This is a thoughtful, thorough analysis of some of the inherent problems with organizing rational, self-directing individuals into a communal fighting force. What I don’t understand is why you view it as a special problem that needs a special consideration.
Society is an agreement among a group of people to cooperate in areas of common concern. The society as one body defends the personal safety and livelihood of its component individuals and it furnishes them with certain guarantees of livability and fair play. In exchange, the component individuals pledge to defend the integrity of the society and contribute to it with their labor and ingenuity. This happens and it works because Pareto improvements are best achieved through long-term schemes of cooperation rather than one-off interactions. The obligation to collective defense, then, happens at the moment of social contract and it needs no elaboration. Even glancingly rational people in pseudo-rational societies recognize this on some level, and when society is threatened, they will go to its defense. So, there is no real incentive to defect against society when there is a draft to fight an existential threat because the gains of draft-dodging are greatly outweighed by the risk of the fall of civilization.
I think you go too far in saying that modern drafts are “a tool of kings playing games in need of toy soldiers.” The model of the draft can be abused, as it was in the US during the Vietnam War, where there was no existential threat and draft-dodging was the smart move, but it worked remarkably well during World War II when a truly threatening horde of barbarians did emerge.
Along these lines, why is it that a lottery and chemical courage “is the general policy that gives us the highest expectation of survival?” Why couldn’t we do the job with traditional selective-service optimization for fitness, intelligence, and psychological stability, coupled with the perfectly rational understanding that risking life in combat is better than guaranteeing societal collapse by running from battle?
Reading through your post, especially your suggestions for a coordinated response, I found myself thinking about the absurd spectacle of the Army of Mars in Kurt Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan. New soldiers could get any kind of ice cream they wanted, right after their memories were wiped and implants were installed to beam the persistent “rent, rent, rented-a-tent” of a snare drum to their mind whenever they were made to march in formation. Somehow I don’t think Vonnegut was suggesting an improvement.
“social contract” [shudders], I don’t remember signing that one.
A “social contract” binding individuals to make self-sacrificing decisions doesn’t seem necessary for a healthy civilization. See David D. Friedman’s Machinery of Freedom for details; for a very (very) brief sketch consider that truck drivers rationally risk death on the roads for pay and that mercenaries face a higher risk of death for more pay—and that merchants will pay both truck drivers and soldiers for their services.
Soldiery doesn’t have to be a special case requiring different rational rules.
What army of free-market mercenaries could seriously hope to drive the modern US Armed Forces, augmented by a draft, to capitulation? Perhaps more relevantly, what army of free-market mercenaries could overcome the fanatical, disciplined mass of barbarians?
What I’m inferring from your comment is that a rational society could defend itself using market mechanisms, not central organization, if the need ever arose. Those mechanisms of the market might do well in supplying soldiers to meet a demand for defense, but I’m skeptical of the ability of the blind market to plan a grand strategy or defeat the enemy in battle. It’s also very difficult to take one’s business elsewhere when you’re hiring men with guns to stop an existential threat and they don’t do a good job of it. In order to defend a society, first there must be understanding that there is a society and that it’s worth defending.
Those mechanisms of the market might do well in supplying soldiers to meet a demand for defense, but I’m skeptical of the ability of the blind market to plan a grand strategy or defeat the enemy in battle.
Plenty of private corporations seem to do quite well at grand strategy and defeating enemies in market competition. It doesn’t seem a huge stretch to imagine them achieving similar success in battle. Much of military success comes down to logistics and I think a reasonable case can be made that private corporations already demonstrate greater competence in that area than most government enterprises.
What army of free-market mercenaries could seriously hope to drive the modern US Armed Forces, augmented by a draft, to capitulation? Perhaps more relevantly, what army of free-market mercenaries could overcome the fanatical, disciplined mass of barbarians?
This is a thoughtful, thorough analysis of some of the inherent problems with organizing rational, self-directing individuals into a communal fighting force. What I don’t understand is why you view it as a special problem that needs a special consideration.
Society is an agreement among a group of people to cooperate in areas of common concern. The society as one body defends the personal safety and livelihood of its component individuals and it furnishes them with certain guarantees of livability and fair play. In exchange, the component individuals pledge to defend the integrity of the society and contribute to it with their labor and ingenuity. This happens and it works because Pareto improvements are best achieved through long-term schemes of cooperation rather than one-off interactions. The obligation to collective defense, then, happens at the moment of social contract and it needs no elaboration. Even glancingly rational people in pseudo-rational societies recognize this on some level, and when society is threatened, they will go to its defense. So, there is no real incentive to defect against society when there is a draft to fight an existential threat because the gains of draft-dodging are greatly outweighed by the risk of the fall of civilization.
I think you go too far in saying that modern drafts are “a tool of kings playing games in need of toy soldiers.” The model of the draft can be abused, as it was in the US during the Vietnam War, where there was no existential threat and draft-dodging was the smart move, but it worked remarkably well during World War II when a truly threatening horde of barbarians did emerge.
Along these lines, why is it that a lottery and chemical courage “is the general policy that gives us the highest expectation of survival?” Why couldn’t we do the job with traditional selective-service optimization for fitness, intelligence, and psychological stability, coupled with the perfectly rational understanding that risking life in combat is better than guaranteeing societal collapse by running from battle?
Reading through your post, especially your suggestions for a coordinated response, I found myself thinking about the absurd spectacle of the Army of Mars in Kurt Vonnegut’s Sirens of Titan. New soldiers could get any kind of ice cream they wanted, right after their memories were wiped and implants were installed to beam the persistent “rent, rent, rented-a-tent” of a snare drum to their mind whenever they were made to march in formation. Somehow I don’t think Vonnegut was suggesting an improvement.
“social contract” [shudders], I don’t remember signing that one.
A “social contract” binding individuals to make self-sacrificing decisions doesn’t seem necessary for a healthy civilization. See David D. Friedman’s Machinery of Freedom for details; for a very (very) brief sketch consider that truck drivers rationally risk death on the roads for pay and that mercenaries face a higher risk of death for more pay—and that merchants will pay both truck drivers and soldiers for their services.
Soldiery doesn’t have to be a special case requiring different rational rules.
What army of free-market mercenaries could seriously hope to drive the modern US Armed Forces, augmented by a draft, to capitulation? Perhaps more relevantly, what army of free-market mercenaries could overcome the fanatical, disciplined mass of barbarians?
What I’m inferring from your comment is that a rational society could defend itself using market mechanisms, not central organization, if the need ever arose. Those mechanisms of the market might do well in supplying soldiers to meet a demand for defense, but I’m skeptical of the ability of the blind market to plan a grand strategy or defeat the enemy in battle. It’s also very difficult to take one’s business elsewhere when you’re hiring men with guns to stop an existential threat and they don’t do a good job of it. In order to defend a society, first there must be understanding that there is a society and that it’s worth defending.
Plenty of private corporations seem to do quite well at grand strategy and defeating enemies in market competition. It doesn’t seem a huge stretch to imagine them achieving similar success in battle. Much of military success comes down to logistics and I think a reasonable case can be made that private corporations already demonstrate greater competence in that area than most government enterprises.
Big ones.