|
|
 Originally Posted by a500lbgorilla
Until some insurance firm discovers that standing armies are ridiculous expenses and marching armies are enormously profitable. And so should begin the Insurance Firm Wars.
They're not enormously profitable. I think this is a crux in our disagreement. I do not think it is accurate to say that profit-seeking entities view marching armies and conquest as profitable. Every example I can think of in history shows its an enormous cost sink and that the real motives for armies and conquest is power. Going back to the British Empire, conquest was a total fucking disaster for its profits. Governments don't do profits, and profits aren't what comes out of conquest. Perhaps if you go back to such a primitive society as, say, during the Mongol Empire, it could be said that profits came out of control of a simple sector of raw resources. But that is not a concern today. There are magnitudes more types of resources and competition. Conquest is not profitable and the last thing you will ever see is the Insurance Firm Wars.
The key is that you're equating profits with legal power. All the stuff Dan Carlin talks about is societies that organize around legal power. Societies that organize around profits are fundamentally different. I do not think it is that illuminating to use pre-free-market-capitalism or anti-free-market-capitalism societies as examples of problems in free-market-capitalist societies
|
Reply With Quote