Milton Friedman on The draft and the volunteer army
The military do not take this attitude for ignoble reasons. They are sincere patriots deeply concerned about the ability of the United States to defend itself against any threats to its security. However, they have spent their lives in a system that is based on command. That is what they have been trained for.
Context. From a 1979 Newsweek column answering a new campaign to restore the draft, six years after conscription ended, written as a former member of the Gates Commission on an all-volunteer armed force. “This attitude” is the one he has just described: that the upper echelon of the military never fully reconciled itself to the end of conscription. The column’s next sentence is left out because the print has a slip in it (“let alone by enthusiastic”).
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Checked against the sourceThe wording was checked against the work itself.
Cite this passage
Milton Friedman, “Don’t Draft GI Joe” (Newsweek, April 16, 1979; reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, April 24, 1979, p. 8489, introduced by Representative Ron Paul of Texas under the header “[From the Newsweek magazine, Apr. 16, 1979]”, 1979), Congressional Record, April 24, 1979, p. 8489. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/military-sincere-patriots-system-based-on-command-1979
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He also said
We have as many criminals as we have because we have as many laws to break as we have. You take the situation in the United States. We have two million people in prison, four million people who are under parole or under supervision. Why? Because of our mistaken attempt to control what people put in their bodies. Prohibition of so-called drugs, of illegal drugs, is a major reason for all of those prisons. And those are victimless crimes, which should not be crimes.
Context. In a PBS interview for the series Commanding Heights, on the Internet making it easier for criminals to conduct their affairs, where he said one has to distinguish between criminals and criminals.
Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interviewInterview, 2000, PBS, “Where We Stand Today,” interview conducted October 1, 2000Checked against the sourceRead the transcriptThe Federal Reserve system had been established to prevent what actually happened. It was set up to avoid a situation in which you would have to close down banks, in which you would have a banking crisis. And yet, under the Federal Reserve system, you had the worst banking crisis in the history of the United States. There's no other example I can think of, of a government measure which produced so clearly the opposite of the results that were intended.
Context. Asked what actually caused the Great Depression, in a PBS interview for the series Commanding Heights. He had just distinguished the ordinary recession of 1929 from its conversion into a major depression by bad monetary policy.
Commanding Heights: Milton Friedman interviewInterview, 2000, PBS, “The Great Depression,” interview conducted October 1, 2000Checked against the sourceRead the transcriptA military draft is undesirable and unnecessary. We can and should man our armed forces with volunteers—as the United States has traditionally done except in major wars.
Context. The opening of the column. He quoted these two sentences himself in a later Newsweek column on the draft, giving the date as December 19, 1966.
A Volunteer ArmyColumn, 1966, Newsweek (December 19, 1966); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Senate, January 22, 1969, p. 1438, under the heading “From Newsweek magazine, Dec. 19, 1966”. Later collected in An Economist’s Protest (1972)., Congressional Record, January 22, 1969, p. 1438Checked against the sourceRead the original
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