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Applebaum tries to finger "elfin libertarian" Milton Friedman as "the most important figure". But the specific policies he attributes to Friedman don't seem so
by gojomo 7y ago
Applebaum tries to finger "elfin libertarian" Milton Friedman as "the most important figure". But the specific policies he attributes to Friedman don't seem so bad:
* end the draft, replace with well-paid all-volunteer military
* let international exchange rates vary
* evaluate regulations based on the cost-to-save-a-life
Does Applebaum want to bring back the draft? Put exchange rates back under direct political control (as is attempted in places like Venezuela & Argentina)? Have a purely "feel-it-in-our-guts" approach to regulation, without regard to whether the same $X million dollars in imposed costs could save 1 life in one case, or 100 lives somewhere else?
- klez 7y agoThere are reasons the draft can be a good idea. When the military is only voluntary you get a military with specific ideas about foreign policy and how you see the enemy, whoever they are. If you introduce the draft you have a more heterogenous military.
- soniman 7y agoA draft raises the cost of war, making war less likely.
- Retric 7y agoThat depends on how easy it is to get out if it. If the influential always go to the coast guard or whatever, war is less meaningful for those in power.
- zbsisbd 7y ago“That depends on how easy it is to get out if it.” Exactly. That’s why I despise ppl whose connections got them out of the draft. For everyone of those punks, another one of McNamara's morons had to be drafted. Mohamad Ali, on the other hand, he had the courage to go to jail. Burn your draft card, escape to Canada, or simply refuse. But those who use university exemptions or bone spurs can go to hell.
- gbacon 7y agoEven though Ali had the courage to go to jail, by your reasoning in the previous paragraph, someone else “had to” be drafted in his place. Perhaps you won’t go so far as to call conscription kidnapping, but you seem to sympathize at least a bit with people having scruples over being shipped off involuntarily to wage aggressive war. Now, you may admit that some are principled objectors, and others may simply believe that dirty work is beneath them. The more important question is whether the draft is just. If so, then any refusal by the able is wrong, and if not, we may not condemn resistance in any peaceful form. The reality of deferments for the politically connected and most especially those for the children and grandchildren of politicians who vote for war makes utter propaganda the notion that disinterested philosopher-kings or a technocratic elite are merely acting to promote the greatest good for the greatest number.
- austhrow743 7y agoEscaping to Canada increases the amount of McNamara's morons needed the same as a university exemption or bone spurs does. The only difference between your methods is consequences for the person undertaking it, not those that have to replace them. You appear to want people avoiding being drafted to suffer. Pretty odd if you otherwise sympathise with them.
- gojomo 7y agoDoes this argument back-test successfully? Has the US suffered fewer war-fatalities in the era(s) where it had a draft (including the Civil War, WW1, WW2, & Vietnam), or in the era where it has an all-volunteer force (since 1973)?
- soniman 7y agoProbably not but a lot has changed.
- pmiller2 7y agoThat’s almost impossible to compare due to advances in both weapons and protective equipment.
- gojomo 7y agoAnd yet, we have to try to make such comparisons to make such sweeping judgements as "a draft makes war less likely". The quality of weapons and armor (and training and medical care!) also isn't independent of the draft/volunteer dimension. A all-volunteer-force may find it necessary to invest more in each, because fewer people will volunteer to be part of a military force that tries to win with raw & disposable strength-of-numbers. So maybe the all-volunteer-force "raises the cost of war" even more, considering financial costs & second-order effects, and thus best deters war? It's possible, which is why such claims need to be evaluated against history, not just asserted.
- benj111 7y agoI'm not convinced. Assuming you even recruit the officer class from draftees, you're going to recruit the ones that think like you, or at least that you respect, which in practice means they know someone you respect, were taught somewhere you respect, in short they're probably from the same circles as you. Plus if you don't want to join the military, are you really going to give a toss about contributing?
- colek42 7y agoWhat specific kind of military do you get? The US military I was a part of was the most diverse group of men and women I have ever worked with in just any metric you can find.
- tomrod 7y agoI believe parent commentator was making a claim to lack of philosophical diversity, and that a voluntary military is more prone to prefer war over diplomacy. I see the margin the parent commentator is trying to make, but feel it misses people who join the military to obtain gainful employment, get education, or numerous other reasons.
- klez 7y ago> but feel it misses people who join the military to obtain gainful employment, get education, or numerous other reasons. You're right. But I wonder what kind of "politics" they would adopt when needed if they didn't feel the rest of the army has one way of thinking.
- trentnix 7y agoThe issue you identify is a good reason why our system of government, which places an elected, term-limited civilian as the commander of the military, is extremely clever. We end up with an effective military, but have a counterbalance to a military acting as a hammer constantly looking for nails. The people involved are certainly imperfect (and some are more imperfect than others), but we're always just a few years away from a course correction if the electorate sees fit.
- goatinaboat 7y agoa voluntary military is more prone to prefer war over diplomacy. The military gets no say - wars are declared, or not, by elected politicians. What you say is only true in countries where the military runs the government.
- naasking 7y ago
- cptskippy 7y agoYes that's all true at the bottom. The top is still career military and they very much set the culture, tone, and policy.
- klez 7y agoYes, but they don't hold the rifle, in case it matters.
- zarkov99 7y agoAbsolutely. A draft would also force Americans of all backgrounds to interact with each other in an environment that builds cohesion. It would also give even the most powerful of Americans skin in the game when it comes to starting wars.
- gonzo41 7y agoThis only works if there isn't an out for folk with bone spurs.
- zarkov99 7y agoHow widespread were those sort of shenanigans back when the draft was on, do you know?
- pintxo 7y agoWasn’t the last president who has served bush senior? This would mean it‘s rather common in some circles.
- pmiller2 7y agoBarack Obama wasn’t old enough to serve in Vietnam, so he wouldn’t have needed to dodge serving. In about 20 years, provided the draft doesn’t get reinstated, we’re likely to have more presidents who never served.
- lostlogin 7y ago> A draft would also force Americans of all backgrounds to interact with each other in an environment that builds cohesion. Every American presidential election has a side show about the candidates military record and a meaningful number appear to have dodged their service - current president included.
- cafard 7y agoA draft cannot be made practical and fair unless you are going to have an Army of 1945 proportions. Otherwise, you might need one in ten draft-age men, and the business of choosing which becomes even more open to manipulation.
- spodek 7y agoI propose a civilian service academy and civilian service, which would achieve most of a draft's goals without the military. American infrastructure could use it, among other benefits. I talk about it in episode 138 in my podcast: http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/rants-raves-monologues-volume-4 http://joshuaspodek.com/guests/rants-raves-monologues-volume.... General McChrystal wrote about it in Time Magazine: Every American Should Serve For One Year https://time.com/4824366/year-national-service-americorps-peace-corps https://time.com/4824366/year-national-service-americorps-pe...
- iikoolpp 7y ago> I propose more government mandated slavery Let me fix that for you.
- neetfreek 7y agoThis is what we have in Finland; basically either: 1. Military service ranging from half a year to a year. 2. Civil service for a year. 3. Half a year prison sentence. 4. Exemption for medical reasons. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Finland https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription_in_Finland
- Nasrudith 7y agoThat is oxymoronic - the purpose of the draft is to have military warm bodies without having to pay or get volunteers. Infastructure work's limitations are based on funding and skilled labor - not a mass of gruntwork.
- sprafa 7y agoFriedman also defended a negative income tax which essentially was a form of UBI.
- defertoreptar 7y agoWithin that context, negative income tax was sought to replace welfare, social security, Medicaid, etc. Is that the case with UBI?
- gojomo 7y agoMany UBI supporters still view one of its main benefits the simplification & unified replacement of all such programs. Now, those programs are complicated, involve a lot of overhead, often underutilized, and create unintentional disincentives to work when the "marginal tax rate" (in taxes or lost benefits) sometimes goes over 100%. Offering a simple & big-enough UBI instead can fix all that. (A UBI can also replace minimum-wage laws and most if not all unemployment insurance. And perhaps, many workplace regulations, because a citizenry where everyone can say "this job sucks, I'm outta here" can be a better check on abuses than the current system of compliance-surveillance, regulatory-fines, and court-cases.)
- umadon 7y agoUBI can also be inflated away to nothing. It's a neoliberal scam.
- gojomo 7y agoSo can all the other forms of welfare.
- umadon 7y agoNo, not all. For example not a positive right to healthcare. UBI is transparently an attempt to redistribute tax income to private companies such that no opportunity for profit stays with or is limited by government. UBI would mean no more Medicare stipulations, no more existing conditions protections. Just your ten grand a year or whatever and a bunch of private companies who have what you need, at whatever price they set.
- gbacon 7y agoFriedman’s worst idea that remains in vigorous implementation was automatic income tax withholding. He poured jet fuel into an engine of runaway state growth but is somehow remembered as a libertarian.
- gojomo 7y agoAnd look at the meager thanks Friedman gets from those like Applebaum craving ever-greater tax revenues!
- gnusty_gnurc 7y agoHe was an economist during an era where progressivism explosively grew the administrative state and really didn't have any checks. They were enabled by war. What you're talking about was one of his biggest regrets. > "It never occurred to me at the time that I was helping to develop machinery that would make possible a government that I would come to criticize severely as too large, too intrusive, too destructive of freedom. Yet, that is precisely what I was doing. [My wife] Rose has repeatedly chided me over the years about the role that I played in making possible the current overgrown government we both criticize so strongly." [1] : https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/16/post650 https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2006/nov/16/post65...
- deleted 7y ago[deleted]
- rayiner 7y ago> Have a purely "feel-it-in-our-guts" approach to regulation That is exactly what they want. The modern world of cost-benefit analysis and economic modeling has been unkind to the whimsical. They want emotions, narrative, and oratory--not reason and data--to guide policy.
- salawat 7y agoFrankly, there's very little difference between the two when the ones making the yardstick are also the ones being measured. Statistics and measurement are insidious like that. Sometimes you're just not measuring the right things, or the way you are measuring just tells you exactly what you think it should. What does GDP mean to a worker making only enough to afford to pay medical bills or the rent? What does * per capita do to assuage the suffering of the mother of 3 working 3 dead end jobs and living out of her car? What good is the S&P500 closing up 6 points when most can barely afford to put more than what there company matches into the market? What does anything the Dow does mean to anyone who's retirement on Social Security barely covers what they need to merely remain alive? Economic modeling seems like it has done one and only one thing well. Create work for economists to do.
- sjg007 7y agoVietnam ended the draft.
- dsfyu404ed 7y agoUnfortunately evaluating regulations based on the cost to save a life would be considered heresy in certain circles. Not spending the entire GDP to save one more life is ideologically incompatible with a lot of people's beliefs.