The High Cost of the Draft; R. McNown and D. Lee

ROBERTMeNOWN AND DWIGHT LEE man's service in the military is measured by the value of those opportunities forgone. Generally the opportunity sacrificed here is a civilian job, with a value equal to the salary he could expect to receive. The President's Commis sion on an All-Volunteer Armed Force estimated that the military pay for draftees is only half that which they could receive in civil ian work. Add to this salary dis crepancy a possible preference for civilian over military employment, and it is apparent that the true cost of the draft is quite high. To the individual draftee the oppor tunity cost of military service is equal to the salary which he would have to be offered in order to be attracted to military service. Thus whatever savings the taxpayers garner through the lower military pay permitted by conscription ap pears as a cost to the individual draftee. Military budgets may be lower with a system based on con scription, but this does not imply e HighCost of the Draft t ~ WITH THE EXCEPTION of the recent postwar period, the United States has always maintained an army of volunteers in times of peace.

But it is claimed that our need for a large standing army because of the cold war would make an all-volunteer force prohibitively expensi vee No one would deny that it is possible to staff an army of most any size with quality person nel if we were willing to offer sufficiently generous salaries. The objection is that this would simply be too expensive. That an all-volunteer force is more costly than a system with conscription is an illusion. Man power costs are not less under the draft, they are simply shifted onto one particular group, namely the draftees. The cost of a young This article is based on a chapter from a book by Professors Lee and McNown, to be published by Science Research Associates, In corporated in 1975. Messrs. McNown and Lee are Assistant Pro fessors, Department of Economics, University of Colorado at Boulder. 627 628 THE FREEMAN October that the social costs are lower. The draft merely shifts the burden of manpower costs from the taxpay ers onto the young men of draft age.

Suppose, for exa.mple, that it would require a salary increase of $3000 per man to attract volun teers equal in number to the pres ent volume of draftees. For every man drafted to serve, the tax payers save $3000, but the indi vidual draftee suffers a cost in terms of income forgone and aver sion to military duty valued at $3000. Manpower costs to society as a whole are no different in either case. The only difference is in who pays the costs - the tax payers· as a. whole or the men who are .unfortunate enough to be drafted. LessCostly Actually there are strong rea sons for believing that an all volunteer system will involve lower social costs than a system with conscription. Budget outlays will be higher of course, but this is not indicative of true relative social costs. The most important savings to society will come in the form of lower rates of induction of those men with the highest opportunity costs. Those most productive in civilian life are those who earn handsome salaries. These are of course the ones least likely to be attracted by military service, un less the military is willing to offer them comparable salaries. With the exception of medical doctors, however, the military 'will not gen erally be interested in paying sal aries which would attract those who are unusually productive in civilian life. Movie actors, corpo rate executives, scientists, and writers, for example, are unlikely to make contributions to the mili tary which are comparable to those made in civilian life, and it would be highly inefficient to have them inducted.

There will be additional savings through a more efficient use of all men of draft age, including those threatened by the draft but never inducted. Many men subject to the draft have gone to great lengths to redesign their lives in order to avoid conscription. En rollment in colleges and semi naries, employment in draft de ferred positions, and legal action to avoid the draft cost society $2.50 for every $1.00 saved the taxpayers through the draft. 1 The entire social fabric has been strained by.military conscription, for in no other sphere of activity in our society do we permit such 1 The Report of the President's Com mission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force, Washington, D.C. 1970.

1974 THE HIGH COST OF THE DRAFT' 629 an arbitrary system of involun tary servitude. Another reason for anticipating lower manpower costs would be that volunteers are likely to have a substantially higher reenlist ment rate than draftees. Thus with an all-volunteer force there will be considerable savings in training costs as a result of the lower turnover rates. With a two year tour of duty involving six months of basic training and a couple of months of processing for discharge, the military actu ally receives very little benefit from draftees who do not reenlist. Finally, with manpower costs accurately· portrayed by the sal aries paid, the branches of the armed forces will have an incen tive to utilize men more efficiently. When all inductees, from college graduate to high school drop-out, are paid a token wage of $115 per month, and when an ample supply of men is guaranteed by con scription, there is virtually no incentive for the service to econ omize on the use of manpower.

Stories of highly skilled or edu cated draftees being sent off to do menial labor were common place in the "old army." With the mili tary paying the true cost of labor services there will be an incentive to allocate scarce labor resources to lines of activity for which they are most suited. It will also become worthwhile to substi tute nonhuman resources and civilian personnel for military manpower in those cases where such tasks can be performed more cheaply. When the cost to the army of an enlisted man is a nominal $115 per month, there is little reason to seek ways to econ omize on the use of this resource. The AII-Vo'unteerSystem Under Trial Largely on the basis of such arguments, the Congress was in duced to tryout the all-volunteer system. As of January, 1973, the armed forces have officially been attempting to fill their manpower needs without use of conscription. Higher salaries, more attractive lifestyles, and large promotional activities have been employed in the effort to attract volunteers.

After about one year of this sys tem, the all-volunteer army has come under attack from several influential military officials and congressmen. They cite several reasons why they believe the all volunteer army is bound to fail. Firstly, they bring up the old argument that it is just too ex pensive to support a two-million plus army on a voluntary basis. But we have seen that this argu ment is fallacious. Whatever sav ings the taxpayers realize is a burden imposed directly on the 630 THE FREEMAN October draftees. The issue is not concern ing a difference in total costs; it is rather over who incurs those costs. The critics of the all-volunteer system also contend that neither quality nor quantity quotas are being satisfied with present re cruitment programs; that a return to conscription is needed to ac quire the educational and skill backgrounds needed in today's army. This could be merely a problem of transition. Reenlist ment rates for draftees are under standably lower than those for volunteers. As we move towards an all-volunteer army, the overall reenlistment rate should rise as the proportion of draftees in the army from previous years is grad ually reduced. Once· transition is completed some of the quality and quantity deficiencies should be overcome through higher reenlist ment rates. It is also likely that salaries are still inadequate to attract the high caliber of person nel the army desires. A recruit today is paid $307 per month, and a sergeant with four years of ser vice makes about $450 plus $80 to $120 per month in housing bene fits. While this is a considerable improvement over wages of four years back, it is not hard to imagine that more attractive sal aries may need to be offered if skilled and educated men are to be attracted into a highly disci plined, often dangerous career.

The military pay bill which was to permit us to move towards an all-volunteer system did not pro vide for a level of pay which the President's Commission on an All-Volunteer Armed Force rec ommended. Compromises were made particularly at the expense of the new enlistees. Considering that this group received no pay increases between 1952 and 1965, we might expect that salary in creases will need to be somewhat more generous if we are to attract the caliber of personnel desired by our armed forces. Some also fear that the higher manpower costs will lead to cut backs in non-personnel defense expenditures. If this were to come about, it could only be a result of citizens and congressmen reacting to new information about the true cost of military activities to so ciety. If the only way in which citizens can be convinced to main tain an extravagant military is by hiding some of the costs behind the blanket of conscription, then it seems clear that too many re sources are in fact being allocated to military purposes.

Minority Control Finally, there is the fear that an all-volunteer army would be come dominated by blacks and 1974 THE HIGH COST OF THE DRAFT 631 other disadvantaged minority groups. It certainly is the case that economically disadvantaged groups will be attracted in dispro portionate numbers because of their relatively low alternative in come earning opportunities. Blacks have in fact accounted for 20 per cent of enlistments in recent months, while they comprise only 14 per cent of the service-age population. A disproportionate number of blacks in the armed forces mayor may not be an un desirable thing. Some would take the position that the army is in terested in particular skills and abilities, and the color of the body in which these attributes are housed should make little differ ence. What is objectionable about a disproportionate number of black enlistees is the underlying economic condition which this re flects. It is appropriate to try to deal with economic inequalities at the source, not to circumvent a result of these inequalities by im posing a new inequity, namely in voluntary servitude.

In conclusion, it is apparent that most of the objections to an all-volunteer force derive from the position that it is simply too ex pensive. This is, however, an illu sion. A reasonable measure of the social costs of a standing army obtained by any method is the value of the opportunities for gone. The social costs of a stand ing army of 2.2 million men is approximately equal to the in comes sacrificed when these men are taken from the civilian sector. A $5 billion savings to the tax payers in lower military pay as the result of conscription is merely a transfer from one group - the draftees - to another, namely the taxpayers. A less equitable system could hardly be imagined. f) IDEAS ON LIBERTY Equality vs. Liberty IT IS equality of freedom and independence that gives unto man his opportunity to be rich or poor or to be good or bad. Equality of men leaves no choice, because if all men are equal by nature or inherently there can be no differences and no distinctions. All have an equal right to stand at the judgment bars of God and man - but all are not entitled to the same judgment. Virtue and depravity are not entitled to the same rewards on earth or in Heaven.

R. CARTER PITTMAN LAW LEONARD E. READ VERSUS TYRANNY ACCORDING to Thomas Fuller, the 17th century Royalist historian and preacher: "Law governs man; reason the law." This doesn't seem right to me or, at least, seems con tradictory to Professor Lunden's observation about moral obliga tions. Does reason govern law? If so, reason would appear to be a low grade faculty, for there are as many varying conceptions of "law" as there are persons who use the term. Indeed, most of us use "law" loosely, meaning now this and then that. Were reason to govern, it would seem, at the very least, that we should have a sounder con ception of what law is than is now the case. In this context, what is law? Is ita body of legal edicts backed by force? Or a consciousness of moral obligations? Or, if some combina tion of the two, which takes prece632 dence? These and many other re lated questions need some careful reflection if reason is to govern.