Salerno's Praxeological Analysis of War Making

[Richard Tanner]

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This reminds me of a discussion (many) in which I have postulated that it is, in fact, practical(economical)to make war, depending on who you are, of course. It would seem that one of the tenents of AC, being that it is not profitable or practical to make war, is in error. Funny that someone at Mises is the one to discover this....

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Funny that you still can't ever get anything straight. It is emphatically NOT profitable to make war . . . if you have to pay for it yourself. If you can externalize the costs by law, then it can become personally profitable to do litterally anything, fight wars, send people to the moon, build pyramids, no matter how collasally wasteful.

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How does that work, we could drop a neutron bomb(s) on an area with it's own infrastructure and resources (the people die, the material remains) and we move in and claim what's "ours". Certainly public opinion can be a factor, but people have proven they're sheep, or at the very least very complacent.

Where does this "War isn't profitable" thing come from. Anything can be profitable, just a matter of keeping costs down.

Cody

[Borodog]

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This reminds me of a discussion (many) in which I have postulated that it is, in fact, practical(economical)to make war, depending on who you are, of course. It would seem that one of the tenents of AC, being that it is not profitable or practical to make war, is in error. Funny that someone at Mises is the one to discover this....

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Funny that you still can't ever get anything straight. It is emphatically NOT profitable to make war . . . if you have to pay for it yourself. If you can externalize the costs by law, then it can become personally profitable to do litterally anything, fight wars, send people to the moon, build pyramids, no matter how collasally wasteful.

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How does that work, we could drop a neutron bomb(s) on an area with it's own infrastructure and resources (the people die, the material remains) and we move in and claim what's "ours".

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This is massively more costly than just trading with them. Do you see why?

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Certainly public opinion can be a factor, but people have proven they're sheep, or at the very least very complacent.

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I think your scheme would strain their credulity. 70% of people are already against the war we have now, much less wiping out hundreds of millions of people with neutron bombs. [img]/images/graemlins/tongue.gif[/img]

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Where does this "War isn't profitable" thing come from. Anything can be profitable, just a matter of keeping costs down.

Cody

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Lol. When has government ever been able to keep down costs? Especially when it doesn't have to (which is always)?

I will however, concede the argument, since I've decided that it may well have been that the Spanish conquests in Central America were profitable; their technology was so much higher than the natives that costs would have been relatively low, and they pulled a lot of gold and silver out. It wouldn't surprise me if they ultimately weren't profitable (because government can bungle anything), but they might have been.

[pvn]

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Where does this "War isn't profitable" thing come from.

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I think it's a conflation of the "war is not good for the economy" argument plus the "Bill Gates is unlikely to start murdering street hobos since it would lower his hourly rate" argument.

And it's important to note that in the "war is not good for the economy" argument it IS possible for *certain narrow segments* of the economy to do great during war.



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Anything can be profitable, just a matter of keeping costs down.

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When we're talking about activities with externalized costs, "profits" are basically meaningless.

[pvn]

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I will however, concede the argument, since I've decided that it may well have been that the Spanish conquests in Central America were profitable; their technology was so much higher than the natives that costs would have been relatively low, and they pulled a lot of gold and silver out. It wouldn't surprise me if they ultimately weren't profitable (because government can bungle anything), but they might have been.

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This is basically just a corrolary to the death star argument.

[tomdemaine]

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I will however, concede the argument, since I've decided that it may well have been that the Spanish conquests in Central America were profitable; their technology was so much higher than the natives that costs would have been relatively low, and they pulled a lot of gold and silver out. It wouldn't surprise me if they ultimately weren't profitable (because government can bungle anything), but they might have been.

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Boro,

I'm pretty sure that the Spanish conquests totally ruined their economy which is basically still suffering today. Because It was a gold based economy the conquest to bring back gold was essentially a government funded printing of money on a massive massive scale and as you well know the elites get the money first and then the resultant inflation screws everyone else. Of course in the days before smart reactive markets this effect was even more pronounced and Spain has pretty much been the sick man of Europe ever since.

[Felz]

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Funny that you still can't ever get anything straight. It is emphatically NOT profitable to make war . . . if you have to pay for it yourself. If you can externalize the costs by law, then it can become personally profitable to do litterally anything, fight wars, send people to the moon, build pyramids, no matter how collasally wasteful.

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Yeah, and externalities don't exist within a pure market economy.

[The once and future king]

Meh, lots of statements no real arguements.

[Borodog]

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I will however, concede the argument, since I've decided that it may well have been that the Spanish conquests in Central America were profitable; their technology was so much higher than the natives that costs would have been relatively low, and they pulled a lot of gold and silver out. It wouldn't surprise me if they ultimately weren't profitable (because government can bungle anything), but they might have been.

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This is basically just a corrolary to the death star argument.

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Yes, exactly.

[Borodog]

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Funny that you still can't ever get anything straight. It is emphatically NOT profitable to make war . . . if you have to pay for it yourself. If you can externalize the costs by law, then it can become personally profitable to do litterally anything, fight wars, send people to the moon, build pyramids, no matter how collasally wasteful.

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Yeah, and externalities don't exist within a pure market economy.

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They might exist, but at least the market contains mechanisms for internalizing them (liability and tort), whereas under government, negative externality is the entire form and fabric of government policy. Under government, negative externality is institutionalized with apologists (such as yourself) defending it all the way.

[Borodog]

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I will however, concede the argument, since I've decided that it may well have been that the Spanish conquests in Central America were profitable; their technology was so much higher than the natives that costs would have been relatively low, and they pulled a lot of gold and silver out. It wouldn't surprise me if they ultimately weren't profitable (because government can bungle anything), but they might have been.

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Boro,

I'm pretty sure that the Spanish conquests totally ruined their economy which is basically still suffering today. Because It was a gold based economy the conquest to bring back gold was essentially a government funded printing of money on a massive massive scale and as you well know the elites get the money first and then the resultant inflation screws everyone else. Of course in the days before smart reactive markets this effect was even more pronounced and Spain has pretty much been the sick man of Europe ever since.

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I'll have to look into the economic history of Spain.