Serve the Servants

Via Nicholas Beaudrot and Jonathan Singer comes Chris Dodd's ambitious plan for national service. These things seem to me to invariably founder on certain conceptual confusions and Dodd's plan is no exception.

The basic animating insight of national service is that, from a liberal point of view, mass conscription as practiced in World War II had certain kinds of benefits -- building social solidarity by throwing men from all regions and walks of life together. But, of course, absolutely nobody thinks we need a military as big as the one that would be generated by a program of WWII-scale conscription and the officer's corps doesn't want the sort of under-motivated, under-trained military that would result from replacing their cadre of professionals with a mass of conscripts. Thus, one adds the idea of drastically expanding the array of vocations that will count as service. Here, however, the idea of conscription seems bizarre. Military conscription is the sort of thing that might be justified by Michael Walzer's "supreme emergency" doctrine but you'd need genuine peril to the nation's existence. Otherwise you're just talking about slavery -- corvée -- and you have to think that conscript third grade teachers would do a terrible job anyway.

At this point you get to where Dodd is: National service that isn't universal and isn't mandatory, but instead consists of expanding already existing programs like the Peace Corps and AmeriCorps that pay people money in exchange for performing certain public functions. There's nothing wrong, generically, with such programs but they really need to be looked at one-by-one on the merits primarily through the lens of whether or not they're cost-effective methods of achieving the public purpose in question. Does appropriating more money to the Peace Corps make sense as a development strategy, or would it be better to boost funding for the Millenium Challenge Corporation or the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria.

At this point, though, we're well beyond evaluating "national service" and down to the nitty-gritty of evaluating specific program effectiveness. It's often the case that you can recruit small numbers of young people to do public-oriented work at sub-market prices -- e.g., Teach for America or essentially all left-of-center non-profits in DC -- but it seems unlikely that one could scale these things up substantially without seeing costs explode or the programs become totally ineffective.

Photo courtesy of IowaPolitics.com used under a Creative Commons license

Comments

Sorry, Matt, but the pittance paid to junior employees in politically-oriented nonprofits is actually above market. Those organizations have more applicants than they can employ--clearly there is Keynesian unemployment going on. Perhaps commitment to doing good works drives down the wages that junior liberal nonprofit labor demands, but don't delude yourself into thinking a market would pay you or your young friends more.

Posted by Marshall | June 25, 2007 10:38 AM

You want to know how to make this easy and kill two birds with one stone? Offer federal college debt forgiveness for service, one year for one year. The gov't can write off the Stafford loans, the students lose some debt and the country gets some below-market help for at least a year from the college educated. Throw in a minimum wage, which when coupled with debt forgiveness, makes the total package MUCH more appealing.

Posted by Karl | June 25, 2007 10:42 AM

Perhaps commitment to doing good works drives down the wages that junior liberal nonprofit labor demands, but don't delude yourself into thinking a market would pay you or your young friends more.

For the record, I'm currently employed by two non-political for-profit businesses.

That said, yes, what I meant is something like "commitment to doing good works" drives the salaries down below what people with comparable educational attainment get paid to take entry-level jobs at for-profit firms.

Posted by Matthew Yglesias | June 25, 2007 10:46 AM

Hmm. You're in favor of single-payer health care, which essentially makes "slaves" out of doctors, since they are no longer free to set their own fees, but when it comes to making "slaves" out of your own age group, you go all libertarian on us. Which is it? I notice the same phenomenon when you talked about the guy who was outsourcing the reporters for his local news web site to people in India. You're all for immigration taking away jobs from software workers like me, but when it comes to outsourcing journalism, it's a terrible thing.

Posted by Dave Todd | June 25, 2007 11:09 AM

Devastating critique (as usual). I would add that expanding americorps and the peace corps would hurt NGOs who are competing for the scarce resource of people willing to work for below market wages for a good cause. One has to ask not only if the money might be more effectively spend, but also if the well meaning workers might do something even more useful with their precious time abilities and good will.

Posted by Robert Waldmann | June 25, 2007 11:13 AM

You're in favor of single-payer health care, which essentially makes "slaves" out of doctors, since they are no longer free to set their own fees...

Oh my God. You're right! Forcing medical doctors to charge bulk-negotiated fees to a single payer, instead of charging fees negotiated by several different insurance providers, is exactly like chattel slavery! How could I not have seen this before?

I've seen the light now! Objectivist Society, here I come!

Posted by LaFollette Progressive | June 25, 2007 11:15 AM

"Does appropriating more money to the Peace Corps make sense as a development strategy, or would it be better to boost funding for the Millenium Challenge Corporation or the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis, and Malaria."

Giving taxpayer money to fight AIDS or malaria does not help the individual U.S. citizen nearly as much as two years in the Peace Corps. A "development strategy" is not the only reason for a Peace Corps and the idea of national service.

Besides, we will always have Bill Gates.

Posted by Hedley Lamarr | June 25, 2007 11:40 AM

One foundational problem I have with "universal national service for the young" is why it is limited to the young? Stuff that is hard physical labor makes sense to limit to the young and fit -- soldiering, say. But why not make middle aged computer programmers work for a pittance doing software development for government systems, for example? Or make middle aged politicians go do something they are good at for free for while? Do we not do that just because it might disrupt their lives? What about a young draftee who says "this disrupts my life"? That's not an acceptable excuse, apparently, to the older advocates of national service.

Me? I'm a middle aged middle class suburbanite computer programmer. Waiting for my callup to do JDAM software coding.

Posted by Robert the Red | June 25, 2007 11:49 AM

Perhaps an under-motivated, under-trained army of the sort that would result from conscription is exactly what this country needs.

Posted by John | June 25, 2007 11:53 AM

Robert the Red - it's certainly fair to say that, on average, 20 year olds tend not to have established lives that might be disrupted.

Posted by John | June 25, 2007 11:54 AM

I think this proposal is more about garnering publicity for Senator Dodd's foundering presidential campaign than a serious programmatic proposal.

These types of proposals remind me of the experiences recounted by a friend who was a barefoot doctor in Mongolia during the cultural revolution. His view is that he and his colleagues undoubtedly did some good for the more primitive people they treated who had no concept of hygiene or "modern" medicine. Amongpother things they taught some of these to read. But that overall it was a pretty ridiculous and inefficient/ineffective substitute for a standard wasteful bureaucratic government agency staffed by unmotivated people who had a clue about what they were doing.

I favor a draft, if only to get my slacker malinger children out of my home (whether to Canada or into the Navy in order to avoid Iraq). My major reservation is that it might further enable the war criminals we have heading our government to commit even more crimes.

Posted by Gene | June 25, 2007 12:26 PM

Re: You're in favor of single-payer health care, which essentially makes "slaves" out of doctors, since they are no longer free to set their own fees

No one is "free" to set his own wages. Everyone of course is free to ask whatever he wants, but whether he gets what he asks for is another matter-- and if he doesn't that does not mean he is a slave. Good grief.

Posted by JonF | June 25, 2007 12:36 PM

"20 year olds tend not to have established lives that might be disrupted."

I know kids who gave up their Korean and Israeli citizenships (not the same people) to avoid being drafted because they felt that they had rather established college lives and didn't feel like being sent off to Iraq (which is what happened for two years to one Korean friend of mine) or the West Bank. Forcing a bunch of college-aged kids to go off and work for the government somewhere doing something they might not particularly enjoy doesn't seem like a good way to instill trust in government or to ensure that it runs smoothly, but it is a good way to make sure they won't vote for people like Chris Dodd.

Posted by Reality Man | June 25, 2007 2:04 PM

Dave Todd, I want you to pay me $50 for writing this post. If you don't, you are a slave-driver terrorist-lover commie and I'll go Nat Turner on your ass.

Posted by Reality Man | June 25, 2007 2:08 PM

Misconceptions about single payer

Single payer can and should be implemented without the prices it pays for medical services being determined by govt fiat. That system essentially makes providers govt employees, and would more acccurately be described as a national health service than a single payer, national health insurance.

Just because you have only a single payer doesn't mean you have no market. And the national health insurance's monopsony postion wouldn't even give it any power to get prices below what providers need to survive and profit. The single payer would be obligated to pay for all needed services, therefore the market price could fall no lower than that needed to keep sufficient capacity for medical services in business.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | June 25, 2007 2:26 PM

National service and education

We should have national service only insofar as we have useful work for the nation's HS grads that would also be a vital part of their education.

Military service arguably fits the bill, but there are two problems. We don't need armed forces nearly large enough to require the participation of more than a tiny fraction of graduating HS seniors, so there wouldn't be room for many without turning this service into make-work. Much worse, we, as a nation, haven't taken care to keep the military doing solely legitimate military work, fighting and training to fight the armed forces of other countries, but have instead sent it to fight the peoples of occupied countries. Participation in genocide is corrupting, not educational.

Medical service would probably work better for mass participation. I see a place for plenty of HS grads providing supportive care, roughly at the LPN level. Their contribution should be used to maximize home care, rather than institutionalized care, of the mostly elderly sick.

At any rate, we may well not need all HS graduates. But we might well need a more select group, those who want to go to college. National service could be made a pre-requisite for college admission, by way of denying eligibility for govt funding (both of the student and the college, to keep the rich from bypassing the need to serve) to those who don't want to serve. From those to whom much is given, much is expected.

Posted by Glen Tomkins | June 25, 2007 2:45 PM

... you have to think that conscript third grade teachers would do a terrible job anyway.

Such judgments fly in the face of our cinematic heritage. You will recall it was Cpt. John H. Miller (formerly of Thomas Alva Edison High School) who led the successful search and rescue to Save Private Ryan.

Teachers know how to make compasses and stuff (should the GPS, you know, go haywire).

Posted by sangfroid826 | June 25, 2007 4:11 PM

There are quite a few kids from the bottom of society that would really like to join the military for the discipline and organization it pounds into young people. But, when (hopefully) we get back to not fighting stupid wars, the military will go back to its policy of not accepting recruits below the 30th percentile in IQ on its AFQT entrance exam. Low IQs and high tech weaponry aren't a good combination.

So, perhaps we need some kind of voluntary Army Lite, perhaps a revival of New Deal Civilian Conservation Corps, with basic training, uniforms, military discipline, and outdoor labor, but no guns that would be open to kids in the 10th to 30th IQ percentiles.

Posted by Steve Sailer | June 25, 2007 6:26 PM

I like the idea of national service as an entry requirement for college. Not only would it benefit the nation through the service, it would also improve the college experience. Rather than green 18-year-olds away from home for the first time you would have slightly experienced 20-year-olds ready to study.

Another approach would be to extend high school by two years, making the last two years the service stint. Then everyone aiming for a HS diploma would serve and the entry-level employers would benefit along with the colleges.

Posted by Rob Johnston | June 25, 2007 11:19 PM

Also posted at Klein's:

Let the retirees do it. Retirement ages haven't shifted upwards to track longer life expectancy and better general health, so industrialized nations have an unprecedentedly large and healthy pool of mostly-idle 65-year-olds. High-school graduates should be getting educated and getting jobs. What are the retirees going to do otherwise? Go golfing? This'll give them a sense of purpose in life. True, they couldn't dig big holes in the ground with the same alacrity as a 19-year-old, but that's why we have excavators.

Get out there and plant some damn trees, Grandad, or no Social Security for you.

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Posted by ajay | June 26, 2007 8:09 AM