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Just to riff off this a bit more, it got me thinking along the thought “What if machines of war are really the greatest investment of capital”. I think there i

Just to riff off this a bit more, it got me thinking along the thought “What if machines of war are really the greatest investment of capital”. I think there is at least the seed of something to explore there, though the tools of war have traditionally been expensive irrespective of system (A uniform in the 1800s was orders of magnitude more expensive than today’s variety, for example).

Melting_Harps 6y ago
> “What if machines of war are really the greatest investment of capital” Then it would negate modern History, specifically in regards to the collapse of the Soviet Union, wherein a country with 100s of ICBs with nuclear warheads, warehouses churning out AK47s and ammunition surplus that still are being exported to this day (Viktor Anatolyevich Bout), tanks and war ships in such quantities that they'd trade Pepsi for them [1]! And still end up destitute, with a plutocracy and a massively disenfranchised population both at home as well as much of the former satellite nations. Capital investment is best spent on a sound currency, strong local manufacturing base and a strong legal system to protect both from corruption as well as the Human rights of its populations; unfortunately no nation Western or Eastern seems intent on doing that... like ever in History. Thus proving that Humanity is not capable of not giving into the intoxication of ending mutually beneficial collaboration with others for extended periods of Time in exchange 'for more of their share.' It may occur for short windows, but so long as a Human entity remains in charge of those aspects of Civilization it will always succumb to the same avarice and corruption regardless of whatever the rhetoric is espoused of National Brotherhood or Patriotic duty. Hence the argument for currencies and economic models outside the control of centralized systems like Governments. I'm sure many of you are seeing visions of Westworld or Psycho pass type dystopias but I'm convinced there is a middle ground between the two we just haven't been able to arrive to due to constant conflicts, and endless wars that drain the World of Human capital and technological resources best used for this end. But I also find it funny how some of Elon Musk's, an openly declared Utopian Anarchist, biggest proponents haven't realized the fact that all of his and Kimbal's businesses are aimed to help establish a colony on Mars where he has gone on record to say one of the biggest reasons to do so it try and re-do all of this non-sense on Earth with a blank slate canvas approach, and this is the extreme one has to go to do it. People keep accepting that War with China is inevitable, as it were some unavoidable deterministic outcome, but I disagree and have hope that Humanity can come to reason and refuse to participate. War is never in anyone's best interest, I really wish that we'd have learned that by now. 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the-6th-largest-military-in-the-world-2018-7?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the...
- Mirioron 6y ago
  The Soviet Union might've been poor, but it wasn't destitute. The issue with the Soviet system (and I believe socialism in general) is that individuals are discouraged from solving problems and offering those solutions to other people. In the West (and in ex-Soviet countries now) when you see an obvious gap in the market that you can provide a solution for you can start a business to do that. During Soviet times you could complain to the government and that was more or less it. That is to say, I don't think the Soviet Union's lack of wealth is necessarily a strong counterargument to the weapons-as-investment idea.
  - Melting_Harps 6y ago
    > The Soviet Union might've been poor, but it wasn't destitute. Its population was and is, some are so much so they opine the former Soviet Union where it seemed to most that all were on equal terms because of this. Especially when they see the stark contrast of the oligarch's wealth in Moscow. > That is to say, I don't think the Soviet Union's lack of wealth is necessarily a strong counterargument to the weapons-as-investment idea. Well, then there is no appeasing you based on reason or logic then, because that example concretely shows how that met the criteria yet still failed as a nation-state, one that has real consequences to this day: eg Crimea annexation.
    - Threeve303 6y ago
      The Soviet Union may have invested in war heavily but failed to take control of global commerce. The United States invested more and "won" the cold war. It gets more complicated when you look at where the money went. The U.S. built up a massive global navy to control commerce and the shipping lanes. Meanwhile, the Soviets focused large on the European theater and ultimately could not compete with the U.S. Navy. Eventually you wind up considering a philosophical question about money, especially modern fiat currency, where there is a big question about why we continue to value it the way we do. Sure, we have all agreed on some common exchange rate for goods using it, but this is backed by the "full faith and credit of the U.S. government". It can be argued that faith and credit is ultimately backed by the war machine behind it. Even in older times, if you traded in a currency, and you had to go collect a debt in that currency from another nation, what are you going to use to collect it? Angry letters? No, you're going to send the military.
toohotatopic 6y ago
It's a market like everything else. If you have the best weapons and it is a sellers market, you can buy everything in 'exchange' with your weapons. However, if others see the 'opportunity' and also participate in that market, profits decline until your income can barely cover production costs. Have a look at the quality of life of the Soviet Union. They spent everything on weapons with a very limited return on investment. On the other hand, Guns Germs and Steel argues that the military competition within Europe has led to western dominance. From that perspective, investing in weapons leads to huge profits even if short term returns are very low.
- WalterBright 6y ago
  I'm not a big fan of GG&S, as his thesis is the West was just lucky. The "Triumph of the West" by Roberts has a more compelling thesis - that Western culture is more favorable towards new ideas and new ways of doing things. We see this as country after country discards the old ways and adopts western culture.
  - licebmi__at__ 6y ago
    >We see this as country after country discards the old ways and adopts western culture. I don't understand the rationality, wouldn't your thesis mean that other countries which are supposedly more closed won't abandon their ways? With what I know about history, western culture doesn't seem more prone than others to incorporate other cultures. We can find evidently countless examples of western culture adapting to new ideas and foreign cultures, but only seems special if we ignore the rest of the cultures doing the same.
    - WalterBright 6y ago
      Western culture does indeed adopt what it likes from other cultures. But the nature of western culture changes little. I've traveled in foreign countries, and over my life I've noticed they become more and more like the west, not the other way around. Sometimes you'll see countries violently reject western culture and return to their old ways, but it's a losing game for them.
082349872349872 6y ago
Maybe we should look at the europeans who were rich in 1900 to see what return they had on investments in machines of war by 1950?
- alextheparrot 6y ago
  This is a fair point, there definitely is the ability for these tools to levy a lot of destruction to capital, structure, and people as well. If someone is really looking to construct this as an investment, negative results does not necessarily mean a negative investment strategy -- maybe the machines of war are a hedge that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I think the construction of nuclear weapons post-1950s are an example of a successful hedge, wherein machines of war were invested in, but never caused destruction. To your point, though, it is definitely an interesting and worthy data point if the proposed thesis is being pursued.
  - Threeve303 6y ago
    > maybe the machines of war are a hedge that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't This is very likely. An example of a war investment that panned out over time was the Manhattan project. One that did not would be something like the Maginot line. At some point, it's just an investment with no guarantee on return.
hogFeast 6y ago
Yes, this is basically the standard reading of history around the period in question, and was a huge factor in India/China (in the mid-late 18th century, you had armies of a few thousand British/sepoys beating armies 10-20x but by the 19th century, native-ish Indian forces were starting to catch up...I say "native-ish" because a lot of the forces in what we would call India today, weren't from India). From somewhere around the War of Spanish Succession until probably the Napoleonic War there were huge changes in military technology/organisation, and the ones who innovated fastest ended up winning (also, guns were one of the first products to be manufactured in a factory system...so there were spillovers). There was, of course, innovation after but this period was when the modern military really took shape. However, it is also probably true that the military was often an output of economic strength, not a technological input (in the way that we might think of technology/knowledge today). A big reason why there was military innovation was because of the huge growth in govt borrowing and creation of financial markets in the 18th century. So you saw countries start to take power that could innovate financially (i.e. Dutch Republic, Spain) and then you saw these countries implode when they couldn't keep pace with France and Britain (France is kind of tricky because they frequently imploded through the 18/19th century, always making a miracle comeback...usually through dint of having such a huge population i.e. Napoleonic Wars). To give a concrete example: one part of British dominance was the Navy (which was in part a technological advantage), another part was their ability to subsidise pretty much every other country in Europe to fight France...there isn't really one without the other. In terms of the 20th century, it is probably true as well. Like Britain in the 19th century, the US has kind of guaranteed security and freedom of trade around the world...and to do this you need to have the resources to bash some heads every once in a while (and btw, the US has done this in a far less evil way by seeding multilateral institutions). And, as you know, that investment is the reason why we have Silicon Valley so there are definitely spillovers from military tech still. Pretty meandering answer but there are quite a few threads here because the military has never been easy to separate from the rest of the economy.
- nickik 6y ago
  We should be careful not to go from 'some military is needed' and 'investment in military can have spillovers' to 'military spending = good'. Or that military investment is always the best investment, I would argue the marginal $ spent on the military is a terrible investment. 1% of your budget into the military is probably a great investment for many countries, some countries maybe up 2-3% and when you are higher then that you either need very great reasons, or you are probably doing something stupid. Britain controlled the world trade with small % of its budget and with a tiny % amount of the whole imperial trade size. I would argue their success was precisely because the didn't need gigantic military to reach their aims. An part of that is to have reasonable aims in the first place. Iraq and US military spending is case and point, Iraq was a both a strategic disaster and a very expensive one. If you didn't have the aim of remaking the whole middle east, you would need that much spending. Germany before WW1 is a great example of spending lots of money on stupid aims. They invested in a fleet that was utterly useless and was directly opposed to what their aims should have been. No amount of military spending by itself gets you anything, only military spending combined with great strategy focused on your particular nation can be great investment.

Melting_Harps 6y ago

> “What if machines of war are really the greatest investment of capital” Then it would negate modern History, specifically in regards to the collapse of the Soviet Union, wherein a country with 100s of ICBs with nuclear warheads, warehouses churning out AK47s and ammunition surplus that still are being exported to this day (Viktor Anatolyevich Bout), tanks and war ships in such quantities that they'd trade Pepsi for them [1]! And still end up destitute, with a plutocracy and a massively disenfranchised population both at home as well as much of the former satellite nations. Capital investment is best spent on a sound currency, strong local manufacturing base and a strong legal system to protect both from corruption as well as the Human rights of its populations; unfortunately no nation Western or Eastern seems intent on doing that... like ever in History. Thus proving that Humanity is not capable of not giving into the intoxication of ending mutually beneficial collaboration with others for extended periods of Time in exchange 'for more of their share.' It may occur for short windows, but so long as a Human entity remains in charge of those aspects of Civilization it will always succumb to the same avarice and corruption regardless of whatever the rhetoric is espoused of National Brotherhood or Patriotic duty. Hence the argument for currencies and economic models outside the control of centralized systems like Governments. I'm sure many of you are seeing visions of Westworld or Psycho pass type dystopias but I'm convinced there is a middle ground between the two we just haven't been able to arrive to due to constant conflicts, and endless wars that drain the World of Human capital and technological resources best used for this end. But I also find it funny how some of Elon Musk's, an openly declared Utopian Anarchist, biggest proponents haven't realized the fact that all of his and Kimbal's businesses are aimed to help establish a colony on Mars where he has gone on record to say one of the biggest reasons to do so it try and re-do all of this non-sense on Earth with a blank slate canvas approach, and this is the extreme one has to go to do it. People keep accepting that War with China is inevitable, as it were some unavoidable deterministic outcome, but I disagree and have hope that Humanity can come to reason and refuse to participate. War is never in anyone's best interest, I really wish that we'd have learned that by now. 1: https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the-6th-largest-military-in-the-world-2018-7?op=1 https://www.businessinsider.com/how-pepsi-briefly-became-the...

Mirioron 6y ago
The Soviet Union might've been poor, but it wasn't destitute. The issue with the Soviet system (and I believe socialism in general) is that individuals are discouraged from solving problems and offering those solutions to other people. In the West (and in ex-Soviet countries now) when you see an obvious gap in the market that you can provide a solution for you can start a business to do that. During Soviet times you could complain to the government and that was more or less it. That is to say, I don't think the Soviet Union's lack of wealth is necessarily a strong counterargument to the weapons-as-investment idea.
- Melting_Harps 6y ago
  > The Soviet Union might've been poor, but it wasn't destitute. Its population was and is, some are so much so they opine the former Soviet Union where it seemed to most that all were on equal terms because of this. Especially when they see the stark contrast of the oligarch's wealth in Moscow. > That is to say, I don't think the Soviet Union's lack of wealth is necessarily a strong counterargument to the weapons-as-investment idea. Well, then there is no appeasing you based on reason or logic then, because that example concretely shows how that met the criteria yet still failed as a nation-state, one that has real consequences to this day: eg Crimea annexation.
  - Threeve303 6y ago
    The Soviet Union may have invested in war heavily but failed to take control of global commerce. The United States invested more and "won" the cold war. It gets more complicated when you look at where the money went. The U.S. built up a massive global navy to control commerce and the shipping lanes. Meanwhile, the Soviets focused large on the European theater and ultimately could not compete with the U.S. Navy. Eventually you wind up considering a philosophical question about money, especially modern fiat currency, where there is a big question about why we continue to value it the way we do. Sure, we have all agreed on some common exchange rate for goods using it, but this is backed by the "full faith and credit of the U.S. government". It can be argued that faith and credit is ultimately backed by the war machine behind it. Even in older times, if you traded in a currency, and you had to go collect a debt in that currency from another nation, what are you going to use to collect it? Angry letters? No, you're going to send the military.

toohotatopic 6y ago

It's a market like everything else. If you have the best weapons and it is a sellers market, you can buy everything in 'exchange' with your weapons. However, if others see the 'opportunity' and also participate in that market, profits decline until your income can barely cover production costs. Have a look at the quality of life of the Soviet Union. They spent everything on weapons with a very limited return on investment. On the other hand, Guns Germs and Steel argues that the military competition within Europe has led to western dominance. From that perspective, investing in weapons leads to huge profits even if short term returns are very low.

WalterBright 6y ago
I'm not a big fan of GG&S, as his thesis is the West was just lucky. The "Triumph of the West" by Roberts has a more compelling thesis - that Western culture is more favorable towards new ideas and new ways of doing things. We see this as country after country discards the old ways and adopts western culture.
- licebmi__at__ 6y ago
  >We see this as country after country discards the old ways and adopts western culture. I don't understand the rationality, wouldn't your thesis mean that other countries which are supposedly more closed won't abandon their ways? With what I know about history, western culture doesn't seem more prone than others to incorporate other cultures. We can find evidently countless examples of western culture adapting to new ideas and foreign cultures, but only seems special if we ignore the rest of the cultures doing the same.
  - WalterBright 6y ago
    Western culture does indeed adopt what it likes from other cultures. But the nature of western culture changes little. I've traveled in foreign countries, and over my life I've noticed they become more and more like the west, not the other way around. Sometimes you'll see countries violently reject western culture and return to their old ways, but it's a losing game for them.

082349872349872 6y ago

Maybe we should look at the europeans who were rich in 1900 to see what return they had on investments in machines of war by 1950?

alextheparrot 6y ago
This is a fair point, there definitely is the ability for these tools to levy a lot of destruction to capital, structure, and people as well. If someone is really looking to construct this as an investment, negative results does not necessarily mean a negative investment strategy -- maybe the machines of war are a hedge that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't. I think the construction of nuclear weapons post-1950s are an example of a successful hedge, wherein machines of war were invested in, but never caused destruction. To your point, though, it is definitely an interesting and worthy data point if the proposed thesis is being pursued.
- Threeve303 6y ago
  > maybe the machines of war are a hedge that sometimes works and sometimes doesn't This is very likely. An example of a war investment that panned out over time was the Manhattan project. One that did not would be something like the Maginot line. At some point, it's just an investment with no guarantee on return.

hogFeast 6y ago

Yes, this is basically the standard reading of history around the period in question, and was a huge factor in India/China (in the mid-late 18th century, you had armies of a few thousand British/sepoys beating armies 10-20x but by the 19th century, native-ish Indian forces were starting to catch up...I say "native-ish" because a lot of the forces in what we would call India today, weren't from India). From somewhere around the War of Spanish Succession until probably the Napoleonic War there were huge changes in military technology/organisation, and the ones who innovated fastest ended up winning (also, guns were one of the first products to be manufactured in a factory system...so there were spillovers). There was, of course, innovation after but this period was when the modern military really took shape. However, it is also probably true that the military was often an output of economic strength, not a technological input (in the way that we might think of technology/knowledge today). A big reason why there was military innovation was because of the huge growth in govt borrowing and creation of financial markets in the 18th century. So you saw countries start to take power that could innovate financially (i.e. Dutch Republic, Spain) and then you saw these countries implode when they couldn't keep pace with France and Britain (France is kind of tricky because they frequently imploded through the 18/19th century, always making a miracle comeback...usually through dint of having such a huge population i.e. Napoleonic Wars). To give a concrete example: one part of British dominance was the Navy (which was in part a technological advantage), another part was their ability to subsidise pretty much every other country in Europe to fight France...there isn't really one without the other. In terms of the 20th century, it is probably true as well. Like Britain in the 19th century, the US has kind of guaranteed security and freedom of trade around the world...and to do this you need to have the resources to bash some heads every once in a while (and btw, the US has done this in a far less evil way by seeding multilateral institutions). And, as you know, that investment is the reason why we have Silicon Valley so there are definitely spillovers from military tech still. Pretty meandering answer but there are quite a few threads here because the military has never been easy to separate from the rest of the economy.

nickik 6y ago
We should be careful not to go from 'some military is needed' and 'investment in military can have spillovers' to 'military spending = good'. Or that military investment is always the best investment, I would argue the marginal $ spent on the military is a terrible investment. 1% of your budget into the military is probably a great investment for many countries, some countries maybe up 2-3% and when you are higher then that you either need very great reasons, or you are probably doing something stupid. Britain controlled the world trade with small % of its budget and with a tiny % amount of the whole imperial trade size. I would argue their success was precisely because the didn't need gigantic military to reach their aims. An part of that is to have reasonable aims in the first place. Iraq and US military spending is case and point, Iraq was a both a strategic disaster and a very expensive one. If you didn't have the aim of remaking the whole middle east, you would need that much spending. Germany before WW1 is a great example of spending lots of money on stupid aims. They invested in a fleet that was utterly useless and was directly opposed to what their aims should have been. No amount of military spending by itself gets you anything, only military spending combined with great strategy focused on your particular nation can be great investment.