EVE Fiction

Seeing how a capsuleer is capable of wiping out an entire fleet in a matter of minutes (what we usually do while missioning) I don't think it would be wise for the Empires to force them into service (a capsuleer uprising would be bad for everyone). My guess is that they are indeed given freedom and a pat in the back in the hope that in the end they'll support their nation in one way or another

And that's what most of us do. Imagine the costs of having a regular fleet deal with an Angel Extravaganza for example - you'd need to risk the lives of hundreds of thousands of your loyal soldiers and an insane amount of money in ships, fuel, etc. Instead they send one capsuleer-controlled ship that deals with the problem. Even if the capsuleer expects to be well compensated for his work the one or two millions of ISK they pay for a 'hard' lvl4 is still probably way less than an entire fleet operation. Also, should the capsuleer ship be destroyed it will not create a public uproar, because everyone that enlists on a capsuleer ship should know that their expected lifespan is not very long. We basically do their dirty work for them

Capsuleers also provide a significant boost the the economy by providing and moving large quantities of money and equipment, thus providing nearly unlimited demand for services regular people can provide. Not to mention that, being ridiculously rich by regular people standards, they can afford to pay a little more for the service (seriously, if stations fined you 10-100 ISK per dock how many of us would actually care?)

Another thing I can think of is that capsuleers provide stability in New Eden - we are the ultimate weapon of mass destruction, notorious for not giving a damn about killing countless people for money, status or even simple fun, so empires will think twice before going for an all out war with one another. After all I imagine that even if many capsuleers don't actually enroll into direct service for their country a good portion of them would still hold some patriotic feelings and would answer if their homeland was threatened. Even though we are currently in the middle of a war between the empires (FW) it's really no more than borderline skirmishes over underdeveloped regions. A fleet of immortal psychopaths over your capital is probably a returning nightmare of all New Edens political leaders

Last but not least even the few % of capsuleer population who permanently move out of empire borders into the 'Wild West' (null and WH) still provide service by keeping pirates at bay and providing important research information (sleeper tech), as well as create supply and demand for even more services and goods - see all the freighters filled to the brim constantly moving between trade hubs and 0.0

All in all I think that it's more beneficent in the long run for the empires to let the capsuleers do their thing than to try and force them into anything.

From what I remember, only one nation launched a large scale capsuleer program, this was the caldari state, genetically screening as much achura as they could, to train them as capsuleers (CCP used this a few years back to explain lorewise why there are so many Achura compared to any other race or bloodline)
The genetic screening wouldn't work at other nations, due to various reasons (gallente & Minmatar enjoy their liberty to much to be screened by the goverment, Amarr would be reviled by the idea that their goverment would purposefully send amarr to betray their flesh & body)