Cafe Hayek - Latest Comments in Serving Your Country

Re: Serving Your Country

JABBER — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 12:24:47 -0000

"The idea that these warriors would desert if not for the articles of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice - as someone else above wrote - is complete garbage."

Just for the record, LowcountryJoe, that quote (by me) was ripped out of context by someone else, and is being totally misconstrued by you. I was arguing YOUR point, namely that there is far more to soldiering (and other "service" occupations) than simple financial compensation, among them honor, service, and a sense of duty.

Re: Serving Your Country

LowcountryJoe — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 11:00:13 -0000

Let me just dispel the myth, right here and now, that folks that serve in today's military are under-compensated; that perpetuated information is complete BS.

Some of you may have your own ideas about what constitutes a fair compensation level for what military members do and the sacrifice involved - some of you might even have your own perceptions of fairness skewed based on your own personal compensation. I am here to tell you that when a serviceman’s base pay is combined with family health care (at no addition cost to the serviceman regardless of family size) along with his/her basic allowance for quarters, a valuable service group life insurance policy with tremendous coverage for premium ratio, the total compensation level will generally kick the snot out of most comparable private sector work after just eight years of service.

The gained training, the gained experience & responsibilities, the ease at which one finds opportunities to lead others, the veterans benefits, and the pension eligibility characteristics are all OTHER favorable factors (NOT listed above) that tend to get overlooked when people discuss just how servicemen are being slighted on their pay.

The truth is, military folk (past a certain length of time served) get paid pretty well and I'll debate this viewpoint with anyone who wishes to reply to it. They also derive a certain amount of utility - as someone observed & noted above - from the non-pecuniary aspects (such as the respect and the positive image) of service. The idea that these warriors would desert if not for the articles of the Uniformed Code of Military Justice - as someone else above wrote - is complete garbage. Sure, some would, but the vast majority has balls that are bigger than the ivory tower that that particular author probably sits in.

Re: Serving Your Country

faultolerant — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 09:54:32 -0000

Interesting thread, this one. It's also intriguing to see those who feel it's possible to "distill" the motivation of the soldier or nurse or teacher to "utility" and "non-monetary goods". I wonder: Do these "distillers" (For lack of a better word) ever undertake good simply for its own sake? Are these folks so internally calloused and jaded that they perceive everyone must act in such a way as to seek compensation for each and every action - irrespective of whether said compensation is monetary or non-monetary?

(Ansu, your banality with regard to "psychic income" is simply beneath contempt. What a load of rubbish.)

While passifism in lib circles is well known, and often much-deservedly derided as being cowardice, this entire contruct of Dr. Boudreaux's calls out a major flaw in lib thinking: That we're all essentially whores and there is no such thing as selflessness. If this is what being a lib means...thanks, I'll become a DemoNcrat.

Having served in the Army and in a successful private career, I'm quite familiar with both Joe Soldier and Joe Lunchbox. I'll state categorically that there's a "calling" in the Armed Forces that does not exist in Dr. Boudreaux's world. To those here who denigrate the service of the dedicated men and women in the Armed Forces (Mind you, not ALL of them ARE dedicated - some are there for purely economic reasons) shows the shallow and base nature of the accusator's soul. To further intimate that these folks seek "non-monetary" compensation demonstrates both a breathtaking level of intellectual arrogance and moral hypocricy.

I would have a very difficult time accepting that an individual economic actor, working in her/her own best interests, "serves" the nation (Notice I did NOT say the State). Said economic actor serves his/her own needs first, and in true economic fashion, *happens* to serve the nation by contributing to economic progress. Note that this "service" is purely coincidental and not at the forefront of thought or action.

I do not say, however, that a purely economic actor is valueless or ignoble. That would cast useless aspersions on honest, ethical people who simply have different goals than those who choose to serve in the Armed Forces. Having said that, I do not intend to engage in a discussion of who has more "worth".

I can most assuredly see how the reporters in question were injured not "in service" to a cause, but rather in seeking a paycheck. Dr. Boudreaux, while you're more than entitled to your opinion, one which I usually hold in high esteem, I'm afraid your position on this topic smacks of a cheap shot, bigotry and not a little bit of arrogance.

Re: Serving Your Country

Steven M. Warshawsky — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 08:09:12 -0000

While I fear boring whoever is left on this thread with my attempt at a rebuttal to Ben's main points, here are my thoughts:

I mentioned the libertarian point in my first post simply to introduce an example -- the legalization of prostitution or illicit drug use -- that I think puts the lie to the notion that everyone engaged in voluntary commercial activity is "serving the country" equally.

You're right, Ben, I take it as self-evident that whores and drug dealers do not serve the country as much as soldiers or cops or teachers or criminal prosecutors -- no matter how well-compensated they might be in the marketplace. If this makes me a simpleton in your eyes, so be it.

I mentioned my government service to make the point that IMO what I do everyday does more to serve the country than what many people do in the private sector. I never said I was saving the world, or that what I do is more beneficial than *all* private sector activity. It obviously is not. But surely there is at least *one* person in the country whose private economic activity does not benefit society as much as my work.

This example was offered to rebut Don's original post that not only are all people who engage in private commercial activity "serving their country," but that private sector actors are *always* doing more beneficial work than those "whose paychecks are drawn on government treasuries." I think this last point is ridiculous on its face. You may disagree, but, frankly, the burden of proof on this point lies with you and Don.

Yes, I think Don made several absurd remarks, including that "a prostitute and a cigarette merchant each serves others no less than do honorable policemen and soldiers." This only makes sense if the sole measure of "service" is voluntary commercial activity. I think this tautology completely miscontrues the much richer and more complex meaning of "serving the country."

Lastly, I believe I have a least *some* clue about economics. You make the point that economics encompasses literally *everything* that goes into human decisionmaking. Wow! That's impressive, but truly nothing more than another convenient tautology.

IMO you've poured so much into the "economics" cup that it has become devoid of any analytical or explanatory power. Like Marxism, apparently, "economics" as you understand the term can be invoked to explain anything and everything.

So then, the question remains, does a high priced call girl (or reporter) "serve the country" more than a lower-paid soldier ("at the margin" or otherwise)? What say you, and why? I say no. If you think that demonstrates my utter cluelessness about "economics," I guess there's not much more I can say.

Re: Serving Your Country

josh — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 06:13:45 -0000

"Many people do things for non-economic reasons."

MISNOMER!!!!!

Many people (everybody) do things for non-monetary reasons.

Re: Serving Your Country

Andrew — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 06:11:03 -0000

Given the miltary recruiting effort's emphasis on skills training and future college tuition payments, I believe many in the current military are there for primarily financial considerations, or at least future financial considerations. I wouldn't discount the intangibles entirely, but the current situation in Iraq certainly seems to have hurt recruiting efforts.

Re: Serving Your Country

JABBER — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 05:00:09 -0000

Gee, Ben, you are SO smart. Thanks for coming down from the Mountaintop to share your wisdom with us. Let me rephrase the sentence that say was so OBVIOUSLY wrong: "Soldiers, on the other hand, if they were solely serving themselves in FINANCIAL terms, would desert!" There, satisfied?

Soldiers (and teachers, and nurses, et al) do what they do because their UTILITY (happy?) is met by the intrinsic benefits of the job coupled with the extrinsic benefits they get. Steven (and forgive me for speaking for you, Steven) and I and others have objected to drawing them as equivalent to Joe Lunchbucket simply because that would assign a value of ZERO to those intrinsic benefits from a SOCIETAL perspective. They clearly are NOT zero from a personal perspective, and they are clearly NOT zero from a societal perspective. As MjrMjr points out, how much would we have to pay these folks if they were paid "what they were worth" in FINANCIAL terms?

Nowhere in your nitpicking diatribe against Steven have you addressed that question. Is the soldier's service equivalent to Joe Lunchbucket's? I and others say "No, it's worth more," and Don and others say "Yes." The disagreement is perfectly valid; your smug arrogance is not.

Re: Serving Your Country

Greg Newburn — Mon, 06 Feb 2006 02:26:34 -0000

Ben,

It's a little odd to call someone out for using straw men arguments in a post that responds to only the weakest arguments against your position. Isn't it?

Greg

Re: Serving Your Country

ben — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 22:47:25 -0000

Steven M. Warshawsky is obviously intelligent but I think he has completely dropped the ball in his comments.

1) Whether the author is libertarian or favors decriminalization of certain activities is irrelevant. So is the fact that you are a government employee.

2) By insisting that your work for the government is valuable, you completely miss the point. The author's claim is that because government salaries are not subject to the degree of competitive pressures faced in the private sector there is a weaker guarantee that the work being done is worth the cost. Government can survive such inefficiencies while the private sector ultimately cannot.

3) You say that the author is insisting equal value be placed on different types of workers in response to a post that included, "...at the margin one might be have more value on the market than another". Please read the post, or avoid straw men, or both.

4) You repeatedly assert the author's position or statements he makes are absurd or ridiculous or untenable without explaining why. It is not self evident. Please explain.

5) You pull out the old chestnut that economics isn't everything, a claim always (yes, I mean always) made by people who have not the first clue about economics. As usual, this claim is accompanied by a list of things it is believed economics ignores, demonstrating the writer's implicit belief that all economics is about money. For the record, economics is taking account of everything you list and whatever else matters to people, since the unit of analysis is utility not money.

Sorry to have a go at one poster, but I really think Steven got everything wrong from start to finish in this debate and this needs to be said. I believe Don, and comments by Nathaniel, are spot on.

The following comment "Soldiers, on the other hand, if they were solely serving themselves in economic terms, would desert!" is obviously incorrect because it doesn't explain why these people went into the military in the first place.

Re: Serving Your Country

MjrMjr — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 17:36:01 -0000

What if the average young male in the early 1940s view of military service was.... that beach in France doesn't sound like fun and hey, I can make just as much money twisting a wrench at the garage down the street without leaving my wife and kid behind? In other words, what if all young men viewed miltary service in the way that Dr. B and many other libertarians do? Would we have had to pay much higher salaries? (What do Halliburton mercenaries earn compared to an enlisted soldier these days?) Would we have needed to institute a draft? Would we have defeated Adolph Hitler? Would we be speaking German right now?

Take away the pride, the patriotism, and the honor(I'm a left-liberal who opposed the Iraq war from day one, btw), all well deserved, that go along with military service and wages would have to do what... double? Triple? How happy would libertarians(or anyone) be with their new tax bill?

Re: Serving Your Country

John P. — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 11:19:22 -0000

First, I just want to say that I love it when Don stirs things up like this.

As for the substantive issue at hand. . . . It seems that what folks are essentially arguing about here are positive externalities. The anti-Dons (for lack of a better term) feel that the pro-Dons' equating soldiers with ironworkers ignores the positive externalities thrown off by what soldiers do. (Positive externalities being benefits not reflected in the market price of the good or service.)

What's interesting is this: If we think of the "market price" of military service as including both money and the various non-monetary goods the soldier gets (not least of which is the kind of praise and honor that the anti-Dons are demonstrating here), then arguably there is a zero positive externality. In other words, society "pays" the soldier salary/benefits (s) PLUS various forms of honor (h), and the soldier agrees to provide his service in exchange for that combination of s and h. Thus, the very fact that anti-Dons take a strong & vocal anti-Don position tends to compensate the soldier for what would otherwise be positive externalities (i.e., the anti-Dons' assertions add to the soldier's h).

Now, there may be soldiers for whom s plus h is still not enough. These would be soldiers who really would rather be ironworkers, who don't want to be soldiers even given the current s and h being offered, yet who nevertheless become soldiers because they feel that the country needs them (or for some similar kind of reason). Those soldiers really would be providing a positive externality (assuming you consider what the military is doing at the time to be good), because the market price (s plus h) is less than the benefit conferred by the soldier. But my sense is that there are not many soldiers in our country's current overseas adventures who fall into this category, because the country has not been expressing much of a "need" for this kind of sacrifice. (The situation would be quite different, for example, if we were being invaded.)

If, then, there are no positive externalities involved in most military service today (i.e., the service is worth s plus h), what the soldier does is no "better" for society than what the ironworker does, whose work also creates little or no positive externality.

But simply by saying that, I may be reducing the amount of h that goes to the soldier, thereby giving rise to a positive externality. So I (generally) keep quiet.

Sorry for the length of this. (And, in the interest of full disclosure, my late father, whom I greatly admired, served as an enlisted man in Europe during the Big One and saw action at the Bulge.)

Re: Serving Your Country

Greg Newburn — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 10:46:00 -0000

Anshu,

I agree that being a soldier is noble, but I disagree that that's the reason most soldiers sign up. If it were, Professor Boudreaux's analysis would be spot on. Because I don't think it is, I disagree with him. I believe it is a sacrifice to sign up for the military. It's a sacrifice of income, leisure, stability, and relative occupational risk.

For some, the psychic income of the selfish reasons (e.g., to be known in the community as a soldier; as an investment into a future political career) makes up for the sacrifice. For others, it doesn't. And for this latter group, I think it's safe to say they are "serving their country" (i.e., "NOT serving themselves").

Re: Serving Your Country

Anshu Sharma — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 09:46:16 -0000

I agree with Nathaniel and Greg that the total income earned by a soldier and a plumber are sum total of psychic and monetary income. The problem is that acknowledging the psychic income somehow equates the soldier to a plumber which is upsetting to the soldier. It is like convincing a mother that when she works part-time to take care of her children- she is no more and no less generous than the father. So there you have it- there are hundreds of categories of jobs where a part of income is psychic income. And we can offend all of them- mothers, soldiers, stay-at-home dads, old age home nurses, green peace volunteers, etc. by insinuating that their acts provide them with psychic income.

I think protecting your country is noble, raising kids is noble, taking care of old is noble and protecting the environment is noble. But so is working at a grocery store. The only difference is that the impact of working in a grocery store is dispersed over several people including the sick, the old and young where as the nurse takes care of a few people so its easy to identify the beneficiary.

Yes, being a soldier is noble. And that is why people are willing to trade the psychic income of nobility for lower pay and higher risk.

Re: Serving Your Country

Greg Newburn — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 08:06:39 -0000

David,

But the question is, can we say that one individual's ranking of preferences should be praised more as "service to one's country" than other rankings of preferences. I think we can.

I don't think it's unreasonable to say that one who sacrifices wealth, status, and leisure explicitly so he can serve in the military is "serving his country" more than one who doesn't think of his country at all when ranking his employment preferences--even if his country benefits from his work more than it does from the soldier's work.

It's a nice benefit that we all are made better off by the work of those who don't think of us when performing their labor. But it wouldn't be reasonable to say that those people are "serving us" in any relevant sense.

In fact, as we all know, all exchanges occur because each party to the exchange values what the other has more than he values what he has. The taxi driver isn't "serving" me when he drives me home. He's serving himself. And I'm serving myself by taking the ride. It's true that the soldier receives "psychic income" that makes up for any salary cuts he takes so he can serve, but it's precisely that psychic income that show he is "serving his country."

In other words, the fact that the soldier values service to his country the same way others value money, status, or leisure is why we'd reasonably say that the soldier "serves his country" more than others do.

Re: Serving Your Country

JABBER — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 05:05:19 -0000

David Stevens, you acknowledge, as do I, that INDIVIDUALS assign a value to the intrinsic benefits of a job, which then affects the choices they make. But then you go where others before you have gone and argue that SOCIETY assigns a value of ZERO to those same benefits by equating what they do with the purely extrinsic benefits of Joe Lunchbucket. I find that deeply cynical.

Re: Serving Your Country

David Stevens — Sun, 05 Feb 2006 04:14:55 -0000

Those who choose to serve as solders, teachers, nurses, construction worker, police and fire fighters do so willingly without coercion. The choose to do so because thet believe / perceive the benefits (economic and non-tangible) to be the best for themselves.

Does this make them necessarily heroic? They have made a decision to embark on a career that will give them emotional and economic returns. That is why re-enlist remains as high as it does.

I am glad they have the freedom to choose a job / career that meets their economic and emotional needs, but excluding the non-economic benefits they accrue for their choice when comparing them to Joe Lunchbox is unfair to Joe Lunchbox. Joe has a different balance economic and emotional needs and perceives the soldering life as not providing sufficient benefits to him. That does not make him less noble or make his service to his country less valuable.

Re: Serving Your Country

Morgan — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 18:19:34 -0000

I think I'm closest to Charlie (Colorado) on this one (which is not surprising). For me, the fundamental distinction is one of intent - those in the military have chosen that path with the intent of serving the country. Perhaps some businessmen have the same intent, but most of us do our jobs with the intent of making a buck (and other personal motives) - the fact that this serves our compatriots is simply an economic reality.

Re: Serving Your Country

Nathaniel Luders — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 16:53:06 -0000

I guess I came off a little over the top. But I meant the people tend to assign higher degrees of honor or service to jobs where people recieved a higher degree of their compensation through satifaction in providing service as opposed to money. And that would apply to teachers and soldiers very well. And there's a lot of interchanging the words economic and money going on here. "Soldiers, on the other hand, if they were solely serving themselves in economic terms, would desert!" But the economist interpretation is that the honor and joy of defending something important to you is an economic benefit. It is of value to the individual and the individual is taking economic actions to obtain that value.

Re: Serving Your Country

Greg Newburn — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 15:39:17 -0000

I haven't read through all of the comments, so this might have been mentioned before, but I think the relevant distinction here is intent.

Most (or at least "many") soldiers "serve their country" first, and view their salary and benefits as ancillary. Plumbers and prostitutes, on the other hand, perform their services for selfish benefit first, and whatever pleasure their customers derive from the exchange second (or not at all).

After Smith we all know that often the public benefits from the latter type of service more than they do from the former, but if we're trying to figure out which type ought to be lauded for selflessness and sacrifice, police and soldiers (at least those who have foregone better pay, easier jobs, etc.) ought to be recognized for that before for-profit enterprises.

Re: Serving Your Country

JABBER — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 15:28:13 -0000

"There's a gut reaction going on against monetary compensation..."

Uh, Nathaniel, I'm not sure what you mean by that. My "gut reaction" is surely not against monetary compensation. I look forward to my monthly monetary compensation very much, thank you. My "gut reaction" is against, as I posted earlier, assigning a value for altruism to zero.

Re: Serving Your Country

Nathaniel Luders — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 15:07:29 -0000

It looks like the disagreement here is more about money to me. The idea is that the moral status of a job is directly proportional to the non-monetary compensation recieved for doing a job. Teachers wages are driven down by the compensatory effect of helping children directly. Soldiers wages are driven down by the value placed on things like honor (although alot of the fringe benefits are pretty awesome too). Look at the issue taken with the word "economic", that word is being substituted for monetary compensation. There's a gut reaction going on against monetary compensationm and it's being projected onto all "economics".

Re: Serving Your Country

Charlie (Colorado) — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 14:33:35 -0000

The distinction is that the military is purposefully putting their life and limb on the line to "support and defend the Constitution of the United States ... against all enemies, foreign and domestic". That is a higher purpose than simply providing economic benefits to their families; the values they serve, and the benefits they provide, far exceed the economic value of their time.

I realize this is an economics blog primarily, but every so often even libertarians need to take their economic blinders off.

Re: Serving Your Country

JABBER — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 14:28:32 -0000

But, voorhees, "your" point has always been my point as well. Many people do things for non-economic reasons, among them teachers and soldiers. In that sense, in their service to others, we discredit what they do by equating them with Joe Lunchbucket, who mostly, if not exclusively, wants to collect a paycheck. I find an equivalence made here to be deeply cynical, because it reduces altruism's value to zero, and it is assuredly NOT zero.

Re: Serving Your Country

voorhees — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 14:08:18 -0000

From my earlier comment:

"In both cases, though, while the person in question earns pay for their work, their reasons may not be limited to the remuneration."

"Isn't it awfully cynical to assume that soldiers serve ONLY because it puts bread on the table?"

I am not assuming that soldiers serve only to put bread on the table, rather I'm suggesting that money could be (and for many, probably is) a factor for soldiers as well as for any other profession. In addition, if money were the only factor, there would be very few soldiers and teachers and lots and lots of patent attorneys (if only in the short term; the demand for patent attorneys would likely decrease dramatically due to nobody inventing anything and people becoming patent attorneys).

"I know many school teachers who do what they do because they get enormous intrinsic (ie, unpaid) benefits from teaching children how to read and add."

Yes, again, you make my point, people have their own reasons for doing things. I know a school teacher, in fact: I see him in the mirror every morning.

Re: Serving Your Country

JABBER — Sat, 04 Feb 2006 13:22:20 -0000

Don, thanks for the link. While I ultimately don't agree with it, I respect your thoughtful analysis therein.