We’re not on the same wavelength here because you are advocating an idea that is pretty freakin stupid. Forgive me if I don’t reread the entire thread but is it your suggestion that the government pay these indentured workers nothing to significantly below market wage for their services? If that is the case, is the government expected to provide housing, food and other services while these people are paid nothing to almost nothing?
And don’t forget that you are now taking millions of TAX PAYERS out of the workforce and putting them to work doing crapwork in some grossly inefficient beurocratic jobs program.
And not to mention that like any program, it needs money to run.
You can’t force nationalism or civic pride on people.
Amendment V
No person shall be held to answer for a capital, or otherwise infamous crime, unless on a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases arising in the land or naval forces, or in the militia, when in actual service in time of war or public danger; nor shall any person be subject for the same offense to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself, nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.
Color me in on the “This idea is shite” side. No, it won’t save money–on the contrary, it’ll take an enormous, entrenched bureaucracy, a la the Social Security Administration to oversee–and it will require "the government’, i.e. those slobs in Washington, with their cheap suits and paws out for the greeh handshake, to manufacture jobs, whether they’re needed or not. FDRs NRA and other Alpabet Agencies was a boon in the Depression and did a lot to lay the foundations (in some cases, literally) for our modern communication and transportation infrastructure, but they also wasted money like a sorority girl in Macy’s with her daddie’s Gold Card. It wasn’t a big deal when the economy was in the crapper and inflation guaranteed that it was better to print and spend than wait and hold, but such an endeavor would have enormous economic impact today.
The Soviets already tried this sort of thing. Why don’t we check with them on how it worked? Oh, yeah…they aren’t around anymore.
Heinlein’s notion of military or civil service in order to participate in the franchise, as presented in Starship Troopers is marginally better, but if you read the novel carefully even he doesn’t paint it up to be the end-all, be-all of Libertopia. And your notion that “They would rely on their family during such time, just like people do through-out high school and sometimes college,” doesn’t set very well with me. I’ve been paying my own way since I was 15; if I had to rely on my family I’d be living under an overpass.
Let’s just consign this one to the File Of Bad, Freshman Dorm Room Bull Session Ideas and go on to the next New Shiny Thing.
I’m not advocating anything!!! I think we’re not on the same wavelength because your reading for comprehension is a little off.
Then forgive me if I don’t answer things that have already been answered.
Compare what a single person pays the government in taxes each year, to the annual salary of an entry level government employee. You might be suprised that they are paying the employee more than your average 18-30 year old is paying in taxes.
Having that same entry level employee do the same work for practical free, is saving the country money.
Jobs won’t have to be manufactured. These are jobs the government currently has. Jobs and services they need.
The only difference, is that now - instead of paying salary to some entry level worker - they assign the entry level positions to the “recruits”. If the recruits happen to like the job they end up with, they can request to stay in that position after their mandatory service is up, and then be paid a full government salary.
So there would still be people at all levels, but the entry level employees would be recruits.
Imagine if the government no longer needed to pay for entry level workers. This would save the government money. I dont see how you think it would cost more.
I object to the program based on ethical delimas. But logisticaly and economically, it would work well. Such programs are working well in other Democratic countries.
Where are these 5-10 million new “entry level government jobs” to which you refer? This is handwaving of the first order.
You are going to have to create jobs. You are going to have to hire people to oversee the “entry level” jobs. You are going to have to hire accountants, human resources personnel, et cetera to manage this organization. You will have to build, buy, or lease buildings for all these administrative people.
That’s no surprise, since there are a lot more taxpayers than there are government employees. In fact, just the 20-30 year olds in the US outnumber the civilian federal employees by about 15 to 1 (Office of Personnel Management PDF, Census 2000). 18 to 21 year olds, by 4 to 1. I don’t think there would be enough government jobs to go around.
At the risk of showing my lack of economic knowledge… if there’s very little money to go around, won’t the currency increase in value to the point where the small amount of tax revenue the government brings in is enough to pay people to perform these services?
New?? Who said anything about NEW jobs? The program would REPLACE current entry level employees with recruits.
These people would be losing thier jobs anyway due to lack of funding from the government. Remember, this program would be in place to save the government money in a specific and dire economical crises and/or Global War.
No, those would be the bosses and supervisors already employed.
Hire? No need. Just assign recruits to those positions.
I think more of a problem would be all the living spaces and dining facilities for these people. Eventually, these buildings would be erected by construction recruits and supervisors and such. But initially… that would pose a problem.
That’s because there are no federal firefighters or garbage men or police men (patrol cops. Not FBI… and don’t bring up Capitol Police)
This program would include state governments. But now that I think about it, to make this work, a country would probably need a more centralized national government than the US has. One police force, one sanitation force, one fire force…
Beats me. But I think that there would be pleanty of money going around, it’s just the government would be out of it. Say they were depleating or diverting all their funds to fight a Global War. I guess we’d probably just go further in debt, but isn’t there a limit to how deep you can go before the whole thing crashes?
Are you not arguing the merits of the involuntary service system?
Yes, Nazi concentration camps, Communist gulags and the North American slave trade also worked well economically and logistically too.
Ethical issues aside, it is a giant drain on the economy. No one has yet to explain how these people are supposed to live an eat on getting paid nothing. That means the government will have to support them like they support military personal - barracks, meals, clothing, transportation. All that costs MONEY. Enforcement and monitoring of the program costs MONEY. There is no free lunch.
And there is an opportunity cost associated with taking people out of the workforce to do bullshit work. The indentured file clerk could be an engineer not designing new roads and bridges for two years. The indentured well-digger could be a financial advisor not building wealth for two years. All those people in the programs are not buying goods and services.
Centralized economies, which a national mandatory jobs program is, are notoriously inefficient. They can’t react to changes in demand for services because they ignore price information. “Hey we have 1000 more ditch diggers than we need?” “Well…just have them dig holes and fill them up again”.
MAYBE such a scenario makes sense in some kind of national emergency situation where 70% of the population and infrastructure has been destroyed but I doubt it.
Why would anyone need these things at a national level? Fires are LOCAL issues. Sanitation is a LOCAL issue. Non federal crimes are a LOCAL issue.
What? You’re going to train people to become CPAs is a few weeks now? Sorry but your 2 year service program is limited to occupations that can be taught in a few weeks of boot camp. That means data entry and non-skilled office work, unskilled manual labor, etc. No computer programmers, no cops, no firemen, no accountants, and so on.
