Self-styled “anarchist” Noam Chomsky (what, you didn’t know he had a blog?) thinks not only that there should be military conscription, but that all jobs (or at least the unpleasant ones) should be divvied up by conscription:
One preliminary question is whether it is a democratically determined community decision that an army is necessary. Sometimes the answer is pretty clearly Yes: in World War II, for example. There were some people who refused conscription, dedicated pacifists mostly: courageous and honorable, but doesn’t bear on the issue. Suppose that assumption holds. Then conscription is not a violation of basic human rights any more than parcelling out other unpleasant work equitably is. Say garbage collection. In a decent society it shouldn’t be “volunteer” in the sense that it’s undertaken only by people who are driven to it by need. Rather, it should be equitably distributed—which one can call “conscription” if one likes. These are basic issues discussed in all thinking about decent participatory societies, within the PARECON discussions, for example.
What the–? If that’s anarchism, I’ll take tyranny! (Or, whatever the opposite of anarchism is – monarchy? Whatever.)
A Thinking Reed 
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