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Milton Friedman on The draft and the volunteer army

Now, when anybody starts talking about this he immediately shifts language. My army is “volunteer,” your army is “professional,” and the enemy’s army is “mercenary.” All these three words mean exactly the same thing. … It’s always a puzzle to me why people should think that the term “mercenary” somehow has a negative connotation. I remind you of that wonderful quotation of Adam Smith when he said, “You do not owe your daily bread to the benevolence of the baker, but to his proper regard for his own interest.” And this is much more broadly based. In fact, I think mercenary motives are among the least unattractive that we have.

Context. From his remarks at a conference on the draft held at the University of Chicago in December 1966; “this” is a volunteer army.

Conference on the Draft, University of Chicago
Speech, 1966, The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives, ed. Sol Tax (University of Chicago Press, 1967), Discussions: Fourth Session, p. 366
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Milton Friedman, “Conference on the Draft, University of Chicago” (The Draft: A Handbook of Facts and Alternatives, ed. Sol Tax (University of Chicago Press, 1967), 1966), Discussions: Fourth Session, p. 366. https://miltonfriedman.org/quotes/now-when-anybody-starts-talking-about-all-volunteer-1966

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He also said

  1. The well-meaning current sponsors of universal national service will recoil at that prospect. They would insist on letting the youngsters choose for themselves how they serve. That is what happens now, via the market system, in which market wages equate supply and demand. But universal national service is meaningless unless it involves equal pay—which also means control and direction of labor.

    Context. From a 1979 Newsweek column answering renewed proposals, after the end of the draft, to require a period of military or civilian service from every young American. “That prospect” is the power over conscripted young people he has just described.

    Universal National Service
    Column, 1979, Newsweek (1979); reprinted in the Congressional Record, Extensions of Remarks, May 15, 1979, p. 11349, introduced by Representative Ron Paul of Texas, who says Friedman “recently” made these arguments “in Newsweek.” The reprint gives no issue date and omits part of the opening paragraph, Congressional Record, May 15, 1979, p. 11349
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  2. Military service is now demeaned, treated as a necessary but degrading duty that men have to be dragooned into performing. A voluntary army would restore a proper sense of pride, of respect for the important, dangerous and difficult task that the armed forces perform.

    Context. From a May 1967 New York Times Magazine article, written as Congress weighed renewing the draft, arguing that the United States should end conscription and man its armed forces with volunteers. Here he names, among the military advantages of a volunteer force, its effect on morale.

    The Case for Abolishing the Draft—and Substituting for It an All-Volunteer Army
    Column, 1967, The New York Times Magazine, May 14, 1967; reprinted in full in the Congressional Record, Senate, May 15, 1967, pp. 12546 to 12548, inserted by Senator Gaylord Nelson., Congressional Record, May 15, 1967, p. 12546
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  3. When the law interferes with people's pursuit of their own values, they will try to find a way around. They will evade the law, they will break the law, or they will leave the country. Few of us believe in a moral code that justifies forcing people to give up much of what they produce to finance payments to persons they do not know for purposes they may not approve of. When the law contradicts what most people regard as moral and proper, they will break the law—whether the law is enacted in the name of a noble ideal such as equality or in the naked interest of one group at the expense of another. Only fear of punishment, not a sense of justice and morality, will lead people to obey the law.
    Free to Choose
    Book, 1980, Ch. 5 “Created Equal”, p. 145
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