effectively met. The younger, and more dangerous, of these hostile social
groupings have been kept under control by the Selective Service System.
This system and its analogues elsewhere furnish remarkably clear examples of
disguised military utility. Informed persons in this country have never accepted
the official rationale for a peacetime draft--military necessity, preparedness, etc.
--as worthy of serious consideration. But what has gained credence among
thoughtful men is the rarely voiced, less easily refuted, proposition that the
institution of military service has a "patriotic" priority in our society that must
be maintained for its own sake. Ironically, the simplistic official justification for
selective service comes closer to the mark, once the non-military functions of
military institutions are understood. As a control device over the hostile,
nihilistic, and potentially unsettling elements of a society in transition, the draft
can again be defended, and quite convincingly, as a "military" necessity.
Nor can it be considered a coincidence that overt military activity, and thus the
level of draft calls, tend to follow the major fluctuations in the unemployment
rate in the lower age groups. This rate, in turn, is a timetested herald of social
discontent. It must be noted also that the armed forces in every civilization have
provided the principal state-supported haven for what we now call the
"unemployable." The typical European standing army (of fifty years ago)
consisted of "...troops unfit for employment in commerce, industry, or
agriculture, led by officers unfit to practice any legitimate profession or to
conduct a business enterprise." This is still largely true, if less apparent. In a
sense, this function of the military as the custodian of the economically or
culturally deprived was the forerunner of most contemporary civilian social-
welfare programs, from the W.P.A. to various forms of "socialized" medicine
and social security. It is interesting that liberal sociologists currently proposing
to use the Selective Service System as a medium of cultural upgrading of the
poor consider this a novel application of military practice.
Although it cannot be said absolutely that such critical measures of social
control as the draft require a military rationale, no modern society has yet been
willing to risk experimentation with any other kind. Even during such periods of
comparatively simple social crisis as the so-called Great Depression of the
1930s, it was deemed prudent by the government to invest minor make-work
projects, like the "Civilian" Conservation Corps, with a military character, and
to place the more ambitious National Recovery Administration under the
direction of a professional army officer at its inception. Today, at least one
small Northern European country, plagued with uncontrollable unrest among its
"alienated youth," is considering the expansion of its armed forces, despite the
problem of making credible the expansion of a non-existent external threat.
groupings have been kept under control by the Selective Service System.
This system and its analogues elsewhere furnish remarkably clear examples of
disguised military utility. Informed persons in this country have never accepted
the official rationale for a peacetime draft--military necessity, preparedness, etc.
--as worthy of serious consideration. But what has gained credence among
thoughtful men is the rarely voiced, less easily refuted, proposition that the
institution of military service has a "patriotic" priority in our society that must
be maintained for its own sake. Ironically, the simplistic official justification for
selective service comes closer to the mark, once the non-military functions of
military institutions are understood. As a control device over the hostile,
nihilistic, and potentially unsettling elements of a society in transition, the draft
can again be defended, and quite convincingly, as a "military" necessity.
Nor can it be considered a coincidence that overt military activity, and thus the
level of draft calls, tend to follow the major fluctuations in the unemployment
rate in the lower age groups. This rate, in turn, is a timetested herald of social
discontent. It must be noted also that the armed forces in every civilization have
provided the principal state-supported haven for what we now call the
"unemployable." The typical European standing army (of fifty years ago)
consisted of "...troops unfit for employment in commerce, industry, or
agriculture, led by officers unfit to practice any legitimate profession or to
conduct a business enterprise." This is still largely true, if less apparent. In a
sense, this function of the military as the custodian of the economically or
culturally deprived was the forerunner of most contemporary civilian social-
welfare programs, from the W.P.A. to various forms of "socialized" medicine
and social security. It is interesting that liberal sociologists currently proposing
to use the Selective Service System as a medium of cultural upgrading of the
poor consider this a novel application of military practice.
Although it cannot be said absolutely that such critical measures of social
control as the draft require a military rationale, no modern society has yet been
willing to risk experimentation with any other kind. Even during such periods of
comparatively simple social crisis as the so-called Great Depression of the
1930s, it was deemed prudent by the government to invest minor make-work
projects, like the "Civilian" Conservation Corps, with a military character, and
to place the more ambitious National Recovery Administration under the
direction of a professional army officer at its inception. Today, at least one
small Northern European country, plagued with uncontrollable unrest among its
"alienated youth," is considering the expansion of its armed forces, despite the
problem of making credible the expansion of a non-existent external threat.
