Universal National Service

[Leftist Milk Hotel]

I was reading the book A More Perfect Constitution by Larry Sabato yesterday for my gov class. Some of his ideas are rather odd, but one idea about a universal national service seemed interesting. Basically, it would be a mandated service where young people would give two years of service to some public works project. they would be compensated for their work.

Is there any merit to this idea or does the idea of mandated labor seem too restrictive to personal liberty, too much like a state capitalist enterprise since the state here owns the means of production, and the laborer is paid a wage?

[Red_Banner]

I know I wouldn't go along with it.

[Creative Destruction]

I don't understand the value of what this would be. Why should young people be forced into this?

[Red Commissar]

As best as I understood this from a long time ago, this was a suggestion to the US system to better fund its college and loan services, and provide an alternative to military service for people who wanted to attend university. This goes off the old "there ain't such thing as a free lunch" that is very often repeated.

I don't really see how this would apply to socialism though. In such a society you shouldn't be obligated to do these things when it's already accessible to you, not having to go through workfare scheme which this seems to come down to.

[Leftist Milk Hotel]

Thanks for your guys' comments.

" In such a society you shouldn't be obligated to do these things when it's already accessible to you, not having to go through workfare scheme which this seems to come down to."

So, in other words, in a society where everyone has access to education, it makes no sense to have someone work to get access to it?

[Os Cangaceiros]

Education is going to be so widely disseminated and instantly accessible that it wouldn't make sense to "work for it", as in "work for access to it". The access will be everywhere. We're already starting to see that actually, in today's era, with many top-tier universities and lecturers releasing entire courses online for free.

[Creative Destruction]

Education is going to be so widely disseminated and instantly accessible that it wouldn't make sense to "work for it", as in "work for access to it". The access will be everywhere. We're already starting to see that actually, in today's era, with many top-tier universities and lecturers releasing entire courses online for free.

That's kind of spurious regarding what education means in our current society. The MOOC phenomenon isn't a good example of what people mean by free access to education. That's essentially auditing a course. In a society, though, that is driven for the need for credentials to get further in life, they're practically meaningless other than for self-gratification. "Education" also means a lot more than just taking a course through your computer. There's a socializing aspect to it. Being there to soak up facts and not have anyone around you to assimilate those facts with makes the education experience pretty damn meaningless.

For the kind of education that people need, there should be free access to it: in that the government should directly fund universities and abolish tuition. Getting back to the main discussion, I'm not sure why we need to force youth to do work for this, since they're already doing the work of learning and making themselves into more well-rounded human beings. That is work enough. That is enough of a public service at that point in their lives.

[Os Cangaceiros]

That's kind of spurious regarding what education means in our current society. The MOOC phenomenon isn't a good example of what people mean by free access to education. That's essentially auditing a course. In a society, though, that is driven for the need for credentials to get further in life, they're practically meaningless other than for self-gratification. "Education" also means a lot more than just taking a course through your computer. There's a socializing aspect to it. Being there to soak up facts and not have anyone around you to assimilate those facts with makes the education experience pretty damn meaningless.

For the kind of education that people need, there should be free access to it: in that the government should directly fund universities and abolish tuition. Getting back to the main discussion, I'm not sure why we need to force youth to do work for this, since they're already doing the work of learning and making themselves into more well-rounded human beings. That is work enough. That is enough of a public service at that point in their lives.

Yes, in today's society. What I'm saying is that the infrastructure has been developed which makes access to any facet of human knowledge attainable instantly, and in a world where an incredible amount of knowledge is basically free if you have access to a computer and an internet connection, then when you factor in a world geared more towards production and consumption rather than profit, that seems like a highly educated world (at least there'd be that, anyway).

Higher education is actually a relative late-comer to this whole phenomenon, but higher education is an industry after all...

As far as autodidactic learning goes, there are some problems associated with that but overall I'd say the future is a lot brighter for education due to technological advancement, much better.

[tachosomoza]

So, in other words, in a society where everyone has access to education, it makes no sense to have someone work to get access to it?

No, because free public education from Kindergarten to University ought to be a right and an entitlement, not a privilege earned through impressment into some national labor corps.

[argeiphontes]

A labor corp would never be enacted by Congress because it would decrease the reserve army of unemployed and increase wage pressure. Business would be against it.