Yesterday I discovered an old interview from 1990 of Milton Friedman on The Firing Line with Bill Buckley where they debate the merits and feasibility of implementing a nationwide year of non-military national service. This was the subject of Buckley’s new book, Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country, where he proposes a system whereby people over the age of eighteen would be called upon to complete a year of national-service work, be it in hospitals, national parks, etc.
Friedman being fervently against any notion of collectivistic government policy, naturally, takes issue with Buckley’s book and provides a number of arguments as you’ll see in the video.
What is interesting is that Buckley appears to have come up with an idea for an alternative to military conscription that is very similar to what I proposed in my last article (Conscription and Civic Responsibility: An Alternative Proposal), both in terms of application and motivation.
The conservative columnist renews his call for a year of voluntary national service for young people eighteen and over, in areas such as health, day care, and the environment, to strengthen their feeling and appreciation for their nation(Blurb, Gratitude: Reflections on What We Owe to Our Country)
In response to Friedman’s argument that such an initiative would be an overreach of government and an infringement to civil liberty, Buckley’s position is one that I share – Given that there are already government mandatory education requirements which we are all, for the most part, compliant with – the year of national service shouldn’t be such a radical idea and should be thought of as a small extension of our national schooling system.
“I base my position on the fact that nobody denies that the state has the right to insist that we learn how to read and write.”(Buckley, min 3:45)
Unsurprisingly, Friedman holds no punches and is quick to retort that he in fact doesn’t think it’s moral for the state to force people to learn to read or write and has said in print that he is fully opposed to compulsory education. Whether or not you agree, you have to credit him for his consistency.
Unlike with my own proposal, Buckley maintains that his idea for national service would not be mandatory but there would be strong “incentives” to participate. Friedman claims it would be impossible to implement a program like this and maintain that it’s “voluntary”, in any meaningful sense of the word. On this point, I agree with Friedman, however, as I made clear in my last article, I was never dissuaded by the ethics of it in the first place.
While I side more with Buckley on this debate, I also don’t think Buckley’s plan could work. For reasons I explain in my previous article, the conditions I set for my program were quite intentional and a “philanthropic tone” to the jobs as Buckley prescribes is not, in my opinion, a condition that would yield the greatest social effect.
"Can you explain to me why it’s more of a national service if a young man takes a job to clean latrines in a hospital than it is if he takes a job to be a clerk in a Safeway?"(Friedman, min 12:30)
I make a case for why I believe having people to work normal jobs (like Safeway clerk) for a summer would likely be of greater benefit than forcing people to clock a certain number of volunteer hours or at these supposedly “philanthropic” jobs. (Of course, Friedman would reject the premise that the government should be allowed to force us to do any job we don’t want to, Safeway clerk included.)
Regardless, it’s interesting to see that people have been dabbling with this idea for such a long time; the pros and cons of nationwide conscription as well as the potential for alternative options. I look forward to seeing what will come in the future.
