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Just imagine if instead of millitary service, it was compulsary public service that actually benefitted society. Nursing, construction/infrastructure, farming, teaching/childcare, etc.
Its astrounding how much money is pumped into the military industrial complex when it could be used to fund to many other programs for public good.
But that would be sOciALiSm.
More hilarious when considering the US Military is an inherently socialist institution.
My sister and brother-in-law will go to the commissary, stay on base housing, get their paycheck from the US Govt., receive public Healthcare, and the GI Bill, then promptly go home and post on Facebook about how socialism bad.
Realizing the US Army is the most socialist institution I've ever encountered didn't happen till years after I was out, lol
You want school? Get it! You want food? Get it! You want clothes? You already fucking got em
I'm not sure from the context of your comment with that "most socialist" line if you know or not but...
Socialism is the workers owning the means of production. End line.
Everything else is just how the society organizes itself. The US Army seeing to the basic needs of its troops is not socialism, it is the government doing things. Scandinavian countries providing maternity and unemployment benefits is not socialism. It is the government doing things.
The US Army is not socialism. Nor is any other professional military, not even the ones working for socialist states. They are organizations trading capital for labor to empower the state.
If you were a slave soldier, taken in a war raid, working for a monarch like the Janissaries, they would probably still provide you all of the necessities to function, even spending money to entertain yourself and maintain morale, and it wouldn't be socialism either.
For instance, Trump's plan for the feds to buy TikTok
Hell no.
The premise of M-L types who wanted the state to control production for the workers is that the government was the workers, aka the dictatorship of the proletariat. In doing so excess production would be traded within the system to provide things like healthcare and housing.
In theory.
That obviously didn't work out too hot, but even that is different in theory from a fascist or otherwise oligarchal state controlling production for the benefit of the owner class with absolutely no pretentions of providing social services with the profits. They are proudly ripping up any social safety net they find as a matter of ideology.
Tl;Dr it's quite literally the opposite of socialism when kings or oligarchs control and profit from the state owned enterprise. That is just the eponymous late stage capitalism, or neofeudalism/technocracy depending on the angle you want.
It's socialism as described by the GOP though, which is why it's so funny.
Yeah, but at the same time that's how they logic themselves into "the more things the government does the more socialist it is, and when it does a lot of things, that's communism."
All that misinformation has a purpose, and it's not to make the world a better place.
This exists in Austria. Males have to choose between 6 months of military or 9 months of public service. Interestingly enough the existence of the public service option has been a strong reason why people voted against removing the mandatory service some years ago.
Out of curiosity, what do they do for public service?
Driving ambulance cars and doing first aid, helping in kindergarten, retirement homes, homeless shelters, institutions for people with disabilities,...
The ambulance is probably the most popular position, you can also choose what you want to do to a certain extent.
I think compulsory retail service would fix society.
This is exactly what I would want a compulsory service to look like.
Fuck the military, let's build bridges and houses and schools, and cafeterias, and farms, and staff them. Roads and hospitals.
Nobody ever needed to make a fucking bomb
That's too good of an idea to be usable, the powers that don't want it would tell the nurses, construction workers and farmers their livelihoods were being undermined by slave labour.
Some places you can opt to do compulsory public service instead of military service.
I fully support this. It would help on so many levels. Provide a cheap workforce to help with currently in demand stuff and fix shit, help young people get away from home, get a new view on life and get some starter cash, and mix people from all walks of life. I genuinely see no downside.
AmeriCorps is exactly this, but it's obviously not compulsory.
Does that still exist?
Yes https://americorps.gov/
I don't think that would be any better. It is still compulsory service and a violation of people's individual freedoms to choose how to live their lives.
(and many countries do allow that as an alternative e.g. for conscientious objectors)