Uwe Reinhardt, a professor of political economy, thinks so:
Economics professors routinely instruct their
students on the virtue of the all-volunteer
army in language that comes dangerously close
to Kerry's uncouth remark.
Here, for example, is how University of Rochester
economics professor Steven E. Landsburg made the
case for the volunteer army in his textbook "Price
Theory and Applications." Under a military draft,
he writes, "the Selective Service Board will
draft young people who are potentially brilliant
brain surgeons, inventors and economists--young
people with high opportunity costs of entering the
service--and will leave undrafted some young people
with much lower opportunity costs. The social loss
is avoided under a voluntary system, in which
precisely those with the lowest costs will volunteer."
Only slightly more crudely put, the central idea
underlying this theorem of what economists call
"social welfare economics" is that if a nation must
use human bodies to stop bullets and shrapnel, it
ought to use relatively "low-cost" bodies--that is,
predominantly those who would otherwise not have
produced much gross domestic product, the main
component of what economists call "social opportunity
costs." On this rationale, economists certify the
all-volunteer army as efficient and thus good.
Small wonder, then, that even college students who
ardently supported the invasion of Iraq and just as
ardently favor "staying the course" in Iraq argue
smugly that, instead of serving their country in
uniform, they can serve it so much better in law
school or by trading bonds for Goldman Sachs. I
personally have heard this argument many times from
hawkish undergraduates at Princeton University who
would never dream of fighting in uniform for the
nation they profess to love.
It's pretty impressive the way Reinhardt manages to slip from an argument
about economic efficiency to disparaging the patriotism of his own
students.
But let's back up a bit here. First of all, Landsburg is not arguing for
a system like the Vietnam-era draft, which through student deferments
exempted from military service those with "high opportunity costs." He is
defending the all-volunteer military--that is, a system in which everyone
is free to join up and no one is compelled to do so.
Is it "unfair" that someone whose talents or passions lie elsewhere is
less likely to join the volunteer military, with its attendant risks? We
can't see why it would be. There are lots of dangerous
occupations--policeman, fireman, oil-rig worker, miner--and no one
suggests conscripting people into these lines of work.
To suggest that those who volunteer for military service are victims of
inequality is to devalue their choice to serve, and to treat their chosen
line of work as if it has less inherent dignity than being a brain
surgeon or even a professor of political economy. Reinhardt's argument,
like Kerry's, is actually an elitist one that denies those who serve the
respect that is their due.
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