultural surplus (either directly or indirectly) and use it to pay officers and mercenaries, that's still sucking up the surplus.
You implied they sucked up both, and I was inclined to agree to an extent with you.
However he just got through giving a very detailed response as to how and why they didn’t do this. The way a military sucks up cash is in paying its rank and file and in equipment. And it surprises me to an extent. Apparently Prussia militarized ‘on the cheap’ rather efficiently. I certainly didn’t realize they were this efficient about it.
I am also not sure about the money.
Soldiers were paid badly (again, as I said, so badly that they were the cheapest labour available since they were (almost) the most desperate) and pay, apparently, was several month in arears as a matter of course (both to save some money and to disincentivice desertion), officers were routinly provisioned either by their own or their families money since their stipends were also rather meagre.
Troops on leave under the canton system drew no pay, and normally drew 1 Taler and 8 Groschen, that is 32 Groschen in total. A meal with a drink cost about 2 Groschen in 1750 meaning pay is scarce.
For an officer it was around 10 Taler, but is still not much money and the first few ranks in an officers career cost, rahter than brought money.
And pay remained sub standard. In 1900 a soldier made less than half what a metal worker made, with over half being 'Kostgeld', i.e. money for food that was not paid out if the soldier ate in the messhall.
Soldiers were paid badly (again, as I said, so badly that they were the cheapest labour available since they were (almost) the most desperate) and pay, apparently, was several month in arears as a matter of course (both to save some money and to disincentivice desertion), officers were routinly provisioned either by their own or their families money since their stipends were also rather meagre.
Troops on leave under the canton system drew no pay, and normally drew 1 Taler and 8 Groschen, that is 32 Groschen in total. A meal with a drink cost about 2 Groschen in 1750 meaning pay is scarce.
For an officer it was around 10 Taler, but is still not much money and the first few ranks in an officers career cost, rahter than brought money.
And pay remained sub standard. In 1900 a soldier made less than half what a metal worker made, with over half being 'Kostgeld', i.e. money for food that was not paid out if the soldier ate in the messhall.
Really good hand tools and prints and perhaps some needed high quality metals to start off being able to make at least melted iron for good mass produced steel and make high volume printing presses.
Not sure when the best time before this was. Not too many periods were as enlightened as we like to think them as, I mean Athens had slaves too you know.
I guess maybe if I was to hopefully reduced to most suffering in history the most likely way, butterfly effects aside, would be to use those tools, prints and metal working to mechanize farming before African chattel slavery was a thing, so it would not be needed. History often glosses over how badly treated slaves were treated, especially in their capture and transportation.
I don't really think things like shooting Genghis Kahn and other like him in the face with AK as suggested earlier would have the effects we think. Many of those men were a product of their environment as they just happened to be the ones that seized power. Does anyone think that at his core, Genghis was really that much more morally bankrupt in our modern ideas than any other typical Mongolian? A Mongolian break out into China of some kind was going to happen, there was a bad drought at the time and they were getting desperate. The fall of Rome to Germanic tribes escaping from famine in their homelands combined with the bad treatment that Romans always give anyone in that situation, plus many almost unstoppable other reasons Rome was as weak as it was in sacks of 410 AD and after.
Not sure when the best time before this was. Not too many periods were as enlightened as we like to think them as, I mean Athens had slaves too you know.
I guess maybe if I was to hopefully reduced to most suffering in history the most likely way, butterfly effects aside, would be to use those tools, prints and metal working to mechanize farming before African chattel slavery was a thing, so it would not be needed. History often glosses over how badly treated slaves were treated, especially in their capture and transportation.
I don't really think things like shooting Genghis Kahn and other like him in the face with AK as suggested earlier would have the effects we think. Many of those men were a product of their environment as they just happened to be the ones that seized power. Does anyone think that at his core, Genghis was really that much more morally bankrupt in our modern ideas than any other typical Mongolian? A Mongolian break out into China of some kind was going to happen, there was a bad drought at the time and they were getting desperate. The fall of Rome to Germanic tribes escaping from famine in their homelands combined with the bad treatment that Romans always give anyone in that situation, plus many almost unstoppable other reasons Rome was as weak as it was in sacks of 410 AD and after.
Oh, and my number one way to improve technology is for the Roman Empire to adopt Indian numerals