0:17 when we ended last
0:20 time we were discussing lock's idea of
0:21 government by
0:25 consent and the question arose what are
0:29 the limits on government that even the
0:32 agreement of the majority can't
0:48 rights that on locks
0:50 view a democratically elected government
0:58 It has to be taxation with consent
1:00 because it does involve the taking of
1:03 people's property for the common
1:06 good. But it doesn't require the consent
1:08 of each
1:11 individual at the time the tax is
1:14 enacted or collected.
1:20 require is a prior act of
1:24 consent to join the society to take on
1:29 obligation. But once you take on that
1:33 obligation, you agree to be bound by the
1:35 majority. So much for
1:39 taxation. But what you may ask
1:43 about the right to life? Can the
1:45 government conscript people and send
1:46 them into
1:50 battle? What about the idea that we own
1:52 ourselves? Isn't the idea of
1:55 self-possession violated if the
1:57 government can through coercive
1:59 legislation and enforcement
2:04 powers say you must go risk your life to
2:05 fight in
2:07 Iraq? What would Lot say? Does the
2:09 government have the right to do
2:12 that? Yes.
2:16 In fact, he says in
2:18 139 he
2:20 says what
2:23 matters is that the political
2:26 authority or the military
2:29 authority not be arbitrary. That's what
2:32 matters. And he gives a wonderful
2:35 example. He says a a sergeant, even a
2:38 sergeant, let alone a general, a
2:40 sergeant can command a
2:50 cannon where he is almost sure to
2:58 do. The general can condemn the soldier
3:01 to death for deserting his post or for
3:05 not obeying even a a desperate
3:07 order. But with all their power over
3:10 life and death, what these officers
3:13 can't do is take a penny of that soldier's
3:21 money because that has nothing to do
3:23 with the rightful authority. That would
3:26 be arbitrary and it would be corrupt.
3:29 So consent winds up being very powerful
3:31 in lock. Not consent of the individual
3:34 to the particular tax or military order
3:36 but consent to join the government and
3:39 to be bound by the majority in the first place.
3:40 place.
3:43 That's the consent that
3:47 matters. And it matters so
3:49 powerfully that even the limited
3:51 government created by the fact that we
3:53 have an unalienable right to life,
3:55 liberty, and
3:57 property. Even that limited government
3:59 is only limited in the sense that it has
4:02 to govern by generally applicable laws.
4:05 The rule of law, it can't be arbitrary.
4:11 Well, this raises a question about
4:14 consent. Why is consent such a powerful
4:18 moral instrument in creating political
4:28 obey? Today we begin to investigate the
4:29 question of
4:32 consent by looking at a concrete
4:36 case, the case of military conscription.
4:37 Now, some people
4:41 say if we have a fundamental
4:45 right that arises from the idea that we own
4:46 own
4:49 ourselves, it's a violation of that
4:53 right for a government to conscript
5:00 wars. Others disagree. Others say that's
5:04 a legitimate power of government of
5:06 democratically elected governments
5:15 obey. Let's take the case of the the
5:20 United States fighting a war in Iraq.
5:24 News accounts tell us that the military
5:27 is having great difficulty meeting its
5:31 recruitment targets. Consider three
5:34 policies that
5:37 the US government might undertake to
5:39 deal with the fact that it's not
5:43 achieving its recruiting targets.
5:45 Solution number
5:49 one, increase the pay and benefits to
5:52 attract a sufficient number of
5:56 soldiers. Option number
6:00 two, shift to a system of military
6:02 conscription, have a
6:07 lottery, and whoseever numbers are
6:15 System number three,
6:17 three, outsource.
6:19 outsource.
6:23 Hire what traditionally have been called
6:26 mercenaries. People around the world who
6:28 are qualified, able to do the work, able
6:31 to fight well, and who are willing to do
6:33 it for the existing
6:38 wage? So, let's take a quick poll here.
6:47 pay? Huge majority. How many favor going to
6:52 conscription? One.
6:55 Two. All right. Maybe a dozen people in
6:57 the room favor
7:07 solution? Okay. So there maybe uh about
7:14 dozen. During the civil
7:17 war, the union
7:18 union
7:20 used a
7:24 combination of conscription and the market
7:25 market
7:28 system to fill the ranks of the military
7:31 to fight in the civil war.
7:34 It was a system that began with conscription,
7:36 conscription,
7:41 but if you were drafted and didn't want
7:43 to serve, you could hire a substitute to
7:50 place. And many people
7:54 did. You could pay whatever the
7:56 market required in order to find a
8:00 substitute. People ran ads in newspapers
8:03 in the classified ads offering
8:05 offering
8:11 $1,000 for a substitute who would go
8:15 fight the Civil War in their place.
8:18 In fact, it's reported that Andrew
8:21 Carnegi was drafted and hired a
8:23 substitute to take his
8:26 place for an
8:29 amount that was a little less than the
8:38 cigars. Now, I want to get your views
8:40 about the Civil War system. Call it the
8:43 hybrid system. conscription but with a buyout
8:45 buyout
8:48 provision. How many think it was a just
8:50 system? How many would defend the civil war
8:57 system? Anybody? One. Anybody else? Two.
9:03 Three. Four. Five. How many think it was
9:05 unjust? Most of you don't like the Civil
9:08 War system. You think it's unjust. Let's
9:11 hear an objection.
9:12 Why don't you like it? What's wrong with it?
9:20 Yes.
9:24 Well, by paying $300 for uh to be exempt
9:26 one time around, you're really putting a
9:30 price on the uh on valuing human life.
9:31 And we established earlier that's really
9:33 hard to do. So, they're trying to
9:35 accomplish something that really isn't feasible.
9:37 feasible.
9:41 Good. So, so paying someone 300 or $500
9:44 or $1,000, you're basically saying
9:45 that's what their life is worth to you.
9:47 That's what their life is worth. It's
9:49 putting a dollar value on life. That's
9:53 good. And what's your name? Liz. Liz.
9:57 U Well, who has an answer for Liz? You
9:59 defended the civil war system. What do
10:01 you say? If you don't like the price,
10:05 then you have the freedom to not be sold
10:08 or hired. So, it's completely up to you
10:09 and I don't think it's necessarily
10:13 putting a specific price on you. And if
10:16 it's done by himself, I don't think
10:18 there's anything necessarily morally
10:20 wrong with that. So, the person who
10:23 takes the $500, let's
10:28 say, he's putting his own price on his
10:32 life or on the risk of his life, right?
10:34 And he should have the freedom to choose
10:36 to do that. Exactly.
10:39 What's your name? Jason. Jason, thank
10:41 you. Now, we need to hear from another
10:44 critic of the Civil War system.
10:47 Yes. It's a kind of coercion almost to
10:50 people who have lower incomes. Um, for
10:52 Carnegie, he can totally ignore the
10:55 draft. $300 is, you know, irrelevant in
10:57 terms of his income. someone of a lower
10:59 income, they're essentially being
11:03 coerced to draft to be drafted or um I
11:05 mean it's probably they're not able to
11:07 find a replacement or Tell me your name.
11:11 Sam. Sam. All right. So you say Sam
11:16 that when a when a poor laborer buys his
11:19 accepts $300 to fight in the civil
11:23 war, he is in effect being
11:27 coerced by that money given his economic
11:29 circumstances. Whereas Carnegie can go
11:34 off, pay the money and and not serve.
11:36 All right, I want to hear if someone has
11:38 a reply to Sam's
11:39 Sam's
11:42 argument that what looks like a free
11:47 exchange is actually
11:51 coercive. Who has an answer to to Sam?
11:54 Go ahead. I'd actually agree with him in
11:55 saying that. You agree with Sam? I agree
11:58 with him in saying that it is coercion
12:01 in in the sense that it robs individual
12:04 of his ability to reason properly. Okay.
12:06 And what's your name? Raul. All right.
12:10 So Raul and Sam agree that what looks
12:12 like a free exchange, free choice,
12:16 voluntary act is actually co it involves
12:18 coercion. It's profound coercion of the
12:20 worst kind because it falls so
12:23 disproportionately upon one segment of
12:26 the society. Good. All right. So, Raul
12:29 and Sam have made a powerful point. Who
12:30 would like to
12:34 reply? Who has an answer for Sam and and
12:36 Raul? Go
12:38 ahead. Uh, I just I don't think that
12:39 these drafting systems are really
12:41 terribly different from, you know, all
12:43 volunteer army sort of recruiting
12:47 strategies. Um, the whole idea of, you
12:48 know, having benefits and pay for
12:50 joining the army is, you know, sort of a
12:53 coercive strategy to get people to, um,
12:56 join. Um it is true that military
12:58 volunteers come from disproportionately
13:01 you know lower economic um status and
13:03 also you know from certain regions of
13:05 the country where you can use like the
13:07 patriotism to try and coers people to
13:08 feel like it's the right thing to do to
13:10 volunteer and go over to Iraq. You're
13:12 and tell me your name. Emily. All right. Emily
13:15 Emily
13:17 says and Raul you're going to have to
13:20 reply to this so get ready. Emily
13:22 Emily
13:25 says, "Fair enough. There is a coercive
13:29 element to the civil war system when the
13:31 laborer takes the place of Andrew
13:32 Carnegie for
13:36 $500." Emily concedes that. But she
13:39 says, "If that troubles you about the
13:42 Civil War system, shouldn't that also trouble
13:43 trouble
13:48 you about the Volunteer Army today?"
13:51 And let me and be before you answer, how
13:53 did you vote on the first poll? Did you
13:55 defend the volunteer army? I didn't
13:58 vote. You didn't vote.
14:01 No. By the way, you didn't vote. Did you
14:03 sell your vote to the person sitting
14:06 next to you? No. All
14:08 right. So, what would you say to that
14:11 argument? I think that the circumstances
14:12 are different in
14:16 that there was cons
14:19 conscription in the Civil War. There is
14:22 no draft today. And I think that the
14:25 volunteers for the army today have a
14:27 more profound sense of patriotism that
14:30 is of an individual choice than those
14:33 who were forced into the military in the
14:36 Civil War. Somehow less coerced. Less
14:37 coerced. Even though there is still
14:39 inequality in American society, even
14:42 though as Emily points out, yeah,
14:45 the makeup of the American military is
14:48 not reflective of the population as a
14:50 whole. Let's just do an experiment here.
14:52 How many here
14:56 um have either served in the military or
14:58 have a family member who has served in
15:01 the military in this generation? Not
15:03 parents, family members in this generation.
15:04 generation.
15:07 And how many have neither served nor
15:15 served? Does that bear out your point, Emily?
15:17 Emily? Yes.
15:19 Yes.
15:22 All right. Now, we need we need to hear
15:27 from most of you defended the idea of the
15:28 the
15:36 overwhelmingly. And yet overwhelmingly
15:40 people considered the civil war system
15:45 unjust. Sam and Raul articulated reasons
15:48 for objecting to the civil war system.
15:50 It took place against a background of
15:52 inequality and therefore the choices
15:54 people made to buy their way into
15:58 military service were not truly free but
16:01 at least partly coerced.
16:04 Then Emily extends that argument in the
16:07 form of a challenge. All right. Everyone
16:10 here who voted in favor of the all volunteer
16:11 volunteer
16:14 army should be
16:17 able should have to explain well what's
16:19 the difference in principle? Doesn't the
16:20 all volunteer ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar
16:21 ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar ar
16:23 ar ar ar ar ar army simply
16:25 universalize the feature that almost
16:27 everyone found
16:29 objectionable in the civil war buyout
16:31 provision. Did I state the challenge
16:35 fairly, Emily? Yes. Okay. So, we need to
16:38 hear from a defender of the all
16:40 volunteer military who can address
16:44 Emily's challenge. Who can do
16:46 that? Go ahead.
16:48 The difference between the the civil war
16:50 system and the all volunteer army system
16:52 is that in the civil war you're being
16:54 hired not by the government but by an
16:57 individual and and as a result different
16:58 people who get hired by different
17:00 individuals get paid different amounts.
17:02 In the case of the all volunteer army
17:04 everyone who gets hired is hired by the
17:05 government and gets paid the same
17:07 amount. It's precisely the
17:10 universalization of uh essentially
17:12 paying your service. you're paying your
17:13 way into the army. That makes the all
17:17 volunteer army just. Emily,
17:20 Emily,
17:21 I guess I'd frame the principal
17:23 difference slightly differently. Um, on
17:25 the all volunteer army, it's possible
17:27 for somebody to just, you know, step
17:29 aside and not really think about, you
17:30 know, the war at all. It's possible to
17:33 say, well, I I don't need the money, you
17:34 know, I I don't need to have an opinion
17:36 about this. I don't need to, you know,
17:38 feel obligated to take my part and
17:40 defend my country. with a coercive
17:42 system or or sorry with an explicit
17:44 draft then you know there's the threat
17:46 at least that every individual will have
17:48 to make some sort of decision you know
17:50 regarding military conscription and you
17:51 know perhaps in that way it's more
17:54 equitable you know it's it's true that
17:56 you know Andrew Carnegie might not serve
17:58 in any case but in one you know he can
18:00 completely step aside from it and the
18:01 other there's some level of responsibility
18:03 responsibility
18:05 while you're there Emily so what system
18:09 do you favor conscription
18:11 I I would be hardressed to say, but I
18:12 think so because it makes the whole
18:14 country feel a sense of responsibility
18:16 for the conflict instead of, you know,
18:17 having a war that's maybe ideologically
18:19 supported by a few, but only if there's
18:23 no, you know, real responsibility.
18:27 Good. Who wants to reply? Go ahead. Um,
18:28 so I was just going to say that the
18:30 fundamental difference between the all
18:32 volunteer army and then the the army in
18:34 the civil war is that in the all
18:36 volunteer army, if you want to
18:38 volunteer, that comes first and then the
18:42 pay is um comes after. Whereas in the
18:44 civil war system, the people who are
18:47 volunt who who are accepting the pay
18:49 aren't necessarily doing it because they
18:50 want to. They're just doing it for the
18:53 money first. What motivation beyond the
18:56 pay do you think is operating in the
18:59 case of the all volunteer army like
19:02 patriotism for the country?
19:04 Patriotism. Well, what about and a
19:06 desire to defend the country? I mean
19:09 there is there is some motivation in pay
19:12 but the fact that that it's first and
19:14 foremost an all volunteer army will
19:17 motivate them for I think personally. Do
19:18 you think it's better and tell me your
19:20 name? Jackie. Jackie, do you think it's
19:22 better if people serve in the military
19:25 out of a sense of patriotism than just
19:27 for the money? Yes, definitely. Because
19:30 the people who that was one of the main
19:31 problems in the Civil War army is that
19:33 the people that you're getting to go in
19:36 it uh or to go to war aren't necessarily
19:37 people who want to fight and so they
19:39 won't be as good soldiers as they will
19:40 be had they been there because they
19:43 wanted to be.
19:44 All right. What about
19:47 Jackie's having raised the question of
19:49 patriotism? that patriotism is a better
19:52 or a higher motivation than money for
19:56 military service. Who who would like to
19:59 address that
20:01 question? Go ahead. Patriotism
20:04 absolutely is not necessary in order to
20:06 be a good soldier because mercenaries
20:09 can do just as good of a job of the job
20:12 as anyone who waves the American flag
20:13 around and wants
20:16 to defend what the government believes
20:17 that we should
20:21 do. Did you favor the outsourcing
20:28 sir. And all right, so let Jackie let
20:30 Jackie respond. What's your name?
20:33 Phillip, what about that? Jackie, so
20:35 much for patriotism. If you've got
20:37 someone whose heart is in it more than
20:39 more than another person's, they're
20:41 going to do a better job. When it comes
20:43 down to the wire and there's like a
20:46 situation in which someone has to put
20:49 their life on the line, someone who's
20:51 doing it because they love this country
20:53 will be more willing to go into danger
20:55 than someone who's just getting paid.
20:56 They don't care. They've got the
20:58 technical skills, but they don't care
21:00 what happens because they really have
21:03 they have nothing like nothing invested
21:05 in this country. There's another aspect
21:07 though once once we get on to the issue of
21:09 of
21:12 patriotism. If you believe patriotism,
21:14 as Jackie does, should be the foremost
21:17 consideration and not money, does that
21:20 argue for or against the paid army we
21:23 have now? We call it the volunteer army.
21:26 Though if you think about it, that's a
21:28 kind of misnomer. A volunteer army is,
21:32 as we use the term, is a paid army. So
21:34 what about the suggestion that
21:37 patriotism should be the primary
21:40 motivation for military service, not
21:43 money? Does that argue in
21:46 favor of the paid military that we have,
21:48 or does it
21:49 argue for
21:52 conscription? And just to sharpen that
21:59 outsourcing, if you
22:02 think that the all volunteer army, the
22:06 paid army is best because it lets the
22:09 market allocate positions according to
22:11 people's preferences and willing
22:14 willingness to serve for a certain wage.
22:19 Doesn't the logic that takes you from a
22:20 system of
22:22 conscription to the hybrid civil war
22:25 system to the all volunteer
22:28 army? Doesn't the the idea of expanding
22:32 freedom of choice in the market? Doesn't
22:35 that lead you all the way if you follow
22:37 that principle
22:45 army? And then if you say no, Jackie
22:46 says no.
22:55 something. Doesn't that argue for going
22:57 back to conscription? If by patriotism
23:05 obligation, let's let's see if we can
23:08 step back from the discussion that we've
23:11 had and see what we've learned
23:13 learned about
23:15 about
23:18 consent as it applies to market exchange.
23:25 We've really heard two
23:28 arguments, two arguments
23:31 against the use of
23:38 exchange in the allocation of military
23:46 raised by Sam and Raul, the argument
23:51 the
23:55 objection that letting the market
23:57 allocate military
24:00 service may be unfair and may not even be
24:01 be
24:05 free if there's severe inequality in the
24:09 society. So that people who buy their
24:11 way into military
24:15 service are doing so not because they
24:18 really want
24:21 to, but because they have so few
24:23 economic opportunities that that's their
24:27 that's their best choice. And Sam and
24:29 Rubble say there's an element of
24:30 coercion in
24:35 that. That's one argument.
24:37 Then there is a second objection to
24:45 service. That's the idea that military
24:47 service shouldn't be treated as just
24:50 another job for pay because it's bound
24:54 up with patriotism and civic obligation.
24:56 This is a different argument from the
24:59 argument about unfairness and inequality
25:02 and coercion.
25:04 It's an argument that suggests that
25:12 concerned, we shouldn't
25:14 allocate duties and
25:18 rights by the
25:23 market. Now, we've identified two broad
25:25 objections. What do we need to know to
25:28 assess those objections? to assess the
25:31 first the argument from coercion,
25:34 inequality and unfairness.
25:36 Sam, we need
25:39 to ask what inequalities in the
25:42 background conditions of society
25:46 undermine the freedom of choices people
25:53 labor. Question number one. Question
25:55 number two, to assess the civic obligation
25:56 obligation
26:00 patriotism argument, we have to ask what
26:03 are the obligations of
26:06 citizenship? Is military service one of
26:07 them or
26:11 not? What obligates us as citizens? What
26:13 is the source of political
26:16 obligation? Is it
26:18 consent? Or are there some civic
26:21 obligations we
26:23 have even without
26:26 consent for living and sharing in a
26:30 certain kind of society? We haven't
26:32 answered either of those questions, but
26:35 our debate today about the civil war
26:37 system and the all volunteer army has at
26:39 least raised them. And those are
26:41 questions we're going to return to in
