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We've seen a similar "buy your way our of military conscription" policy in America's past. > Many healthy men who were eligible to serve in the military during

We've seen a similar "buy your way our of military conscription" policy in America's past. > Many healthy men who were eligible to serve in the military during the Civil War never ended up enlisting. The Enrollment Act of 1863 provided that a draftee could pay a “substitute” enrollee the sum of $300 (about $5,000 in today’s terms) in order to enlist in his place. Such famous Americans as Grover Cleveland and John D. Rockefeller took advantage of this provision, in effect buying their way out of service. https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/01/abraham-lincoln-the-president-paid-a-substitute-to-enlist-in-the-union-army.html https://slate.com/human-interest/2013/01/abraham-lincoln-the...

cafard 3y ago
You could argue that colleges served the same purpose in the 1960s.
baybal2 3y ago
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deleted 3y ago
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jfoutz 3y ago
not quite the same, but the police used to work the same way. https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Policing.jsp#constablestext https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Policing.jsp#constabl... Traditionally, householders served in the office of constable by appointment or rotation. During their year of office they performed their duties part-time alongside their normal employment. Similarly, householders were expected to serve by rotation on the nightly watch. From the late seventeenth century, however, many householders avoided these obligations by hiring deputies to serve in their place. Essentially being a police man was sort of like jury duty.
- mrguyorama 3y ago
  We would probably benefit from going back to that model.
javajosh 3y ago
I was going to post the same thing! But I'm glad I didn't because now I get to post on the remarkable coincidence that the price is almost exactly the same - $5000 in today's dollars. It's an interesting sum, from the perspective of say, American minimum wage (which is approx $30k/year). It's painful, but doable. It's probably the amount most ordinary lower-middle and middle-class people pay for a (used) car. I wonder how the USG came up with the figure, and if their thinking was the same as Egypt's? This reminds me of a sitcom line from some years ago where a business exec comes in an offers (Drew Carrey maybe?) $10,461 or something like that and he asks "Why that amount?" and she says, "Oh, we spent $10M figuring out how much money poor people would think is a lot."
- gumby 3y ago
  It's about 11K: https://www.in2013dollars.com/1860-dollars-in-2017?amount=1 https://www.in2013dollars.com/1860-dollars-in-2017?amount=1

cafard 3y ago

You could argue that colleges served the same purpose in the 1960s.

baybal2 3y ago

[dead]

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jfoutz 3y ago

not quite the same, but the police used to work the same way. https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Policing.jsp#constablestext https://www.oldbaileyonline.org/static/Policing.jsp#constabl... Traditionally, householders served in the office of constable by appointment or rotation. During their year of office they performed their duties part-time alongside their normal employment. Similarly, householders were expected to serve by rotation on the nightly watch. From the late seventeenth century, however, many householders avoided these obligations by hiring deputies to serve in their place. Essentially being a police man was sort of like jury duty.

mrguyorama 3y ago
We would probably benefit from going back to that model.

javajosh 3y ago

I was going to post the same thing! But I'm glad I didn't because now I get to post on the remarkable coincidence that the price is almost exactly the same - $5000 in today's dollars. It's an interesting sum, from the perspective of say, American minimum wage (which is approx $30k/year). It's painful, but doable. It's probably the amount most ordinary lower-middle and middle-class people pay for a (used) car. I wonder how the USG came up with the figure, and if their thinking was the same as Egypt's? This reminds me of a sitcom line from some years ago where a business exec comes in an offers (Drew Carrey maybe?) $10,461 or something like that and he asks "Why that amount?" and she says, "Oh, we spent $10M figuring out how much money poor people would think is a lot."

gumby 3y ago
It's about 11K: https://www.in2013dollars.com/1860-dollars-in-2017?amount=1 https://www.in2013dollars.com/1860-dollars-in-2017?amount=1