Nothing in this blog can be believed. If you think that anything in this blog is true or factual, you'll need to verify it from another source. Do you understand? No? Then read it again, and repeat this process, until you understand that you cannot sue me for anything you read here. Also, having been sucked into taking part in the mass-murder of more than 3 million Vietnamese people on behalf of U.S. Big Business "interests", I'm as mad as a cut snake (and broke) so it might be a bit silly to try to sue me anyway...

Sunday, January 14, 2007

sound familiar?

Joseph Schumpeter on Roman foreign policy, in his Imperialism and Social Classes (1919):
The policies of this epoch are not as naively manifest as those in the other cases discussed so far. Here is the classic example of that kind of insincerity in both foreign and domestic affairs which permeates not only avowed motives but also probably the conscious motives of the actors themselves—of that policy which pretends to aspire to peace but unerringly generates war, the policy of continual preparation for war, the policy of meddlesome interventionism.

There was no corner of the known world where some interest was not alleged to be in danger or under actual attack. If the interests were not Roman, they were those of Rome’s allies; and if Rome had no allies, then allies would be invented. When it was utterly impossible to contrive such an interest—why, then it was the national honor that had been insulted.

The fight was always invested with an aura of legality. Rome was always being attacked by evil-minded neighbors, always fighting for a breathing space. The whole world was pervaded by a host of enemies, and it was manifestly Rome’s duty to guard against their indubitably aggressive designs. They were enemies who only waited to fall on the Roman people.
(Compliments of DS)

2 Comments:

Blogger GreenSmile said...

Ah 1919. We already had all the hindsight we needed by then. Shumpeter wrote while the smoke from WWI was still clearing. What has changed but the tools of the trade?

The price-per-kill figures that Furguson came up with, whether right or wrong. Demonstrate a kind of thinking about war that is far too rare. Wouldn't it be a shock to Bush's Republicans who always pose as the penny pinching party to see how, relatively, efficient Their enemies are?

January 15, 2007 8:39 AM  
Blogger The Editor said...

As I said earlier in this blog somewhere: They don't care about the cost. In fact they think it's a GOOD thing. Big business makes megabucks, the taxpayer pays the bill, the lower classes get culled a bit. Where's the problem? Triple bottom line for those dudes. Bastards!!!

January 16, 2007 11:30 PM  

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