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He wasn't the first. It's the whole "Capitalist Peace" theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace pro

He wasn't the first. It's the whole "Capitalist Peace" theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capitalist_peace proposed by Professor Erik Gartzke, that economically developed countries (capitalist - but in this case even something like China can qualify) don't fight with one another.

John23832 10y ago
That's pretty interesting. That also reminds me of what people have called "Pax Americana"[0] which is probably due to America's large influence on modern Capitalism. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana
- aaron-lebo 10y ago
  I have, therefore, chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived. And that is the most important topic on earth: peace. What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time. - JFK
  - liberte82 10y ago
    "Any negative polls are fake!" - Donald Trump
    - bobmno 10y ago
      "The Russians are responsible!" - Hillary
- crdb 10y ago
  Related: > On a cold and rainy February afternoon in 1947, one year before the Games Center was established, First Secretary H. M. Sichel of the British Embassy in Washington telephoned Loy Henderson, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and African Affairs. He had two messages from the Foreign Office which were "rather important." They were of a sort that normally should be delivered by the British Ambassador direct to the Secretary of State, George Marshall, but since General Marshall had already left the office for the weekend perhaps, Sichel suggested he could drop off the notes, have a "brief" chat about them, and allow Mr. Henderson a weekend of reflection on them before briefing the Secretary prior to meeting the British Ambassador on Monday morning. > Sichel arrived as State Department employees, after a comparatively dull week, were donning their raincoats and galoshes to take off for an indoor weekend. Loy Henderson, who habitually worked until eight or nine o'clock even on Fridays, had sent off all his secretaries and was alone in the office. The scene was the one of utter calm that skillful dramatists often establish to provide the psychological setting for a shattering announcement. The announcement, which Mr. Sichel delivered in the course of his "brief chat," was certainly shattering. > The two messages were official notification that the Pax Britannica, which had kept order in much of the world for over a century, was at an end. Specifically, His Majesty's Government could no longer afford the $50,000,000 or so that was required to support the resistance of the Greek and Turkish Governments to Communist aggression either, as in the first case, by guerrilla warfare or, in the second, by direct military action of the Soviet Union. Either the United States Government would fill the gap, or it would go unfilled - or it would be left to the Russians. [...] > With the British announcement, delivered so calmly by Mr. Sichel, the United States was given the choice of becoming an active world power - an "on-the-ground" world power, as a lecturer at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute was later to put it - or seeing the Soviets become a more menacing feature of world politics than Nazi Germany could ever have been. Mr. Sichel said, "I hope I haven't spoiled your weekend." - The Game of Nations, Miles Copeland (https://www.amazon.com/Game-Nations-Amorality-Power-Politics/dp/0671205323 https://www.amazon.com/Game-Nations-Amorality-Power-Politics...)
jgalt212 10y ago
true, but one should also ask how much trade is necessary to serve as an effective deterrent to war? Must we put everyone factory worker in the midwest on the public dole to avoid war with China, or just some fraction of them?
- pg314 10y ago
  Even if you start erecting trade barriers, you are not going to get back the jobs lost to automation. Whoever is telling that is lying. A large fraction of the low-skill, well-paying factory jobs of the past are permanently gone. This is not an easy problem to solve, and any easy solution proffered is likely to fail.
  - Arizhel 10y ago
    There's only one solution: Universal Basic Income.
    - jgalt212 10y ago
      UBI won't solve anything. In fact, it will mostly just lead to inflation for basic goods and services with ultimate effect on the poor and working poor being a wash. I liken UBI to easing credit for home mortgages. Easy credit doesn't make houses more affordable, it just makes it easier to borrow more money for a more expensive product. Sam Altman does not understand or appreciate the above point.
      - pg314 10y ago
        > Sam Altman does not understand or appreciate the above point. Maybe because the above point is dubious at best? In a complex domain like an economics, it is very hard to make proclamations such as yours with anything resembling your certainty. Depending on how UBI is implemented (and how close to full employment the economy is, how much other government spending there is, how it is financed,...) there might be an effect on inflation. But it would probably be nowhere near enough to 'be a wash'. The debate on UBI isn't settled yet by economists. More experiments are needed and will shed more light on it. Your comparison with easing credit is nonsensical.
adekok 10y ago
> that economically developed countries (capitalist - but in this case even something like China can qualify) don't fight with one another. France and Germany? WW1 / WW2? Japan and the US in WW2? IIRC, at the time, Japan and the US were trade partners, and Japan imported the bulk of it's oil from the US. Yet in both cases, they still went to war. I think the lesson is that ideology trumps economics.
- John23832 10y ago
  I think the word "capitalist" might have been better than "economically developed". One could argue that Capitalism was the reason Japan went to war against the US. Japan was worried that the US would cut off all oil exports to Japan, so they attempted to gain control of the pacific in order to solidify access to oil. They needed to keep their machine going. Idk if I would call (pre-wwII, post rise of Hitler) Germany truly "Capitalist" though.
  - nickik 10y ago
    That seems strange to me. Its not like the west cut of oil from Japan for no reason. Japan was fighting a war with China. They were not willing to give that up and escalated the war. Capitalists (as in profit seeking companies and people) seem to have very little to do with it. That is a political decision on the highest level.
    - John23832 10y ago
      I guess. The way I viewed it Japan made a move to protect their markets. But you could be right.
      - nickik 10y ago
        I guess they did it to protect their market and war machine. The question is where did the pressure to do so come from, was it from the political class or the business community.
baq 10y ago
capitalism != free market; china is definitely a capitalistic country.
kristianc 10y ago
And neither was Gartzke. It's important to note that the "Capitalist Peace" is considered a modern explanation for the "Democratic Peace" theory, an idea that goes back as far as Kant. The democratic people theory is also harder to pick holes in than the capitalist peace - particularly if you restrict it to mature democracies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory

John23832 10y ago

That's pretty interesting. That also reminds me of what people have called "Pax Americana"[0] which is probably due to America's large influence on modern Capitalism. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pax_Americana

aaron-lebo 10y ago
I have, therefore, chosen this time and place to discuss a topic on which ignorance too often abounds and the truth too rarely perceived. And that is the most important topic on earth: peace. What kind of peace do I mean and what kind of a peace do we seek? Not a Pax Americana enforced on the world by American weapons of war. Not the peace of the grave or the security of the slave. I am talking about genuine peace, the kind of peace that makes life on earth worth living, and the kind that enables men and nations to grow, and to hope, and build a better life for their children -- not merely peace for Americans but peace for all men and women, not merely peace in our time but peace in all time. - JFK
- liberte82 10y ago
  "Any negative polls are fake!" - Donald Trump
  - bobmno 10y ago
    "The Russians are responsible!" - Hillary
crdb 10y ago
Related: > On a cold and rainy February afternoon in 1947, one year before the Games Center was established, First Secretary H. M. Sichel of the British Embassy in Washington telephoned Loy Henderson, Assistant Secretary of State for Near Eastern and African Affairs. He had two messages from the Foreign Office which were "rather important." They were of a sort that normally should be delivered by the British Ambassador direct to the Secretary of State, George Marshall, but since General Marshall had already left the office for the weekend perhaps, Sichel suggested he could drop off the notes, have a "brief" chat about them, and allow Mr. Henderson a weekend of reflection on them before briefing the Secretary prior to meeting the British Ambassador on Monday morning. > Sichel arrived as State Department employees, after a comparatively dull week, were donning their raincoats and galoshes to take off for an indoor weekend. Loy Henderson, who habitually worked until eight or nine o'clock even on Fridays, had sent off all his secretaries and was alone in the office. The scene was the one of utter calm that skillful dramatists often establish to provide the psychological setting for a shattering announcement. The announcement, which Mr. Sichel delivered in the course of his "brief chat," was certainly shattering. > The two messages were official notification that the Pax Britannica, which had kept order in much of the world for over a century, was at an end. Specifically, His Majesty's Government could no longer afford the $50,000,000 or so that was required to support the resistance of the Greek and Turkish Governments to Communist aggression either, as in the first case, by guerrilla warfare or, in the second, by direct military action of the Soviet Union. Either the United States Government would fill the gap, or it would go unfilled - or it would be left to the Russians. [...] > With the British announcement, delivered so calmly by Mr. Sichel, the United States was given the choice of becoming an active world power - an "on-the-ground" world power, as a lecturer at the State Department's Foreign Service Institute was later to put it - or seeing the Soviets become a more menacing feature of world politics than Nazi Germany could ever have been. Mr. Sichel said, "I hope I haven't spoiled your weekend." - The Game of Nations, Miles Copeland (https://www.amazon.com/Game-Nations-Amorality-Power-Politics/dp/0671205323 https://www.amazon.com/Game-Nations-Amorality-Power-Politics...)

jgalt212 10y ago

true, but one should also ask how much trade is necessary to serve as an effective deterrent to war? Must we put everyone factory worker in the midwest on the public dole to avoid war with China, or just some fraction of them?

pg314 10y ago
Even if you start erecting trade barriers, you are not going to get back the jobs lost to automation. Whoever is telling that is lying. A large fraction of the low-skill, well-paying factory jobs of the past are permanently gone. This is not an easy problem to solve, and any easy solution proffered is likely to fail.
- Arizhel 10y ago
  There's only one solution: Universal Basic Income.
  - jgalt212 10y ago
    UBI won't solve anything. In fact, it will mostly just lead to inflation for basic goods and services with ultimate effect on the poor and working poor being a wash. I liken UBI to easing credit for home mortgages. Easy credit doesn't make houses more affordable, it just makes it easier to borrow more money for a more expensive product. Sam Altman does not understand or appreciate the above point.
    - pg314 10y ago
      > Sam Altman does not understand or appreciate the above point. Maybe because the above point is dubious at best? In a complex domain like an economics, it is very hard to make proclamations such as yours with anything resembling your certainty. Depending on how UBI is implemented (and how close to full employment the economy is, how much other government spending there is, how it is financed,...) there might be an effect on inflation. But it would probably be nowhere near enough to 'be a wash'. The debate on UBI isn't settled yet by economists. More experiments are needed and will shed more light on it. Your comparison with easing credit is nonsensical.

adekok 10y ago

> that economically developed countries (capitalist - but in this case even something like China can qualify) don't fight with one another. France and Germany? WW1 / WW2? Japan and the US in WW2? IIRC, at the time, Japan and the US were trade partners, and Japan imported the bulk of it's oil from the US. Yet in both cases, they still went to war. I think the lesson is that ideology trumps economics.

John23832 10y ago
I think the word "capitalist" might have been better than "economically developed". One could argue that Capitalism was the reason Japan went to war against the US. Japan was worried that the US would cut off all oil exports to Japan, so they attempted to gain control of the pacific in order to solidify access to oil. They needed to keep their machine going. Idk if I would call (pre-wwII, post rise of Hitler) Germany truly "Capitalist" though.
- nickik 10y ago
  That seems strange to me. Its not like the west cut of oil from Japan for no reason. Japan was fighting a war with China. They were not willing to give that up and escalated the war. Capitalists (as in profit seeking companies and people) seem to have very little to do with it. That is a political decision on the highest level.
  - John23832 10y ago
    I guess. The way I viewed it Japan made a move to protect their markets. But you could be right.
    - nickik 10y ago
      I guess they did it to protect their market and war machine. The question is where did the pressure to do so come from, was it from the political class or the business community.

baq 10y ago

capitalism != free market; china is definitely a capitalistic country.

kristianc 10y ago

And neither was Gartzke. It's important to note that the "Capitalist Peace" is considered a modern explanation for the "Democratic Peace" theory, an idea that goes back as far as Kant. The democratic people theory is also harder to pick holes in than the capitalist peace - particularly if you restrict it to mature democracies. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democratic_peace_theory