Ahead of the upcoming parliamentary elections, Korea’s political parties are scrambling to appeal to every last constituency. The latest bit of electoral pandering comes courtesy of Representative Nam Kyung-pil of the newly rebranded Saenuri Party (known until recently as the Grand National Party). Seeking to corner the young male vote, and particularly the young soldier vote, Nam has proposed raising the monthly wage of all conscripted soldiers to 500,000 KRW, quite an increase over the 93,800 KRW that these young fellows currently earn for their efforts. If Nam truly wants to garner these estimated 460,000 votes, however, he should take the honorable step of proposing an abolition of conscription altogether.
The most common argument for mandatory military service in South Korea is, of course, North Korea. For more than sixty years, South Korea has remained on a war footing in preparation for any attack from the North, a reality that supposedly necessitates conscription. Absent conscription, the argument goes, too many young men would be inclined to shirk their duty to the nation and the cost of coaxing them into uniform would be prohibitive. Yet, while North Korea must certainly be taken seriously, this defense of conscription ignores important matters of economics and morality.
In the United States, the last soldier press-ganged into military fatigues entered service in December, 1972. Beginning in 1973, America transitioned to an all-volunteer military following years of heated debate between those who favored conscription and those who thought it inefficient and immoral. As David Henderson recounts in this 2010 podcast from Econ Journal Watch (and in this article), economists like Walter Oi pointed out that the true costs of conscription cannot be calculated by simply tallying up the government’s budgetary costs. One must also account for the the cost – that is, the opportunity cost – borne by the conscripted young man who is forced to forego several years of his life in order to serve in the military. In the American case, Oi found the loss to draftees, in inflation-adjusted 2005 dollars, to be somewhere between $4.8 billion and $6.6 billion. When young men are forced into military service, they give up better opportunities to contribute to society and to the economy – opportunities in which they might produce more value and thus the tax revenue necessary to pay volunteers.
Perhaps even more important on this front are issues of morality. In the American debate over conscription, the economist Martin Anderson noted that a draft was little different than the forced labor of slavery – and perhaps even worse, as young conscripts are compelled into the odious moral position of choosing between killing and being killed. Yes, South Korea faces an existential threat on its northern doorstep, but what does it say about a country – one which ostensibly represents the side of freedom – which must force its citizens to defend their own nation?
Under a system of voluntary military service, the South Korean government would have to appeal to its citizens’ sense of patriotism and to their pocketbooks in convincing them to join the armed forces. That this might be more expensive than the present system is no defense of conscription. After all, no private company is permitted to use forced labor simply because it’s cheaper than paying market wages. Why, then, should the government have this power?
In proposing the abolition of conscription, Representative Nam would no doubt sacrifice votes from many older, more conservative demographics in his district, but at least he’d be on the right side of history.
Tags: conscription, military, north korea, opportunity costs
It seems you didn’t think this through. Korea would at least need around 500.000 troops to match the North Korean threat.
First it will be very hard to find enough people wanting to enlist since the labour force just isn’t that big. Having to pay decent wages will easily add another 20 billion of expenses to the current 24 billion budget. This just isn’t feasible.
Thanks for reading and commenting, Simon. And please pardon my late response.
I’m curious to know how you came to your 20-24 billion (won or dollars?) figure. The KIDA estimates that maintaining a force of 500,000 troops would add about 6 trillion won (about $5.5 billion) to the annual budget, while a force of 300,000 would require an additional 2.5 trillion KRW. As the linked article notes, meeting the necessary quota for 500,000 soldiers would indeed be a challenge for the Korean military.
As I noted in my original piece, however, the cost of paying conscripts entirely neglects the opportunity costs to the economy and society as a whole. This, of course, is a problem that afflicts all government programs, a matter I’ve addressed in more detail here.
As regards numbers, might there be question of “quality vs. quantity” here? For years, Korea has underspent on its own military (technology, hardware, etc.) and instead relied on the security umbrella provided by the United States. In addition, the short terms of mandatory service raise questions about the quality of each soldier. At present, the service term for conscripts in South Korea is 21 months, though this is expected to come down to 18 months by 2014. In at least one important regard, soldiering is like any other job: the skills required to be successful take time to teach and to learn. Some estimates say that at least 1-2 years is required to turn your average goofball into a competent soldier. Yet, in South Korea most soldiers are not even in the service beyond the second year, and the political climate is such that no one wants to increase the mandated service period.
Having acknowledged this practical challenge, however, I would repeat my argument that mere difficulty in recruiting soldiers is no justification for forcing young men into service.
Yes, a professional, volunteer military could be more expensive for the government of South Korea. What the country has at present, though, is a relatively cheap system of forced labor and of questionable quality. Could it be that a volunteer military would be more effective? And might it not be worth the extra money to have a more ethical system?
Feasible or not, I think if something is unethical, let it remain unrealized until it can feasibly be done ethically. Forcing all Korean males to two years of forced labor is nothing short of temporary slavery, made worse by the risk of dying (consider, for example, the dozens of conscripts who died aboard the Cheonan).