I can't help but notice that every single one of these arguments equally opposes letting the other side's soldiers surrender on the battlefield and become PoWs in the regular way instead of fighting to the death:
1. DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE considers killing enemy soldiers an actively good thing, allowing them to surrender and be imprisoned is a lesser penalty and therefore wrong.
2. EQUALITY would be concerned that only wealthy countries can afford to treat their PoWs well, and this would give them an unfair advantage.
3. MINIMAL NECESSARY HARM would consider letting people be cowards and surrender to be a fate worse than death. So we must kill them if they try to surrender, and make this widely known so they won't try and will instead die good patriots.
4. WRONG REASON would tag self-preservation as the same kind of low motive that shouldn't be encouraged. You can surrender because you think Russia is on the wrong side, but not merely to save your own skin.
5. ADDING INSULT TO INJURY says that as long as we have our own soldiers being treated less than optimally, we cannot spend any money on the well-being of enemy soldiers. Since taking them prisoner involves a non-zero expense to house and feed them, better to just shoot them where they stand.
I look forward to seeing people who embrace these arguments arguing against the Geneva convention.
I can think of a few (IMO more plausible) reasons.
1) Most soldiers, economically speaking, overvalue their military worth (i.e., patriotism and the sense of dishonor in desertion may mean you would have to pay them much more than would actually be materially worth it to get them to desert). Only a rarefied few extremely valued, specialized soldiers would be willing to defect for a price that a self-interested, rational agent would be willing to pay (though if you're an altruistic agent who takes the benefit to the bribed soldier into account, it may still be worth it to pay a more or less disposable infantryman to defect more than he's worth for his own sake, even if it's not militarily worth it).
2) This can easily be gamed. People can join the military then immediately desert just to get free money. In fact, if you don't have accurate personnel information on the enemy forces, civilians could put on some fatigues, walk into a base, and collect a check. The enemy government could even exploit this by recruiting large numbers of people to 'enlist' on paper, desert, collect the money, then return to Russia (and who knows, maybe do it again under a different name).
3) There are potential unforeseen downstream responses. E.g., governments may start punishing family members of deserters to counteract the cash incentive soldiers have to desert.
The arguments may be silly and obtuse, but they are the arguments of much of the electorate. You need to engage with the arguments to understand - let alone influence! - their votes.
The real shame about Ned's commendable work here is that it's beside the point. I doubt that any of these arguments capture the true objection of almost anyone, any more than "I don't like green food" capture my kids' true objection to vegetables. If I'm right, then engaging with these arguments is a waste of time - instead, we should identify the true objection and deal with that. If I'm wrong, I'd love to have someone change my mind.
I guess the easiest argument against is that it just doesn't seem to work. We offer pretty large bonuses to defect, but few people defect. Maybe they are loyal to their country. Maybe they don't see an opportunity. Maybe they are afraid for their family left behind. Maybe they fear that even if they get out they will be tracked down (that Russian pilot example).
The easiest way to end the Ukraine war is one nobody is going to like to hear. Ukranians already pay a lot of money to avoid the draft and get out of the country. I hear the going rate is $5,000. We could pay the Ukranians to defect and offer a much stronger guarantee of personal safety. The recent $60B package, divided by one million active military personal, is $60,000 a person. Combined with an EU passport and a guarantee of physical safety, this would probably be the quickest way to end the war.
Or maybe not, but if you wanted to bribe people to end the war that's the fastest way.
One thing I admire about Thomas Szasz is that though he was erudite on many topics he focused with laser precision on a few. He wasn't stretched thin because he knew it limited his effectiveness. The same can be said of Friedman and Hayek.
I'm unfamiliar w/Bryan's oeuvre. Has he proposed similar strategies to deter and/or rehabilitate criminals, encourage legislators to forgo legislating - or, even better, retract existing legislation, sex offenders to perhaps attack each other, etc? How about paying university professors a handsome premium to eschew DEI dogma in their curricula? They are chronically underpaid, right?
All of those fall resoundingly flat and seem to be a lipsticked pig for pure spite/jealously with a giant helping of sunk cost fallacies. They completely ignore the costs born by the civilian population as a result of a continued war.
I mean I get these were just common objections but let's call them for what they are, pettiness. And know that's not knew and yes law is full of that.
Still I'm glad for the post, was an interesting read. The first one is the only one I'm even remotely sympathetic to but that scenario only works because imperfect enforcement problem, i.e. before it actually starts to incentive new wrongdoers / free riders ala entrapment effectively.
I can't help but notice that every single one of these arguments equally opposes letting the other side's soldiers surrender on the battlefield and become PoWs in the regular way instead of fighting to the death:
1. DISTRIBUTIVE JUSTICE considers killing enemy soldiers an actively good thing, allowing them to surrender and be imprisoned is a lesser penalty and therefore wrong.
2. EQUALITY would be concerned that only wealthy countries can afford to treat their PoWs well, and this would give them an unfair advantage.
3. MINIMAL NECESSARY HARM would consider letting people be cowards and surrender to be a fate worse than death. So we must kill them if they try to surrender, and make this widely known so they won't try and will instead die good patriots.
4. WRONG REASON would tag self-preservation as the same kind of low motive that shouldn't be encouraged. You can surrender because you think Russia is on the wrong side, but not merely to save your own skin.
5. ADDING INSULT TO INJURY says that as long as we have our own soldiers being treated less than optimally, we cannot spend any money on the well-being of enemy soldiers. Since taking them prisoner involves a non-zero expense to house and feed them, better to just shoot them where they stand.
I look forward to seeing people who embrace these arguments arguing against the Geneva convention.
I can think of a few (IMO more plausible) reasons.
1) Most soldiers, economically speaking, overvalue their military worth (i.e., patriotism and the sense of dishonor in desertion may mean you would have to pay them much more than would actually be materially worth it to get them to desert). Only a rarefied few extremely valued, specialized soldiers would be willing to defect for a price that a self-interested, rational agent would be willing to pay (though if you're an altruistic agent who takes the benefit to the bribed soldier into account, it may still be worth it to pay a more or less disposable infantryman to defect more than he's worth for his own sake, even if it's not militarily worth it).
2) This can easily be gamed. People can join the military then immediately desert just to get free money. In fact, if you don't have accurate personnel information on the enemy forces, civilians could put on some fatigues, walk into a base, and collect a check. The enemy government could even exploit this by recruiting large numbers of people to 'enlist' on paper, desert, collect the money, then return to Russia (and who knows, maybe do it again under a different name).
3) There are potential unforeseen downstream responses. E.g., governments may start punishing family members of deserters to counteract the cash incentive soldiers have to desert.
The links to your Make Desertion Fast articles are broken.
The arguments may be silly and obtuse, but they are the arguments of much of the electorate. You need to engage with the arguments to understand - let alone influence! - their votes.
The real shame about Ned's commendable work here is that it's beside the point. I doubt that any of these arguments capture the true objection of almost anyone, any more than "I don't like green food" capture my kids' true objection to vegetables. If I'm right, then engaging with these arguments is a waste of time - instead, we should identify the true objection and deal with that. If I'm wrong, I'd love to have someone change my mind.
I guess the easiest argument against is that it just doesn't seem to work. We offer pretty large bonuses to defect, but few people defect. Maybe they are loyal to their country. Maybe they don't see an opportunity. Maybe they are afraid for their family left behind. Maybe they fear that even if they get out they will be tracked down (that Russian pilot example).
The easiest way to end the Ukraine war is one nobody is going to like to hear. Ukranians already pay a lot of money to avoid the draft and get out of the country. I hear the going rate is $5,000. We could pay the Ukranians to defect and offer a much stronger guarantee of personal safety. The recent $60B package, divided by one million active military personal, is $60,000 a person. Combined with an EU passport and a guarantee of physical safety, this would probably be the quickest way to end the war.
Or maybe not, but if you wanted to bribe people to end the war that's the fastest way.
One thing I admire about Thomas Szasz is that though he was erudite on many topics he focused with laser precision on a few. He wasn't stretched thin because he knew it limited his effectiveness. The same can be said of Friedman and Hayek.
I've heard people say that you'll end up with a lot of people still loyal to Russia pretending to defect who might try to work for Russia.
Most of his complaints could be reduced by offering the right to live and work in the west to all Russians and Ukrainians.
I'm unfamiliar w/Bryan's oeuvre. Has he proposed similar strategies to deter and/or rehabilitate criminals, encourage legislators to forgo legislating - or, even better, retract existing legislation, sex offenders to perhaps attack each other, etc? How about paying university professors a handsome premium to eschew DEI dogma in their curricula? They are chronically underpaid, right?
All of those fall resoundingly flat and seem to be a lipsticked pig for pure spite/jealously with a giant helping of sunk cost fallacies. They completely ignore the costs born by the civilian population as a result of a continued war.
I mean I get these were just common objections but let's call them for what they are, pettiness. And know that's not knew and yes law is full of that.
Still I'm glad for the post, was an interesting read. The first one is the only one I'm even remotely sympathetic to but that scenario only works because imperfect enforcement problem, i.e. before it actually starts to incentive new wrongdoers / free riders ala entrapment effectively.