Question about fundamental societal construction

[wufwugy]

I suggest the incentives are too great. If you could violently take over a top economy, it would be hugely profitable. Rome made an empire out of that game.

Exactly!

But you can't. Not anymore. Companies that make up a top economy already have too great an incentive to let that happen. This is why I have posted several times that I think if all US nukes were auctioned, we would actually see the world eliminate all its nukes. The Chamber of Commerce and many other huge factions would have overwhelming incentive to eliminate that gargantuan risk. They would offer other holders of nukes terms they can't refuse. Not to repeat myself: capitalists like it when both parties win; states like it only when the other party loses.

Besides, it's not like Russia wants its nukes. It feels like it needs them because other states also have nukes. States have everything backwards. They create tension and violence merely by existing.


Also, taking over a top economy wouldn't be profitable. It would be a colossal sink. That sort of stuff was only true when everybody was a farmer and states could control all things by taxing farmers. It should be telling that rich organizations have zero desire to take over economies. Only states want to do that. Taking over economies destroys profits

[a500lbgorilla]

Exactly!

But you can't. Not anymore. Companies that make up a top economy already have too great an incentive to let that happen.

Ah yes, because history never repeats itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage

And people today are just too rich and smart and evolved to fall into that same old rut.

[a500lbgorilla]

Or are you saying that great corporations will want to form big armed forces to protect their ecosystem, then when they have there will be no reason to sit on them so they'll wage wars for profit?

It's called America, and it is amazing.

[wufwugy]

Or are you saying that great corporations will want to form big armed forces to protect their ecosystem, then when they have there will be no reason to sit on them so they'll wage wars for profit?

It's called America, and it is amazing.

You beg the question. Corporations do not protect their ecosystems by creating a monopoly on violence.

Besides, in an economy like ours, they simply couldn't. The risk would be about as high as the probability of the sun rising tomorrow. Few would take it on for that reason, and those who did would be crushed by the incentives of everybody else

[wufwugy]

Ah yes, because history never repeats itself.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ancient_Carthage

And people today are just too rich and smart and evolved to fall into that same old rut.

I don't have to know anything about the Carthagian economy to know that it doesn't qualify for anything I've said. I would use it, as well as so many others, as examples for why militaristic states used to be a good thing. That was back in a time when the only way to assess an existential risk from outside aggressors was to merely assume it was huge.