The design would reduce skin in the game for most citizens

In the past five weeks I have written two articles on the concept for the Hoover Institution’s online publication Defining ideas. The First argued against military conscription; the second argued against universal national service.

In responses to the Defining ideas On the site, some commenters argued that one benefit of the design is that it ensures people who benefit from defense have “skin in the game.”

In response to my first article, a commenter wrote:

Our freedom is not free. David Henderson wants those who are willing to risk their lives for our freedom to do so on behalf of those who want their freedom for free.

In response to my second article, a commenter wrote:

When American men do not serve their country, they make no bones about it and, as a result, feel no obligation to fight and defend it.

But if the goal is for defense beneficiaries to play a role in the game, an all-volunteer force does better than the draft.

Why?

The reason for this is that the draft places a disproportionate burden on conscripts. An all-volunteer force, on the other hand, distributes the burden to defense beneficiaries, regardless of whether they are in the military or not.

There was a serious effort in the late 1970s, led by Senator Sam Nunn (D-GA), to restore the design. I got copies of all the bills to do that. Each of them – and there were many – explicitly reduced the salary in the first term, often by a large percentage. Why pay when you can threaten potential conscripts with prison sentences for not following the rules? The burden would therefore have been disproportionately placed on those who were called up.

In contrast, consider an all-volunteer force. The reason the military had trouble recruiting high-quality personnel in the late 1970s was that we were experiencing an economic boom coupled with high inflation. It was a double blow. The boom offered potential recruits good alternatives to military service; the inability to raise wages in line with the consumer price index made military service even less attractive than otherwise.

President Jimmy Carter became aware of the situation relatively late in his four-year stint in the White House and worked with Congress to increase salaries for the first term. Then Ronald Reagan became president and brought it up again. This is how we emerged from the recruitment dilemma in the late 1970s.

So write down what happened. Since we had a volunteer army, the burden of defense could not be placed on the shoulders of young military personnel. Instead, it was shared by all taxpayers.

We saw something similar in the mid-2000s, during the second war against Iraq. Here’s what I wrote in September 2015, based on a scientific paper I co-authored with then-Marine Chad W. Seagren:

Henderson and Seagren note that as the number of troops in Vietnam increased from 1964 onwards, actual expenditures on military personnel per military member increased very little. In contrast, real spending on military personnel per member increased significantly as the U.S. government became involved in wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. From an average of $73,887 per member between 1996 and 2001, real spending increased to an average of $103,772 between 2004 and 2010, an increase of 40 percent. The reason: the government had to increase wages to meet its workforce targets. Henderson and Seagren point out that these higher costs per military member resulted in approximately $45 billion additional in U.S. government spending per year. These higher costs were mainly financed by deficits and not by current taxes. But deficits now, unless the government defaults or cuts later, will lead to higher taxes in the future. And if, as seems likely, the future tax system even roughly resembles the current tax system in that it forces higher-income earners to pay a much higher percentage of their income in taxes, the rich and powerful will shall pay more for war.

The bottom line is that if you want all the people who benefit from defense to play a role in the game and not just focus on a small group, you have to resist the design and favor an all-volunteer army.

Postscript:

While researching this piece, I came across this Econlib article by Chad Seagren, “Service in a Free Society,” May 2, 2011. I had drafted and edited it during my time as editor of the Econlib articles. I forgot. It speaks to many of the problems with the design, and does it so well.