It was already pointed out that the 1% stems almost entirely from the size of the occupation forces and their rotation, not from the volunteer system. This is the case-specific nonsense of Ricks.



Now the general nonsense, and I'll use the economic science toolbox to explain it:


When we spend money, we do so to motivate someone else to do something he or she would otherwise not do. Give me a haircut, allow me to leave the shop with the TV set, pay me money when my flat burned out. The amount of money needed is roughly proportional to the amount of motivation required. That's why in some countries you pay less if you bribe.

Price ~ motivation required

Now if you want a volunteer, you pay him the appropriate price for his motivation. That's fair, that's voluntary. No power advantage is used to coerce (except stop-loss etc).

If you hire a conscript, you don't need to pay him the appropriate price. instead, you can use a mix of inappropriately low price and power advantage, for coercion. This is the part about the loss of freedom through conscription.

There's also a major inefficiency involved that proves that conscription is inferior for the country in comparison to a volunteer force, at the very least until sovereignty is really at stake:
Whom do you get if you have a volunteer force? Most like the (able and) most easily motivated ones. It's like a reverse auction. You offer a price and the ones hired most easily agree, you raise and some more agree etc. In the end, you pay the marginal rate price - the price needed to motivate the last needed (wo)man. This means some are paid more than necessary to motivate them, but this waste stays in the society and doesn't account as harm done - it's just a transfer.
Compare this to conscription: You just grab some, and coerce whoever of that group is not motivated by the money. This does not include any mechanism for recruiting the most easily motivated ones. The amount of motivation based on coercion accounts for as harm done to the own society.
Even if you consider coercion + price as the sum of all mil personnel costs to society, you're still bound to arrive at the conclusion that conscription is more expensive to the society (because the volunteer system applies a technique to recruit the 'cheapest' personnel).


In short: Conscription is inferior to a volunteer force regarding general welfare


I found that most pro-conscription people are closet authoritarians, the kind of people that actually dislikes freedom and choice, no matter what they say.