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The easiest way to prevent war is to make it uneconomical -- like it was in the past. War should bankrupt a country. Years long fighting like we saw in the 20th

The easiest way to prevent war is to make it uneconomical -- like it was in the past. War should bankrupt a country. Years long fighting like we saw in the 20th century is a product of loose monetary policy. When a country can print itself out of debt (or more accurately, kick the can down the road for the next generation), war is inevitable. If we remove the ability to do this, a prolonged war becomes far less likely.

ncallaway 5y ago
But, again, that's not something a country can unilaterally control. If a nation's neighbors have the capability to fight a years long war, but that same war would bankrupt the nation, then the The game theory of the situation (again, from an individual nation's perspective) means no one nation will "remove the ability to do this" unless there's a massive collective action.
qwytw 5y ago
Have you heard about the 100, 70 and 30 years wars? The massive death toll and destruction in the world wars was largely a result of much more effective military technology. There was simply no way to kill as much people and destroy as much property in such a short time frame in any preceding wars. And I don't really see what a loose monetary policy could have anything to do with this. Before the 20th century countries rarely had the means to mobilize their economies by directing most of the output to the war effort, they had no capacity to enforce this and in any case there wasn't enough surplus produced to a wage total war without everyone starving to death and/or the central government collapsing.
- rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
  I am advocating hard monetary policy (ala a gold standard, a bitcoin standard) as a method for disincentivizing war. When you cannot replace the capital spent on war via inflation, war is less likely to occur. I acknowledge this is a fringe philosophy, but time will tell.
  - qwytw 5y ago
    > but time will tell Well the gold (or silver) standard had been a thing for thousands of years and I don't think there is much empirical evidence to suggest that a country's inability to control it's monetary policy somehow inherently disincentivizes it's government from waging wars. Talking about inflation specifically, there was relatively little of it during both WW1 and WW2 since all countries implemented price controls and rationing and pretty much nationalized all the available production capacity.
    - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
      There was the debasement of the currency of the Roman Empire, which lead to its failure. This was done for reasons of waging war. I am arguing that if you remove the ability for a state to create money (or at least debase it), it removes the ability for it to wage war. Continuous war requires continuous capital to wage. If this continuity is ended, wars end.
      - qwytw 5y ago
        Then you're arguing for abolishing the state in general. Because otherwise individuals would have no way of preventing the state from either taking away their non-inflationary money/coins or banning which would result in significant reduction it's value. > There was the debasement of the currency of the Roman Empire, War was the reason why Roman empire existed in the first place. In fact some argue that the Roman economy was only sustainable as long as Rome continued conquering new lands, enslaving their populations and taking away their property. As soon as the empire stopped expanding they were long able to maintain their army. Arguably, without debasement the collapse might have happened sooner they would have ran out of gold to pay their soldiers anyway.
        qwytw 5y ago
        Prior to the revolution of 1789 the French state was pretty much in a permanent state of bankruptcy for the past several hundreds of years (and unlike the Romans they couldn't really debase their currency). Did that prevent them from waging wars?

ncallaway 5y ago

But, again, that's not something a country can unilaterally control. If a nation's neighbors have the capability to fight a years long war, but that same war would bankrupt the nation, then the The game theory of the situation (again, from an individual nation's perspective) means no one nation will "remove the ability to do this" unless there's a massive collective action.

qwytw 5y ago

Have you heard about the 100, 70 and 30 years wars? The massive death toll and destruction in the world wars was largely a result of much more effective military technology. There was simply no way to kill as much people and destroy as much property in such a short time frame in any preceding wars. And I don't really see what a loose monetary policy could have anything to do with this. Before the 20th century countries rarely had the means to mobilize their economies by directing most of the output to the war effort, they had no capacity to enforce this and in any case there wasn't enough surplus produced to a wage total war without everyone starving to death and/or the central government collapsing.

rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
I am advocating hard monetary policy (ala a gold standard, a bitcoin standard) as a method for disincentivizing war. When you cannot replace the capital spent on war via inflation, war is less likely to occur. I acknowledge this is a fringe philosophy, but time will tell.
- qwytw 5y ago
  > but time will tell Well the gold (or silver) standard had been a thing for thousands of years and I don't think there is much empirical evidence to suggest that a country's inability to control it's monetary policy somehow inherently disincentivizes it's government from waging wars. Talking about inflation specifically, there was relatively little of it during both WW1 and WW2 since all countries implemented price controls and rationing and pretty much nationalized all the available production capacity.
  - rfd4sgmk8u 5y ago
    There was the debasement of the currency of the Roman Empire, which lead to its failure. This was done for reasons of waging war. I am arguing that if you remove the ability for a state to create money (or at least debase it), it removes the ability for it to wage war. Continuous war requires continuous capital to wage. If this continuity is ended, wars end.
    - qwytw 5y ago
      Then you're arguing for abolishing the state in general. Because otherwise individuals would have no way of preventing the state from either taking away their non-inflationary money/coins or banning which would result in significant reduction it's value. > There was the debasement of the currency of the Roman Empire, War was the reason why Roman empire existed in the first place. In fact some argue that the Roman economy was only sustainable as long as Rome continued conquering new lands, enslaving their populations and taking away their property. As soon as the empire stopped expanding they were long able to maintain their army. Arguably, without debasement the collapse might have happened sooner they would have ran out of gold to pay their soldiers anyway.
      - qwytw 5y ago
        Prior to the revolution of 1789 the French state was pretty much in a permanent state of bankruptcy for the past several hundreds of years (and unlike the Romans they couldn't really debase their currency). Did that prevent them from waging wars?