Showing posts with label draft. Show all posts
Showing posts with label draft. Show all posts

Tuesday, May 24, 2022

Did the End of the Draft Spur the Big Sort?

 The "big sort" is the label applied to the increasing polarization between Democrats and Republicans, where the differences within the party have diminished over the last 50 years and the differences between the parties have increased.

I've read theories about the sort, most of which I've forgotten by now.  I've likely posted before on it before. A couple speculations:

  1. one of the integrating forces in American history has been war. The necessity of mobilizing armed forces to fight Native Americans, the French, the British, the Spanish, the Germans,the Koreans, the Chinese, the Soviets, the Vietnamese, etc. consistently brings together men and now women from different places and different social groups and strata and gives them a common experience with a common foe.  When civilian society supports their sons and daughters in a war it brings people together.  I think this has been especially true in the 20th century when the draft was in effect.  With the ending of the draft that integrating force has weakened.
  2. While real estate development is perhaps the most characteristic American occupation, and doing subdivisions which cater to a relatively uniform clientele (in terms of race, salary, life style) has been going on since early days in New England, it seems to be massive developments, the Levittown type projects, really got going in the 1950's.  That geographic separation must have contributed to polarization.

Sunday, October 24, 2021

Cowen and McChrystal

 Cowen's interview with McChrystal--what struck me:

  • he supports a draft, to get away from restricted recruiting from South and Midweat and military children, including women.
  • big concern about getting the right people into the military for drones, surveillance, etc. 
  • he supports a period of affirmative action (thinking about the history of women in the military) which means accepting the fact that some of the beneficiaries of AA will not be as good as their competitors.
  • he still eats only one meal a day.
Other interesting bits there. 

Saturday, May 18, 2019

National Service Concerns

Some discussion these days from Dem candidates about "national service".

I guess I'm generally favorable to the idea, but with reservations, based on my experience with the draft.

The draft was good for:
  • getting me out of a rut (different people have different ruts, but I suspect the recent decline in American geographical mobility is partly the result of the ending of the draft).
  • exposing me to people from across the country and diverse backgrounds
  • challenging me to endure and master new experiences: like basic training, like serving as an instructor.
Those benefits came because the draft was not voluntary.  I'd worry that a non-military national service would not have the diversity nor the challenges.  Once you allow the person to choose, you start to lose some of the necessary difficulty.  Even in the Army, once I was past basic my cohort and co-workers were much more similar to me. 

The other vulnerability of a new national service program would be, I think, the difficulty of finding a purpose to the program's work.   While we draftees disliked the military, we knew it was important and/or significant.  But we were essentially unskilled labor, cannon fodder, and weren't qualified for much more than that.  And we got paid accordingly, so we were cheap.  So what work requires cheap unskilled labor  and is self-evidently important?

If the proponents can come up with an answer to that question, we can then talk about instituting "national service".  Until then, we need more focused things like Job Corps and Americorps.

Tuesday, April 18, 2017

Decompressing from Taxes: the Draft

Just finished doing taxes, so a few random thoughts:

There's a survey out showing that Americans have a sense of social cohesion from doing their taxes.
There's also a theory about the benefits of national service, including a thread today on Twitter.(I'm not  sufficiently up on it enough to include a url but this tweet from Lyman Stone may help:"@tylercowen @dylanmatt @hyperplanes 1. it's not inherited, 2. you get paid a market wage, 3. it's temporary, 4. you can't be sold, 5. you can't be bought, 6. working conditions") 

As someone who was drafted and didn't like it, I do recognize some benefits from it: in a sense it's creative destruction, disrupting established patterns and possibly promoting social mobility.  It also might promote social cohesion, giving people a shared experience. 

Unfortunately for its promoters a good bit of the possible benefits is bound up in the military aspect: the social cohesion bit derives from the pain the military inflicts, the basic training and the regimentation.  It's like a fraternity, conventional wisdom probably says that the greater the hazing, the greater fraternal feeling.

Thursday, December 10, 2015

Women and the Draft

Ann Althouse has a post on this subject, keyed to the idea of registering women for the draft, since men are required to register, and women now can fill all jobs in the armed services.

Two of my takes on the subject:
  • the draft dates to the days when wars were fought between states with defined battlefields and masses of troops.  (See the Revolution, Civil War, WWI and II, Korea.) Even in Vietnam the fight in the later years was between uniformed forces as North Korea fed their regulars into battle.  I strongly doubt we're going to see many of those wars in the future.  Iraq had one of the strongest armies in the world, and it took 100 hours to defeat it in 1991.  So the draft is pointless militarily.
  • the draft is a strong symbol of obligation to the nation. All are equally obligated, so women should be required to register. 

Friday, November 13, 2015

Mobility and the Draft

Here's a piece on the decline of geographic mobility in the US.  The focus is more on short distance moves than long distance moves.  I don't know why the decline and haven't seen a recent discussion.  I do wonder though whether the ending of the draft in the Nixon administration had anything to do with it--the draft was on my mind because I recently argued that a grandparent of several grandsons didn't need to worry about a Republican president getting us into a war and reactivating the draft.

The draft might have affect mobility of young men two ways:
  • they got out of their home and into the world, even if they were never stationed overseas. That might have made them more comfortable with traveling and moving.
  • they got to know and become friends with men from other parts of the country, perhaps informing them of job and/or educational opportunities outside of their community.

Wednesday, July 15, 2015

The Draft for Women? Blast from Past

I was a draftee.

Can you believe that the wikipedia entry for "draft" refers to a sports draft?

If you want the real thing, you need to search for "conscription"

Prof. Somin at Volokh Conspiracy blogs about a current suit alleging that requiring only 18 year males to register is discriminatory.  It probably is, though despite my believing there were benefits for society from the draft, we should probably just junk the whole thing.