An alternative to military conscription | War against nature, not people | What work could look like as technology advances
the-moral-equivalent-of-war — conscript youth into hard civilian labor (mines, construction, fishing fleets) instead of military service. “Army enlisted against nature.” Preserve discipline and collective purpose without the killing.
James frames this as character-building for soft rich kids. But really he’s just pitchign communism: Universal labor obligation, fair distribution of socially necessary work, dignity through contribution to the collective.
Temporary rotation through the coal mines, then back to normal life (which under communism is increasingly “just” “leisure” 1).
He just doesn’t touch property relations or the free market, which makes this whole idea utopian.Everyone does periods2 of necessary work. Then you’re fully covered (house, health, education, food, …). Periods might be a few months in the year. Might be every few years… might be like conscription (e.g. after this necessary work doesn’t really exist anymore, but we do the conscription thingy for the social benefits – or maybe some “unpleasant” 3 jobs that humans have to do will never fully go away (care work).
The amount naturally shrinks as automation covers more.
Pair it with a revolution in our education system: learning and working should not be separate life phases
Footnotes
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You can totally “do a startup”, independent research, whatever the fuck. Just that it won’t be for profit / have incentives to pump you full of corn syrup. But how willl I raise money for big projects??? Simple, as with the rest of the economy collective resources are democratically allocated. You convince the people on the free market of ideas! And better not fool them, because people have actual control over their tax dollars now. ↩
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Perhaps batched periods (x months a year, x years in your life), perhaps that’s not rlly efficient, perhaps it should be continual, with a ramp-on/off, perhaps you should have options for how you schedule it… ↩
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Unpleasant and unfullfilling under current working and living conditions and alienation. Also, interest is socially constructed – as James says, civic pride and shame can be cultivated to the same intensity as military pride and shame, given time and propaganda. ↩