We need mandatory National Service in the US

[Lemur866]

Basically, the OP’s point is that people won’t vote for taxes to pay for the services they want. But maybe they’d vote for indentured servitude for other people. Those kids would make up the deficit by payment in labor rather than cash. Then we’d get the services we want without having high taxes.

Thing is, in-kind payments of this sort are notoriously inefficient. You know what would be efficient? Letting people figure out for themselves the most renumarative work they can, and then we take a cut of whatever they make. Then if we’ve got a teenage genius he can work on his business and make millions of dollars rather than having to dig ditches in North Dakota.

These labor drafts have a long and glorious history. I rather think our system of taxation is more dignified for everyone.

And face facts. The reason you think you can draft 18-20 year olds is because they aren’t being very productive at that time of life. Working at a shitty job for shitty wages and living in shitty housing and eating shitty food is a typical career path at that age. Except, the OP is proposing to feed and house (and pay a pittance of wages too) every human being in the country for two years. And all in return for their not-very enthusiastic labor. You know why employers can get away with paying unskilled teenagers crappy wages? Because their work isn’t worth any more.

Wouldn’t it be cheaper, rather than drafting these people into labor battalions, to offer to hire any teenager in the country for minumum wage, and let them figure out their own room and board? It would be MORE expensive to set up labor camps for teenagers than to just hire them normally. You’ll notice there isn’t a lot of demand for unskilled workers right now. This would cost us a tremendous amount of money for almost no gain. Why not just hand out welfare checks to teenagers? Simpler, easier, and cheaper too. And as the teenagers blow their money it gets added to the economy as a stimulus! Win-win!

[emacknight]

@Marley23

As a ballpark figure I’m going to say there are 10 million kids age 18 to 20. Instead of going to college or entering the labor force for whatever pay they would normall get, they’re now doing those jobs for cheap. The people who were already doing those jobs professionally have to do something else. brickbacon, do you think there might be a few unintended consequences to your proposal?

But they’ll learn valuable leadership skills, and all the other crap in the commercial. They’ll finish their two years hard labour and be ready to take on the world! That’s the kind of people employers are looking for.

Maybe we could combine this with the other idea to make the US better, and force everyone that’s unemployed to join this new “Work Corp.” Why limit it to those 18-20 who frankly aren’t much good for anything, I mean seriously, have you seen kids these days?

[Der_Trihs]

@brickbacon

If they break the law, they will be subject to stiff penalties. I think we are talking about different things here. My point of contention is someone who says that they would deliberately sabotage things that could potentially lead to injury and death all because they are mad that they were forced to work is acting like a sociopath. If someone were to do something like that just to prove a point, I would hope the law would treat them as harshly as possible.

And I hope they’d mob and kill anyone trying to enforce that law. And I’d probably get my wish, sooner or later. You are trying to force into involuntary servitude one of the demographics most known for violent uprisings.

@Lemur866

Why not just hand out welfare checks to teenagers? Simpler, easier, and cheaper too.

Ah, but that would be admitting that it’s welfare. Socialism! Can’t have that. At the very least we need to come up with some pointless makework and ritual humiliation so we can pretend it isn’t welfare.

[Little_Nemo]

I’m surprised to see education and health care classified as unskilled labor. Heck, I doubt you’d want to see a road that’s been built by unskilled labor.

There’s very little need for the kind of labor you get from untrained and unmotivated teenagers. Maybe the government should open a chain of fast food restaurants.

[Der_Trihs]

@Little_Nemo

There’s very little need for the kind of labor you get from untrained and unmotivated teenagers. Maybe the government should open a chain of fast food restaurants.

Burger President? Hot Dogs of War? GovBurgers? Federal Fries?

[Lemur866]

Let’s put it this way. If we put those teenage kids to work just maintaining their own dorms and preparing their own food and cleaning the fuck up after themselves, they probably would need extra help from adults. So if these kids can’t generate enough surplus labor to take care of themselves, how the heck are we supposed to siphon off enough surplus labor to keep our low taxes?

[randomface]

@brickbacon

There is a demand. Are you seriously arguing that people in, say, LA don’t want more roads? Do you think people in the Northeast corridor don’t want high-speed rail? The problem is that in a democracy with finite resources and citizenry that has disparate views of the role of government, the demand that exists cannot be fulfilled.

And if the people in LA want more roads, they can build them themselves or pay real construction crews money to build them.

You idea is idiotic. You would have the country institute slavery. Do you think that the holdup on roads is the workers? Do you know how a road or high-speed rail system is built? This isn’t technology from the 1800s, where thousands can work slinging picks to lay out track.

[Indygrrl]

@Finagle

Huh. So during my prime learning years, instead of learning computer programming, electrical engineering, math, and writing skills, I could have been digging postholes somewhere in dust bowl America for subsistence wages. Sounds enticing.

"You take a bad boy, make him dig holes all day in the hot sun, it turns him into a good boy. That’s our philosophy here at camp green lake. "

Mr. Sir

I think it’s a fabulous idea, Brickbacon. As long as it applies to everyone, no matter how much money they have or who their parents are. They do this in places that aren’t socialist or communist, don’t they? Hell, I dated a guy from Bermuda who had to do mandatory service for a short while. Mr. Sir was not wrong about hard work building character!

[Justin_Bailey]

@brickbacon

Okay, I’ll defer to your judgment here. What would libraries do after governments open their wallets, and why could their decisions not be expedited by cheaper labor?

They would be able to hire the kids they think are best suited for the job and pay them a fair wage. They’d have the option of retaining them beyond two years instead of trading them out for a new crop of kids who have to be trained all over again.

Basically, teenagers working in public libraries work for the minimum wage. There’s no such thing as cheaper labor.

[Indygrrl]

Just to clarify, I agree with mandatory military service, not necessarily work camps or slave labor. They can serve two years, be taught many skills that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. Then they can either stay on, or go to college, or get a job, or be a bum, or whatever they want to do. I think it would go a long way in building confidence, and instilling some pride in staying fit and active and giving back to your community.

[Finagle]

@brickbacon

As I stated in my post, this would be contingent upon developing a system where enlistee could obtain an education as well. More importantly, the vocational skills and work ethic they gain will be of value to them in the real world. For example, I recall hearing a story about a main reason for the number of innovative tech companies in Israel is due in large part to the identification of talent, and training of promising individuals as a part of the mandatory

Yeah, because I didn’t develop any vocational skills or work ethic taking six courses a semester and working a part-time job in college. The learning experience would have been so much better if I’d mixed in 40 hours/week of physical labor on top of all-night programming binges.

[clairobscur]

As someone mentioned this looks a lot like what is done in Germany. Technically, young people working instead of serving in the army are conscientious objectors, but the number of conscientious objectors in this country is so high that basically it’s a choice between being conscripted or working (although I wonder if Germany isn’t currently putting an end to conscription).

While the number of conscientious objectors was much lower in France when there was still a conscription here (if only because CO had to work two years instead of being conscripted for one year), those weren’t “stealing” anybody jobs. They usually worked as support in various organizations that didn’t have the budget to employ anybody anyway. I don’t think it’s really an issue. There are always an almost infinite number of activities that people would like to be done but that nobody is interested in paying for.

On the other hand, I doubt the armed forces would be eager to receive conscripts. That’s the reason conscription was “suspended” in France. Not because people were pissed off (some were, of course, but mandatory military service was a fact of life, everybody went to it, so it wasn’t really an issue), but because the army didn’t want anymore to pay for the training of a bunch of people they had no use for after the fall of the Eastern bloc (before that they could have been used as cannon fodder and ground keepers in WWIII). They would rather spend it on shiny toys and more training of professional soldiers.

[humanafterall]

@msmith537

Join up! Do your part!
Do you want to know more…

Service guarantees citizenship!
*
It’s a great day to die,
When you know the reasons why…*

[Der_Trihs]

@Indygrrl

Just to clarify, I agree with mandatory military service, not necessarily work camps or slave labor. They can serve two years, be taught many skills that will serve them well for the rest of their lives. Then they can either stay on, or go to college, or get a job, or be a bum, or whatever they want to do. I think it would go a long way in building confidence, and instilling some pride in staying fit and active and giving back to your community.

How would submitting to coercion for two years build pride and confidence? And that’s two years of their life lost in return for nothing that they won’t get back, for that matter. As for the community, by doing that the community has demonstrated that it is your enemy, certainly not something that deserves to be “given back to”. I’d feel humiliated, oppressed and enraged, certainly not proud or confident.

Nor in the real world would I expect that the purpose of sucha thing to be anything better than cheap labor and crushing people into obedient drone. Not to build “pride and confidence”, but to destroy them, to break the young so they lack the spirit to defy the powerful.

[humanafterall]

brickbacon brought up Israel as an effective case of the system he proposes. I’m afraid the only issue is that you can’t solve US problems with Israeli solutions, just like you can’t solve Israeli problems with US solutions.

[fifty-six]

18-20 yearolds need to be running around figuring shit out. Not fixin all the old folks problems. Maybe it should be a job for folks 60-70. Make them indentured servents to the government

[brickbacon]

@Lemur866

Thing is, in-kind payments of this sort are notoriously inefficient. You know what would be efficient? Letting people figure out for themselves the most renumarative work they can, and then we take a cut of whatever they make.

Is it more inefficient than just paying regular construction crews higher wages, or not doing anything at all. If the choice becomes a matter of default or infrastructure decay vs. a less than perfect means of getting the things we need done, I am not sure that a less than perfect solution is that problematic.

@randomface

And if the people in LA want more roads, they can build them themselves or pay real construction crews money to build them.

They can’t because they often don’t have the money. More importantly, not building roads or doing other projects can hinder future growth as well.

@randomface

You idea is idiotic. You would have the country institute slavery.

If you expect ot be taken seriously, try being a little less hyperbolic. Mandatory paid public service is not slavery in any shape or form. I think you know that, so tossing around absurd comparisons only serves to undermine your credibility.

@randomface

Do you think that the holdup on roads is the workers? Do you know how a road or high-speed rail system is built? This isn’t technology from the 1800s, where thousands can work slinging picks to lay out track.

The hold up is finding workers at the right price. That’s also the reason why all sorts of things are outsourced. It’s not that you can’t find people to make in ipod in the US, it’s that they cost too much. Lowering those costs would allow projects to get done here. On your second point, I am not sure that all aspects of the construction of a high speed rail line require some special expertise, but if you would like to explain why some of this work couldn’t be done by a 20-year old with minimal training, please feel free to do so.

@Justin_Bailey

They would be able to hire the kids they think are best suited for the job and pay them a fair wage. They’d have the option of retaining them beyond two years instead of trading them out for a new crop of kids who have to be trained all over again.

Nothing in my plan would preclude you from doing any of that. The only change would be that your potential employees cost less.

@humanafterall

brickbacon brought up Israel as an effective case of the system he proposes. I’m afraid the only issue is that you can’t solve US problems with Israeli solutions, just like you can’t solve Israeli problems with US solutions.

Platitudes aside, why do you feel this is true? Can no country ever look beyond their borders for solutions to problems?

Honestly, I get that people don’t like the idea, but some of these critiques are just ridiculous. It’s clearly not slavery. It’s not socialism or Nazism. It can be effectively implemented as evidenced by the fact that plenty of countries had or still do have similar programs. Lastly, it needn’t be an economic drain as evidenced by countries like Israel who have seen economic growth as a result of their military conscription program. A program such as this doesn’t necessarily lead to shoddy work as evidenced by the millions of kids in public school who have done great work, and expended great effort for 12+ years.

Of course, any program like this would not be perfect, but to dismiss it outright based on the concerns introduced thus far seems myopic. People seem to understand that a draft might be necessary during war time because extraordinary circumstances override whatever reservations people have. The question becomes whether our economic situation (among other things) can serve as justification as well. Nihilism, indifference, and fiscal mismanagement can destroy our country just as easily as bombs and bullets can. I am not sure why one is automatically a justifiable emergency whereas the others aren’t.

[Der_Trihs]

@brickbacon

People seem to understand that a draft might be necessary during war time because extraordinary circumstances override whatever reservations people have.

You presume that we do support a draft. I don’t. If you can’t get enough volunteers to fight a war then that’s a pretty good sign you shouldn’t be fighting it. And as has been repeatedly said, the military doesn’t want one. They unlike you realize how bad draftees are.

[randomface]

What else would you call a mandatory period of service? Regardless if you are being paid, if you have no other option, I would still call it slavery.

If you went to a public place, asked someone to come work for you for cheap wages, they refused, and you kidnapped them until they agreed to work, it would be wrong. Making it the decision of a political process and sending the police in to do the threatening would not negate this. I do not believe this to be an absurd comparison.

It is not my job to research how construction sites are run. If you would like to assert that minimally trained workers of any age can perform the majority of the tasks on a project, provide a cite or retract your assertion. I doubt you have much experience with modern large scale construction materials or techniques.

If you believe that conscripted labor forces can actually be trusted to do useful work, please refer to a source of historical facts concerning work camps in the USSR and concentration camps. Notice that if you pay them enough to where you avoid this issue, it will no longer need to be mandatory nor will it save money. Paying anyone to work at a below market rate will necessarily not work barring threat of jail, fine, or some other punishment.

[punch_line_loser]

If by “National Service” you mean community service rather than military, then it’s not a bad idea, although I don’t know if I’d go as far as mandatory…

I do think it’d be a good idea for everyone to do a year with an Americorps organization at some point during their youth. My City Year was probably the best thing I’ve ever done, and doing it between high school and university probably saved my life. It’s pretty amazing what can be accomplished when you encourage young folks - and old folks, for that matter - the mobilize themselves.