Ending the draft in America: the coevolution of military manpower and the capitalist state, 1948-1973

摘要

This paper explores the abandonment of the military draft in the United States and the ideological forces that brought about its end in 1973. It argues that the system of raising military labour is deeply embedded in the prevailing political economy of a society. To develop this point, the paper analyses the United States from 1948 to 1973, a period corresponding with the lifespan of the Selective Service regime and the approximate duration of the post-war welfare state. In this time, the draft was about much more than staffing a military for national defence. It was engineered by presidents and policymakers to support the objectives of the welfare state. Taking Bob Jessop's conceptualization, the American draft reflects the statist and welfarist orientation of American capitalism during this period. It was a deeply statist enterprise hinging upon the coercive power of the state to compel men into military service. This state-directed, centralized act of compulsion was also used to achieve goals like alleviating poverty, remediating social inequality, and building better citizens. Neoliberal critics assailed this logic with many of the same arguments that were levelled against the welfare state more broadly. Their solution - the all-volunteer force (AVF) - represented a viable alternative to a system in crisis by the late 1960s. The final transition to the AVF signalled a change in military policy but was also symptomatic of a shift in the broader American political economy from post-war welfare statism to neoliberalism.