Should there be mandatory national service?

Mandatory service can save governments money

Question: Should there be mandatory national service?
Position‹2 of 2: Yes, mandatory service is essential
Argument1 of 3›: Mandatory service can save governments money

Mandatory service can save governments money on ads and commercials to promote volunteer service. Mandatory national service also helps keep the economy stable because people who serve their nation are more likely to keep steady jobs and give back to the nation.

The argument

National service programs have been proven to save the government money. Streamlining processes and guaranteeing people to serve creates costs in personnel and advertisement for national service agencies. Also, the population of the national service would be more evenly distributed and would not be plagued by the racism, sexism, and misogyny that it is now. This would also save the government money on equity and sexual assault trainings and programs. Through mandatory national service, the demographics of the national service would become more representative of the nation's demographics. With a population more evenly distributed by race and gender, the military would not be plagued by the racism, sexism, and misogyny that it is plagued with now. Mandatory service can also take on other forms besides military service, including community work. Having steady numbers of people in needed community settings would alleviate the cost of maintaining programs for those areas.

Premises

[P1]Guaranteeing a steady, evenly distributed pool of servicemembers streamlines national-service agencies and produces demographics more representative of the nation. [P2] A more balanced population reduces the racism, sexism and misogyny that require costly equity and assault-prevention programs, while non-military community service supplies needed labour that would otherwise be expensive to maintain. [C] Because mandatory service can save governments money, mandatory national service is essential.

Counter-arguments

Mandatory military service could cost the government millions of more dollars. If more citizens were to flood the system, there would be more benefits needed for those citizens, including water, food, shelter, and weapons. These things are wildly expensive. The system for selecting mandatory service citizens would need to be developed and stream lined to notify people of their upcoming mandatory service. This new system would also cost the government large sums of money to create and implement. Mandatory service does not save the government money in the short term or the long term; it forces more people into service which will cost the government more money.

Rejecting the premises

[Rejecting P1] The premise concedes its own cost in its opening clause — guaranteeing service creates personnel and administrative costs — and then treats the result as a saving. A universal intake must also be registered, assessed, trained, housed and equipped, which is the counter's objection and goes unanswered. [Rejecting P2] The claim that a representative intake removes racism, sexism and misogyny assumes these follow from demographic composition rather than from culture, command and accountability, and conscript forces have not historically been free of them. Treating equity and assault-prevention training as an expense to be eliminated also inverts its purpose, while community placements shift labour costs onto conscripts rather than removing them. Even granted in full, cheapness would not make service 'essential' — the position claims necessity, not economy.