… is from page 134 of the original edition of Robert Higgs’s remarkable 1987 book, Crisis and Leviathan:
No resource taken by the government in its war mobilization was more precious, and no one else was so poorly compensated for his sacrifices as the draftee.
DBx: Yes. Such is one of the many vile consequences of conscription – a consequence that, in turn, unjustly concentrates the cost of the government’s effort on a subset of the population and, also, masks this cost’s full size.
A similar consequence occurred during covid. Lockdowners concentrated disproportionately heavy costs on a subset of the population – such as, for example, workers prevented from earning incomes and keeping their job skills sharp, and small-business owners who lost their enterprises and incomes. Being off-budget, these costs aren’t reckoned into the final, formal cost of the covid response.
