Most Common arguments for conscription are wrong
Voluntary recruitment will never meet manpower needs.
We cannot afford a professional army
Conscription is merely a hidden tax. As the Nobel-prize winning economist Milton Friedman pointed out:
“On the direct budgetry level, the argument that a volunteer army would cost more simply involves a confusion of apparent with real cost. By this argument, the construction of the Great Pyramid with slave labor was a cheap project. The real cost of conscripting a soldier who would not voluntarily serve on present terms is not his pay and the cost of his keep: it is the amount for which he would be willing to serve. He is paying the difference. This is the extra cost to him and must be added to the cost borne by the rest of us.”
Everyone should share the burden of defense.
Conscription is deeply unequal: it concentrates the burden of national defence on a narrow slice of society, typically young men, who are compelled to make a disproportionate sacrifice for everyone else, often without fair compensation. A more equitable approach is to pay service members properly and fund defence through broad-based taxation, so the costs are shared by society as a whole.
In most conscription systems, half the population is excluded on the basis of gender, and many others are excused through a mix of legitimate and illegitimate exemptions or uneven enforcement. The result is not “shared duty,” but selective coercion, which hits the hardest those who are the most powerless.
Mandatory Military Service will fix the degenerate youth
Conscription has an overwhelmingly damaging effect on the young generation. Economically, it impoverishes teenagers and causes financial struggles, as conscripts are in most countries abused with unlivable wages. In Sweden conscription costs men an average of $55,000 in lifetime earnings. Psychologically, conscription causes a decline in mental health of the teenagers who perform military service. Physically, conscription oftentimes damages the health of conscripts, who learn unheathy eating habits, gain weight, and learn new addictions in military barracks. Societally, conscription makes young men more dependent on their families, and reliant on state support.
Conscription makes us safer.
- Conscript forces are inferior to professional militaries because they’re built on coercion rather than commitment.
- That coercion tends to depress morale and weaken discipline.
- Conscription creates shallow readiness: short service can teach basics, but most skills fade quickly once people return to civilian life.
- Conscription regimes are slow at adapting to modern warfare technology.
- Most reservist do not sustain sufficient fitness.
- Draft dodging and non-compliance become real risks in a crisis, wasting years of investment when it matters most.
