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On Sat, Nov 6, 2010 at 4:09 PM, S. Artesian <sartes...@earthlink.net> wrote: > " The whole point is to not let the military be separated from the stress > and > strains of the class struggle that pervade the rest of society. That's one > reason, one big fat reason I think Marxists should be in favor of UNIVERSAL > military service, yes, conscription, for everyone-- gays, heteros, > confused, > whatever-- rather than "volunteer" armies in bourgeois countries." > The French socialist Jaures who was murdered in 1914 held similar views. You can find more on Jaures concept at the Marxist Internet Archives. If you make allowances for changes in technology his views aren't that off the wall. The universal conscription works if it's for a citizens militia, that is active duty time only enough time for training, which today would average 4 or 5 months except for some of the more technical specialties, followed by an extended time on reserve status with refresher training courses. Probably the best contemporary examples are the Swiss, Swedish and Finnish models. Even so, due to cut backs in the military since the end of the cold war, Switzerland and Sweden are inducting far less than the 60% of the manpower pool prior to 1990. There is debate in Sweden now about abandoning the historical citizens militia concept and going to an all volunteer force. A minority position to be sure. If universal conscription is for longer term service 2 to 4 years, then we're looking at something entireley different. The reason longer term service was initiated, especially by the Prussians, was to make the troops more amenable to following orders and more likely to fire on their own people, as oppossed to increasing competency. Even so, history shows that even for 2-4 year service, an army made up of a majority of conscripts is more likely to be won over by revolutionaries than an all volunteer force. One of the problems with the military draft in the US was that the active duty military and reserves only needed 32% of the available manpower pool every year prior to the Vietnam War. Even during the Vietnam War this increased only to 47%, still less than half. Mental and physical exemption in the US only amounted to around 30% of the manpower pool. > > > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Dan" <d.koech...@wanadoo.fr> > > > ________________________________________________ > Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu > Set your options at: > http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/kenmor1968%40gmail.com > ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
