Last year, there were bills introduced calling for the reinstatement of the military draft. Today there are rumors citing that after the elections, the draft will most likely be reinstated regardless of what political party wins. I consider the term “draft” a far more cheery word for the truth: military draft is government confiscation of labor.
The draft is used because the salary the military offers isn’t high enough to get the necessary number of people to volunteer. I’m sure if the military offered a compensation package of, say, $50,000 to $100,000 a year, it could get all the soldiers it wanted. Thus the truth is whenever there is a draft, you know that the salary is too low to entice enough people to voluntarily supply their labor to the armed forces.
Waging war requires much more than soldiers. You need tanks, bombs, bullets and aircraft. Have you heard a call to draft $15 million F-15 fighter jets or $4.3 million M1 Abrams Main Battle Tanks? I haven’t. The reason is that the government pays the kind of prices which entice producers to voluntarily supply these products. Of course, if the Pentagon were willing to pay McDonnell Douglas only $5 million for an F-15 and General Dynamics only $1 million for a tank, it would have to “draft” jets and tanks.
Supporters of the draft fail to recognize one central truth: a proper government exists solely to protect the individual rights of its people. You can not claim to defend these rights while one violates their most important section: that a person has a right to his life that may not be violated.
This idea that politicians purport of the “common good” and “sacrifice for one’s country” is incorrect. Human beings are inherently and rightfully selfish, and the only rational way to justify a public army is paying them with public funds at a rate which can be considered market value. Thus, the only effective way to have an effective military is to pay military personnel salaries that make military service attractive.
To sum it up eloquently:
“If the state may force a man to risk death or hideous maiming and crippling, in a war declared at the state’s discretion, for a cause he may neither approve of nor even understand, if his consent is not required to send him into unspeakable martyrdom–then, in principle, all rights are negated in that state, and its government is not man’s protector any longer. What is there left to protect?” — Ayn Rand