Another public good that flummoxes libertarians is national defense. If you mention to them that the market can’t possibly supply the defense of a country, they will cross their arms and answer: “How do you know?” They will insist that if there is enough demand, supply will magically follow.

Well, history tells us that countries that don’t get their act together on national defense have big problems. It’s almost demented to think that private markets would have supplied defense against the growing threat from Germany in the ’30s, not least because as is now well documented, many private business interests in the US, Britain and France favored accommodating the Nazis.

To counter the argument about supply and demand concerning national defense, you can simply point out that the draft has been necessary in every major war. You can sometimes find enough people to volunteer during peacetime, but people have a funny habit of not wanting to get themselves blown away during wartimes. That’s why in the U.S. Civil War, recruitment was total chaos, with rich people paying poor people to go fight in their place. In 1863, New York City exploded in a four-day long murderous riot because people opposed the Civil War draft law which allowed rich people like J.P. Morgan and Andrew Carnegie to pay off a substitute. That riot was one of the bloodiest in U.S. history.

The most glaring aspect of this passage is her apparent support for the military draft. As every left-libertarian market anarchist knows: the draft is involuntary servitude. If you can’t have a war without it, you don’t get to conduct one. It’s never ok to employ forced labor to achieve your aims. This is a moral truth that even non-libertarians tend to adhere to.

She also ignores the fact that there was no truly free market during the time period of World War 2. You can’t use an unfree market as an example of how free markets allegedly lead to a lack of defense. The business interests that supported the Nazis weren’t representative of freed market commerce. This is also due to their working with a state. No business that works with a nation-state is an example of a libertarian entity.

In addition to the above, this article displays an ignorance of the libertarian writing on defense without the state. It’s not practical or easy to conquer an anarchist society. There is no head to simply depose and declare victory over. No nation-states would exist in an anarchist society either. The issue of national defense simply wouldn’t arise.

What about the defense of non-state societies that come under attack by aggressors? Federated anarchist militias could repel invaders, but the likelihood of an invasion is slim. This is due to the internationalist character of an anarchist world. A global community would exist. Let’s work to make it a reality.

Da allora mi è capitato di vedere molte, molte altre richieste, l’ultima delle quali nell’ultimo libro di Andrew Bacevich, di un ritorno alla coscrizione da parte di persone apparentemente contro la guerra. La premessa, a volte esplicita e a volte no, dietro queste richieste è che la coscrizione fermerebbe la brama americana di guerre e di interventi all’estero distribuendone il peso più equamente. La coscrizione è stata condannata, giustamente, perché è una forma di schiavitù; e qualche volta una forma mortale, per giunta. Ma anche chi sviene alla sola idea di considerare schiavi i soldati americani non può negare la semplice realtà storica che la coscrizione non ha mai, mai, neanche una volta, fermato o rallentato o in qualche modo inibito il corso di una guerra.

La prima guerra americana combattuta con la coscrizione fu la rivoluzione, e fu combattuta tutta quanta fino alla sua conclusione. La seconda fu la guerra civile, che costò più vite americane di ogni altra guerra. E se la coscrizione causò diverse rivolte, prima fra tutte una protesta anti-coscrizione degenerata in pogrom contro i neri a New York, anche questa guerra fu combattuta fino al suo sanguinoso esito finale. Anche la prima e la seconda guerra mondiale furono combattute in gran parte con coscritti e fino al loro infelice esito finale. Nel secondo caso, due grandi città furono immolate al dio della guerra da una nuova odiosa arma sganciata da aerei con un equipaggio composto parzialmente da coscritti.

La guerra di Corea e, soprattutto, quella di Vietnam formano quella che la lobby pro-coscrizione considera la chiave di volta del loro ragionamento. L’interpretazione classica è che l’americano medio era stufo di vedere le vite dei suoi figli distrutte dalla guerra d’attrito di Westmoreland, mentre Lyndon Johnson apparentemente diceva: “Se ho perso Cronkite, ho perso l’americano medio.” Apparentemente, le manifestazioni di protesta persuasero il governo americano a lasciare il Vietnam. Questa interpretazione non considera chi realmente fermò la guerra americana in Vietnam: i vietnamiti.

La rivoluzione, la guerra civile, le due guerre mondiali: per il governo americano, queste sono guerre vittoriose. La vittoria è sempre popolare; una guerra vittoriosa, per quanto ovviamente aggressiva o assurdamente ingiusta, raramente genera un’opposizione significativa. Ma in Vietnam l’America non stava vincendo. Stava perdendo, e malamente. L’americano medio scese in strada, è vero, ma non perché Johnny tornava a casa in una scatola. Scese in strada perché Johnny stava perdendo.

L’interpretazione pro-coscrizione della opposizione alla guerra di Vietnam ha un fondo razzista e imperialista; nega ai vietnamiti il loro ruolo di protagonisti della loro storia; esalta orgogliosamente i bianchi americani che protestavano agitando cartelli per le strade, ignorando i contadini vietnamiti che davano le loro vite per cacciare via l’ennesima potenza imperialista che pretendeva di comandare in casa loro. A fermare la guerra di Vietnam non furono gli studenti dei college che agitavano i cartelli; furono i risaioli con gli AK-47. Gli americani si commuovono per la morte di un coscritto solo quando il coscritto muore in una guerra che sta perdendo. Il credito per l’opposizione a questa guerra non va agli americani a casa ma alle vittime straniere del governo americano.

L’idea secondo cui la guerra perderebbe popolarità se solo il peso fosse distribuito fra tutti sembra intuitiva e accattivante, ma storicamente è un’illusione. La vittoria rende le guerre popolari, e la sconfitta le rende impopolari. Se vogliamo fermare la macchina della guerra dall’interno del centro imperiale, dobbiamo fare tutto il possibile per incepparla, che si tratti di contrastare gli arruolamenti, appoggiare l’opposizione al mondo militare, far conoscere i costi del militarismo, ricorrere allo sciopero fiscale, o fare altro che possa servire. E mentre dibattiamo sui fini ultimi dei comunisti in Vietnam o degli islamici in Iraq, dobbiamo sempre ricordare che le persone che fanno più di ogni altro per fermare la macchina da guerra sono quelle che prendono le armi in mano e la combattono.

Di Jonathan Carp. Originale pubblicato su Center for a Stateless Society il 17 ottobre 2013 con il titolo The Draft Never – Ever – Stopped a War. Traduzione di Enrico Sanna.

Since then I’ve seen many, many more calls for a draft from ostensibly anti-interventionist voices, most recently in Andrew Bacevich’s latest book. The underlying premise of these calls, sometimes made explicit and sometimes not, is that a draft would stop America’s lust for war and foreign interventions because it would force the burdens of war to be spread more equally. The draft has been damned, and rightly so, for being a form of slavery and at times a particularly murderous one at that, but even those who might get the vapors at the idea of seeing American solders as slaves cannot deny the simple historical fact that the draft has never, ever- not once- stopped or slowed or in any way inhibited the conduct of a war.

The first American war fought with conscription was the first American war, the Revolution, and it was fought all the way to its conclusion. The next war fought with conscripts, the Civil War, claimed more American lives than any other and while the draft helped provoke some riots, most notably a draft protest turned anti-black pogrom in New York City, that war too was fought all the way to the bloody finish. The First and Second World Wars as well were fought largely with draftees and fought to the bitter end, in the latter case with the immolation of two major cities by a hideous new weapon delivered by aircraft in part manned by draftees.

Korea and especially Vietnam form what the pro-draft lobby thinks of as the lynchpin of their case. The conventional narrative of resistance to the war in Vietnam is of Middle America tiring of seeing its sons’ lives destroyed by Westmoreland’s war of attrition and rising up, of LBJ allegedly saying “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” Supposedly the marches in the streets somehow persuaded the American government to leave Vietnam. What this narrative leaves out is what actually stopped the American war in Vietnam- the Vietnamese.

The American Revolution, the Civil War, the World Wars- for the American government, these were all victorious wars. Victory is very popular; victorious wars, however obviously aggressive or absurdly unjust, rarely generate any significant resistance. But in Vietnam, America was not winning. America was losing, and badly. Middle America was in the streets against Vietnam, it is true, but they weren’t there because Johnny was coming home in a box. They were there because Johnny was losing.

The pro-draft narrative of domestic resistance to the Vietnam War is at heart a racist, imperialist narrative, denying the Vietnamese their place as actors in their own history, giving pride of place to white Americans holding signs in the street over Vietnamese peasants giving their lives to drive out yet another imperialist power coming to lord over their country. What stopped the Vietnam War was not a college kid with a sign; it was a rice farmer with an AK-47. Americans only get upset about draftees dying when they are dying in a losing war, and credit for resistance to such wars goes not to Americans at home but to the victims of the American government abroad.

The idea that if only everyone had to share the burden, war would be less popular seems intuitive and appealing, but history reveals it to be deluded. Victory makes wars popular, and defeat makes them unpopular. To try to stop the war machine from inside the imperial center, we must do whatever we can to gum up its works, be it counter-recruiting, supporting GI resistance, spreading awareness about the costs of militarism, tax resistance, or anything else that might help. And while we might debate their ultimate aims as Communists in Vietnam or Islamic radicals in Iraq, we must always remember that the people who do the most to stop the war machine are the people who take up arms against it.

Translations for this article:

• Italian, La Coscrizione non Ha Mai, Mai, Fermato una Guerra.

Opponents’ views come in different flavors as well. War-hawks argue that conscription makes for a weaker military – soldiers who don’t really want to be there won’t fight as hard. Others, in the only tolerable position I’ve listed thus far, argue against conscription on the grounds that it is a form of slavery. Such was Anthony Gregory’s concluding response in a review of Bacevich’s book in Reason:

Rather than reinstating the draft, a less drastic proposal exists, one more consistent with human rights, more conducive to peace, and more respectful of those on the front lines: a truly voluntary military.

Gregory even goes further to criticize the current enlistment model:

Today, unlike most any other U.S. institution, the armed forces practice indentured servitude: Employees agree to a term of service and face imprisonment or even execution should they quit. We do not consider it a “voluntary” job if a warehouse or factory forcibly prevents workers from quitting at will. Those who wish to honor the humanity of America’s soldiers should agitate not for conscription but for the freedom to resign.

Of course, at-will employment isn’t necessarily voluntary. What good is the freedom to resign for a soldier who never had any choice but to enlist? For many people, financial circumstances make enlistment their only viable option. And this is where I find debates over conscription so frustrating. They presume that the draft is no more and fail to acknowledge that we have a different kind in place – economic conscription. Just look at The DREAM Act. It sets the price of US citizenship at two years of college attendance or enlistment in the military. Ostensibly, these conditions make some sense. After all, how can the United States afford to kick out educated young people? Where would we get the nerve to deny citizenship to the nations defenders? But, don’t young, unwitting aliens deserve to be citizens in the only homeland they’ve ever known in the first place? As Camilo Mejía of Iraq Veterans Against the War points out in a debate over the merits of the DREAM Act on Democracy Now!, the legislation is plainly a means of conscription that takes advantage of the miserable economic realities that the act’s ostensible beneficiaries face all too frequently:

My main problem with the DREAM Act is the military portion of it, which, in my opinion, is the main portion of the DREAM Act, because when you look at the 65,000 youth who graduate from high school every year in this country, you have to take into account that the vast majority of them are not going to have the English level required to gain access into a higher education institution. The military has an answer for that. The military has a language institute. The military can say, “If you don’t speak a word of English, you can join the military.”

The DREAM Act also does not allow undocumented youth, who have applied to the DREAM Act and who qualify for the DREAM Act, to get Pell Grants or to get any kind of federal-based scholarships — only loans and work study, which is not sufficient to cover tuition. The military has the Montgomery GI Bill. The military, through the National Guard and the Reserves, has tuition waivers.

The DREAM Act does not include anything along the lines of financial stability, anything along the lines of healthcare, anything along the lines of housing, whereas the military has all of these things that it’s in a position to offer to the vast majority of these 65,000 students who graduate every year, to say, “Come over here. We will teach you English. We will give you housing. We’ll give you a steady paycheck. We’ll give you all these things, if you serve in the military.”

Certainly, many enlistees really want to be in the military and would have made that choice regardless of their financial situations. However, this earnest willingness cannot last as military ventures persist and expand indefinitely. Truly voluntary enlistment is unsustainable and a deliberate, compulsory draft is untenable (and too egalitarian). Coercion is the only other means left, and The DREAM Act is just the start. I expect to see legislation that exploits student debt next, perhaps under the guise of heading off the bursting of the student debt bubble. I just hope that our leaders have the sense of humor to call it The War on Debt, or at least miss the irony in doing so.

The draft is military slavery. It cannot be justified on any basis. Ever. It is wrong in and of itself, just like aggressive war. It is true that the Vietnam war did end partly because of the draft—but only after the draft had allowed for a much larger war in the first place, entailing the death of millions of Southeast Asians and tens of thousands of Americans.

Progressives always seek to cure evils caused by the state by running to the state and asking it to resemble fascism even more than it already does. If you hate war, hate the state. If you can’t bring yourself to turn against modern corporate liberal imperialism, then just back off. If you vote for people like Lyndon Johnson and Barack Obama, who promise more war and deliver more war, a program 100% consistent with their agenda at home, then you have no business forcing millions of Americans to die and commit murder on behalf of your beloved government in some twisted, too-clever-by-half scheme to stem the predicable evils that are not peripheral but intrinsic to the type of government you favor. You want a government that manages the economy, takes care of us all, stands up to every real and perceived evil of social power? Then you get mass murder. You don’t get to relieve your guilt by forcing young Americans, under threat of imprisonment, into the horrors of war that inexorably follow from your own agenda. Slash and smash the state. It is the problem. Giving it the power of military enslavement is not just self-defeating; it makes you a party to atrocity on a mass scale.

Now, short of abolishing the state or military, we could conceive of a reform that at least moves things toward freedom. Despite the pro-draft propaganda, we don’t have an “all-volunteer” military. People in any other sector have a right to quit their jobs at will. They might be in violation of contract to do so, but they are not thrown in cages for quitting.

The military is the only institution, or at least the major one, that still utilizes indentured servitude. This is inconsistent with freedom and human rights. Soldiers should be free to quit. If they were, these wars would be much harder to sustain. During the Iraq war, many soldiers are marines were forced to return to combat two, three, or six times under Stop Loss Orders. They should have been free simply to say, “No.”

If you want to stop wars by tweaking with military personnel policies, establishing a truly volunteer military, where people can quit at will, would be the single best reform. It would also reduce the many problems of military recruitment, which uses dishonest and shady methods to ensnare young Americans into the Armed Forces. There would still be a lot of awfulness, including the military’s tendency to draw on the poor who have few other options, but there is simply no way to make the intrinsically hierarchical and regressive military into an egalitarian institution. A draft too will always hit the poor much harder than the politically connected.

Calling for military conscription to stop wars is wrongheaded in many ways. More important, the draft is a form of slavery, and simply evil from top to bottom. If you want to reform the system and strike a blow against perpetual war, fight for the right of soldiers to quit their jobs at will. It is consistent with human rights and peace, and shrinks the power of the military state rather than doing the opposite. If your true interest is in ratcheting back imperialism and discouraging particularly disastrous wars, rather than in glorifying the state, work for greater recognition of the dignity and liberty of those who find themselves stuck in the Armed Forces, not less.