Thursday, November 29, 2007

not possible

In all honesty, I hate to sound pessimistic, but it is simply a necessity in this situation; the Great Capitalist Peace simply is not a realistic goal. The major flaw lies in the initial assumption that all states act in order to earn money - most easily achievable through capitalism and thus allowing for peace through security created by economic dependency upon one another. Individual humans are indeed greedy and would certainly agree to most money-making opportunities, however, there are some things that outweigh even that nearly instinctive desire such as ideals and religious beliefs. If religion can convince suicide bombers to willingly sacrifice their lives to kill others, how can we expect bribing them with a position in the global economy to deter their violent actions? It's true that governments with stronger economies would have more resources to suppress terrorist activity, but what of those governments being run by terrorism, or those with a large investment in it? They are not likely to give it up easily. These contributors, personalities and ideas, will survive no matter how many countries are invaded and governments coup d'état-ed. Peace, capitalist or otherwise, is simply not achievable in the long term on a global scale due to inherent human nature that, despite greed, will sometimes act according to strong beliefs, ruining all hope for a permanent establishment of capitalistic peace.

2 comments:

cool3cubed said...

That is true. When we were talking about the capitalist peace in class, I don't think we mentioned organizations other than governments. Putting these other entities into view makes a capitalist peace seem even less possible.

Lauren L said...

Sorry Autumn, but I’m going to have to disagree. The book doesn’t base all of the requirements for a great capitalist peace on capitalism. Indeed, it placed a lot of weight on educating ourselves about other nations and becoming more tolerant. Even losing some of our hegemony, because we can’t really control the entire world and remain a superpower while competing with China. Though “the great Capitalist Peace” does, obviously, depend on capitalist a reality, that is not its foundation. I therefore don’t agree with your arguments for why it can not work.