Universal National Service--Posner

There are perennial calls for drafting all 18 year olds to serve in either the military or some civilian alternative. Congressman Charles Rangel has repeatedly introduced bills in Congress (the "Universal National Service Act") that would do this. The bills have never come close to passage, and are unlikely to in the future even with Democratic control of both houses of Congress. But universal national service is one of those seductive ideas that refuse to die completely, and perhaps therefore it deserves a serious analysis. It is analytically interesting and can serve as an example of the utility of a cost-benefit approach to public programs. Roughly 4 million Americans reach the age of 18 every year. There are only 1.4 million active-duty military personnel, so only a small fraction of each vintage of 18 year olds could be assigned to the military. At their present size, our active-duty armed forces require only about 150,000 new recruits each year. So any universal national service obligation would have to be primarily an obligation to do civilian work. Civilian national service (in the United States--thus excluding the Peace Corps, and the missionary work that young Mormon men are required to perform for two years without compensation) funded by the federal government exists already. The "AmeriCorps" program provides federal grants to a large number of service organizations, both public and private. Although these organizations pay only the living expenses of their volunteers plus a modest education grant, the federal contribution amounts to some $27,000 per volunteer. The number of volunteers supported by AmeriCorps grants is small--well under 100,000. But of course total volunteer activity is much greater than that, and by no means limited to young persons--an affiliate of AmeriCorps is the "Senior Corps." A survey by the U.S. Department of Labor found that there were some 60 million American engaged in volunteer activities in 2006 and that the median number of hours that the volunteers devoted to such activities was about 50 hours a year. Thus, assuming that the average is not much different from the median and that a full-time job is 2000 hours a year, there were the equivalent of 1.5 million full-time volunteers (50/2000 x 60 million). That number is important because a universal national service obligation would have a substitution effect: someone required by law to provide a year of national service would be likely to reduce the amount of volunteer service that he would provide in the future. If, for example, there were a two-thirds reduction in volunteering, from 1.5 million full-tine equivalents to 500,000, and thus a loss of 1 million full-time-equivalent volunteers, universal national service would augment volunteer activities by only 3 million full-time equivalents a year (4 million - 3 million). Granted, this number would rise if universal national service had a complementary effect on volunteer service rather than or, more plausibly, as well as a substitution effect--if, that is, the year of obligatory service created a taste for such service. I find this implausible. If 4 million persons were conscripted for one year's national service, at an annual expense of $27,000 per person, the program would cost more than $100 billion a year--probably much more, because the $27,000 figure excludes the overhead expenses of the service organizations that receive the per capita grants. The $100 billion (or whatever the correct figure is) would be a transfer payment, but it would generate costs of two types. The first would be the deadweight costs that the taxes required to fund the payment would impose. The second and doubtless greater cost would be the difference between the value of the conscripts' national service work and the value of their output in whatever jobs they would have had were it not for their national service obligations. About half the 18 year olds would (but for their national service obligation) be in college rather than working, and so the effect of universal national service on them would be to postpone their entry into the job market by a year. Their lost wages in their first job would be a rough estimate of the value of their work in that job. The starting salary for college graduates is more than $40,000, other than for liberal-arts majors, and this is about twice the starting salary for high school graduates. That is some evidence that a universal national service program would be inefficient: it would in effect reallocate a year of a college graduate's working life from after college to before college, when he would be less productive. Against this it could be argued that the national service work that the 18 year olds would perform would have a social value in excess of its private value. But this seems unlikely for most jobs that these teenagers would perform, such as helping out in hospitals and nursing homes and picking up litter on roadsides and in parks. A possible exception is tutoring children, since education produces significant social benefits. But only a small fraction of the 4 million national service conscripts could usefully be employed in that activity. Universal national service would also have peculiar effects on the distribution of income. The unpaid national service workers would replace low-paid service workers, pushing many of them into poverty. Proponents argue that, all narrowly "economic" issues to one side, universal national service would confer intangible social benefits in the form of increased solidarity, as all Americans would share in the experience of working for the overall social good without compensation beyond modest living expenses. But given the heterogeneity of the jobs that the national service workers would be performing, the solidarity-enhancing effect would surely be quite limited. It would be different if the 4 million were all drafted into the armed forces for a year, but that is infeasible. In a candid moment proponents of universal national service might respond that its real purpose is to take rich kids down a peg by forcing them to work for a year with minimal compensation. The hope would be that the experience would make the rich empathize more with the poor and therefore treat them more generously. This seems unlikely, though the issue is worth studying. A person's attitude toward issues of distributive justice is shaped by a variety of factors, including temperament, parental values--and personal experiences not limited to a year's working without pay.

Comments

[Lanny Arvan]

Suppose one dropped the "universal" in the title and went from a compulsory system to an incentive based and hence voluntary system where, for example, High School grads could earn tuition credits for College as well as some minimal income to cover room and board costs, while College Grads would receive some forgiveness on loans they incurred from paying tuition and again some minimal income to cover their living expenses. Presumably that would eliminate both the ethical and Constitutional objections raised by various previous commentators. This would change the question to whether there is an incentive level that on the one hand would elicit sufficient participation and on the other hand justify the tax that would be needed to finance the incentives.
It seems to me that the cost-benefit analysis in Prof. Posner's original post is better aimed at addressing that question, which is why it would be good to determine, if indeed that is possible from a priori calculation, whether a voluntary system would be feasible and productive.

[Alex]

"Their lost wages in their first job would be a rough estimate of the value of their work in that job. The starting salary for college graduates is more than $40,000"

Hi. Is this supposed to give an indication of the cost of doing universal service? If so why isn't the cost cumulative? The year out of work has the direct result of you not being paid, but your promotion may come a year later.

[Stephen Carter]

Several of the commentators have suggested that the current military comprises largely people from the worst off sectors of society. No data support this contention. It is true that the children of the best off tend not to serve, but the same is true for the children of the worst off. Educational and aptitude testing requirements limit military service considerably. Although I do not have the data ready to hand, I have taught this material for years in my courses on just and unjust wars.

Incidentally, an argument for compulsory military service not mentioned by the main post or by the commentators is hinted at by Samuel Huntington, in his book, The Soldier and the State. His worry is the cost to democracy in allowing the development of a distinct military culture.

[Realist]

I don't really think that it COULD be instituted nowadays. 18 to 25 year-olds are the most independent minded among us and the vast majority of them wouldn't be willing to serve a shitty country that very well might send them off to die for the elite's oil revenue. They would likely just refuse en masse and say "What are you going to do about it? Arrest us all?" and the whole idea would collapse under its own weight. 18 to 25 year-olds by and large have a VERY healthy skepticism of the U.S. government and are the least likely to blindly accept myths, for example the 9/11 official myth, as they have the least amount psychologically invested in America. It's a lot easier to call something out as being a piece of shit when you haven't spent your whole adult life with a (false but more comforting) belief system.

[St. Darwin Assisi's cat]

Judge Posner...please do not allow person's without proper identification to vote in Indiana or anywhere else ... when younger I thought it awful that Judge Rehnquist didn't think people who could not read should vote ... after 9/11 I think reading, writing, and identification are necssary to participate in the US voting process. Thank you. PS I loved your comments about people impersonating voters....

[MarkT]

Judge Posner pegs the cost of a Universal National Service program at approx. $100 million. I think that is a gross cost, but many of the youths would be substitutes for other workers currently providing services - for instance, reading the Xray machines at airports in lieu of more expensive TSA personnel.

Thus, I think the net cash cost would be much less. One would have to think about the severance / unemployment cost for the replaced civil servants to fully analyze the cost.

I support a UNS concept. I think it would dramatically reduce the propensity to go to war and thus save billions, as well it would eliminate race and class bias in military service, and would foster self-discipline and civic duty. Also, at 18, most kids would LOVE to have a year working as long as it didn't penalize their career or educational opportunities. They would gain some spending money, and it would enable them either to afford more education or to begin saving for the future.

I read Prof Becker's post but I think his approach is way too complicated for the public to embrace.

[Doug G]

We should conscript them all to work so that we can stop losing billions to teenage laziness.

[Eisenhower Republican]

It's sort of interesting that no mention of civilian control of the military is made, nor, to use a language that is more comprehensible to ideologues and economites, of the support that goes to the rent seeking military industrial complex when the general populace is uninvolved with their own wars. The idea that compulsory service is an idea that sounds in the democratic party is rhetorically useful, but simply stupid.

[David]

I think that a national service program would be an excellent idea, except that the size and the cost of such a program might prove overwhelming.

Only the most selfish persons would argue that the idea lacks merit. Spending one year of one's youth performing public service and learning about the world would be educational and rewarding for everyone, rich and poor alike. It would also help give all Americans a shared identity and would strengthen our democracy by encouraging wider social and political participation. In retrospect, I wish that I had done a year of public service when I was young -- or that I had even considered the option. The pressures I felt were to attend college immediately and to continue down the career path as quickly as possible. The idea of service was not encouraged.

The tough questions involve how to organize and pay for a program of that scale. Those are difficult questions. Even when we had wartime drafts, not everyone was drafted. No women were drafted (that's half the population), and even men were subject to a lottery. The draft was a small program by comparison.

Maybe the cost issue makes this idea a non-starter. Perhaps a better idea is to encourage high schools, colleges, universities, employers, etc., to sponsor a wide range of public service work for young adults. Perhaps federal, state, and local governments can subsidize such programs, instead of run them. Government can certainly use its bully pulpit to enocurage service.

Our country should strive to establish shared values of community, charity, and public service. We can certainly do more than we do now.

[Marvin]

There is an accepted term for someone forced to work for others against his will: a slave. There is also a term for someone forced to fight against his will: a gladiator.
The same people who want to re-introduce slaves and gladiators into our society would probably denounce our ancestors doing the same.
All this blabbering about 'community', 'values' and other empty words is about the same old goal at the end - enslave others to make yourself happy. And of course if you don't want to be a slave you must be selfish...
If you want to help others or fight for your country with no compensation, kudos to you. Just don't force me to do the same.

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