EclectEcon

Economics and the mid-life crisis have much in common: Both dwell on foregone opportunities

C'est la vie; c'est la guerre; c'est la pomme de terre . . . . . . . . . . . . . email: jpalmer at uwo dot ca


. . . . . . . . . . .Richard Posner should be awarded the next Nobel Prize in Economics . . . . . . . . . . . .

Friday, December 24, 2004

The "Economic" Draft:
Coercion vs. Persuasion

Tom Palmer has a recent reference on his blog to a group that says raising the pay for soldiers is economic conscription.
I see -- by offering potential soldiers more money, the gubmnt is forcing them to give up their next best alternative?

I guess the process of meeting or exceeding soldiers' opportunity costs and thus generating supplier surplus is equivalent, in their minds, to drafting them. What idiocy! I expect these folks don't understand the difference between "persuasion" and "coercion" as explained in The Economic Way of Thinking.
[Canadian Edition by the late Paul Heyne and me]

Sounds like the old Flip Wilson line: "the devil made me do it."
 
Who Links Here