Prometheus 6

I said

All he had to say was, "I didn't say that's the only way into the military." He could add, "But it's a sure way to the most dangerous, least attractive MOS available."

Economists say

"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."

Kerry Trips Over an Economic Truth
By Uwe E. Reinhardt
Saturday, November 4, 2006; A23

There is no question that Sen. John F. Kerry owed our men and women in the military and their families the apology he offered this week. Even in clumsy jest, if that is what his remarks were, they could not have come across as anything but insulting.

Truth be told, however, 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.

Small wonder, too, that it became national news when Doris Kearns Goodwin's son, a Harvard undergraduate, decided to join the military and serve in Iraq. After all, how many Ivy League graduates today make that risky choice?