I’m more than happy to discuss theoretical or abstract political philosophy, but here’s something to celebrate: the worldwide decline of conscription. Arguing about borderline cases or difficult calls in the theory of coercion is well and good. But this is an undoubted example of coercion, I’d think, and the whole world is doing a lot less of it these days.
Jason Kuznicki
Jason Kuznicki is a research fellow at the Cato Institute and contributor of Cato Unbound. He's on twitter as JasonKuznicki. His interests include political theory and history.
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Yes, which is why I think Milton Friedman deserves some sort of sainthood for his efforts. Truly.Report
I’ll raise my teacup to this.Report
It’s a good thing conscription is on the wane, but it might come back, and I’m betting it will.Report
I’ll bet it won’t*. Cannon fodder is worse than useless for the machine these days.
*within the parameters of what we currently call ‘Western Civilization’. A real apolcolyptic event? all bets are off, though conscription would only arise when the next civilization does.Report
conscription is what every gang turns to, when things go south. then again, it’s in everyone’s best interest to be in a gang then, ya?
Ya gotta sleep sometime.Report
there’s a difference between ‘recruitment’ ‘conscription’ and ‘taxes’. Gangs do 1 and 3 far more often than 2.Report
While less conscription is good relative to the the former baseline, the transformation from mandatory service to volunteer standing armies seems a tenuous neither-here-nor-there.
Were military service to remain mandatory, there might be more accountability for the costs and sacrifices that go with maintaining large armies as well as over seas imperial power projection.
As it stands, there’s the benefit of less state coercion overall, but what remains is still state exploitation, since the cost-benefit analysis of service seems to overwhelmingly bring in recruits with few other seemingly good options.
The largest problem with America’s foreign policy is a disconnect between the costs and those who bare them. I think eradicating standing armies would be a more formal end to the coercion of conscription. For now, it still remains, though to a lesser degree, but in a less visible and thus less readily correctable form.Report
I think eradicating standing armies would be a more formal end to the coercion of conscription.
It certainly would be.Report
Thanks Jason. It’s important to notice life’s victories.Report
How the hell does such sophistry get past people? “Oy, let’s look at the governments we can measure, rather than the world at large.”
Its research like this that concealed the overfishing of the Pacific (due to rather mindless acceptance of Chinese statistics).
Twelve year olds still ride around with shotguns. Americans still traffic guns to plenty of places.Report
And there are still slaves, too, so obviously no progress has been made.
Which only makes sense until you look at the per capita numbers, and realize that the world appears to have fewer slaves per capita than ever before.
Chin up, Kimmi. I’m not saying the world’s perfect, just that it’s been getting better in some ways.Report
… it’s not the number of slaves that bothers me, so much as who is keeping them. First World Problem.Report
Not all countries can afford to go without conscription. Arguably, national defence is one of those things that we should aim to be self sufficient about. Given that that is the case, small countries surrounded by larger neighbours probably need conscription. It may not be for america, but it does not follow that it might not be necessary elsewhere. When we can have a droid army, then, we can truly say that conscription is not necessary.Report
There will, however, be other human rights issues involved when we invade Naboo.Report
That’s the thing about episode 1 that really irks me. How the hell is it profitable to invade Naboo?Report
It wasn’t profitable, it was humanitarian. The invasion was meant to exterminate the Gun-Gun species from the fictionverse.Report
http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Naboo
I actually just read that, and I will forever hold you responsible.Report
That line of questioning will take you down a dark path. There is no light at the end of that tunnel, nor any other that’s been constructed by G. Lucas.Report