Chapter 7

SIGNIFICANCE OF COMPULSORY SERVICE.

Universal Compulsory Service is not a Political Accident, but the
Furthest Limit of the Contradiction Inherent in the Social
Conception of Life--Origin of Authority in Society--Basis of
Authority is Physical Violence--To be Able to Perform its Acts
of Violence Authority Needs a Special Organization--The Army--
Authority, that is, Violence, is the Principle which is
Destroying the Social Conception of Life--Attitude of Authority
to the Masses, that is, Attitude of Government to Working
Oppressed Classes--Governments Try to Foster in Working Classes
the Idea that State Force is Necessary to Defend Them from
External Enemies--But the Army is Principally Needed to Preserve
Government from its own Subjects--The Working Classes--Speech of
M. de Caprivi--All Privileges of Ruling Classes Based on
Violence--The Increase of Armies up to Point of Universal
Service--Universal Compulsory Service Destroys all the
Advantages of Social Life, which Government is Intended to
Preserve--Compulsory Service is the Furthest Limit of
Submission, since in Name of the State it Requires Sacrifice of
all that can be Precious to a Man--Is Government Necessary?--The
Sacrifices Demanded by Government in Compulsory Service have No
Longer any Reasonable Basis--And there is More Advantage to be
Gained by not Submitting to the Demands of the State than by
Submitting to Them.

Educated people of the upper classes are trying to stifle the
ever-growing sense of the necessity of transforming the existing
social order. But life, which goes on growing more complex, and
developing in the same direction, and increases the
inconsistencies and the sufferings of men, brings them to the
limit beyond which they cannot go. This furthest limit of
inconsistency is universal compulsory military service.

It is usually supposed that universal military service and the
increased armaments connected with it, as well as the resulting
increase of taxes and national debts, are a passing phenomenon,
produced by the particular political situation of Europe, and that
it may be removed by certain political combinations without any
modification of the inner order of life.

This is absolutely incorrect. Universal military service is only
the internal inconsistency inherent in the social conception of
life, carried to its furthest limits, and becoming evident when a
certain stage of material development is reached.

The social conception of life, we have seen, consists in the
transfer of the aim of life from the individual to groups and
their maintenance--to the tribe, family, race, or state.

In the social conception of life it is supposed that since the aim
of life is found in groups