I was going to write this post when we last talked about double standards, but didn’t, and now here we are with a perfect example.
It’s not just because one standard is good and one standard is bad (though in this case, as in other, it one certainly is better than the other). Double standards matter because double standards and the way they affect incentives can be worse than even the wrong standard applied consistently.
Suppose there’s no draft. Wars, and the damage they can do, are limited in scope, without the extra manpower provided by the draft. And, of course, no men are forced to participate under penalty of law.
Suppose there is a draft, but it’s consistently and fairly applied. People, including political elites, are aware that they (or their children) are eligible to be drafted and potentially killed in the event of a war. This is an incentive to avoid war if possible. Therefore, under standard economic logic, war will be less common.
Now suppose there’s a draft, but the families of the political elite are exempt (de facto if not de jure). The incentive to avoid war is gone, so wars are more common than in the “fair” draft case. And there’s still (almost) as much extra manpower from the draft, so wars can be larger than in the no draft case, and (almost) as many men are forced to participate.
Nobody deserves to suffer. Not because they’re pro-war, and not because they’re privileged. But allowing the elite to immunize themselves and their families from the suffering their policies cause affects their incentives. If you think incentives matter, you need to care about hypocrisy and double standards, even if, on the surface, the double standard is reducing suffering.
