While the pursuit of wealth may sometimes lead to violence (as seen in my fellow bloggers' examples), in the end, a society pursuing wealth will be the most peaceful.
Theoretically, in an age where international trade is a common staple of most country's economies, wealth must lead to peace. In order to maximize wealth, a state must produce that which it is efficient in producing - what it has a comparative advantage in producing - and trade for other things that it needs. Only in this way can they make the largest profit/benefit/wealth. If a country is at war with another, they are unlikely to be trading goods freely (though black market trading may still exist as it's illegal any ways, why stop when there's war?) as they generally do not want to help one another and thus both markets, had trading previously existed, will suffer. If a country constantly looks out for their wealth, then they will avoid war at all costs (a short term loss) in order to preserve the trade amongst their economies (a long term gain).
In class, we discussed the cost of the war in Iraq. It is now definitely over $1 trillion. Such a number is nearly incomprehensible. All this spent on war. Were we not engaged in war, some of the money could go to a variety of other places including more comprehensive national health care, better public education, unprecedented medical research. And yet, the spending that could be funded into all of these things would not near the full cost of the war leaving more money in the U.S.'s pocket. Clearly the U.S. does not pursue wealth as it is squandering it at such an alarming rate. If it truly wanted wealth, we would not be spending so much on war and thus would live on a much more peaceful world.
One may then ask - if the U.S. doesn't pursue wealth then who does? In my (humble) opinion, no country truly pursues wealth. Rather, they pursue security as land is essential for a nation to be sovereign and thus it must be protected. Pursuing security in no way makes a country more peaceful (rather the opposite, it seems, is true) as wars emerge from countries "defending" themselves.
While it may not exclusively or primarily pursue wealth, it is clearly on of the U.S.'s top interests as it has the highest gdp of any individual state worldwide. So perhaps then, we may presume that following the pursuit of security, which leads to war, the U.S. at least, is in pursuit of wealth. Internally, what is this pursuit doing to our country? Are we engaged in civil war? No. There is peace. Among the countries with the highest GDPs, there is no war among them. The government is stable enough to actively pursue wealth, not only for it, but for its people, and at the same time remains peaceful, excluding the few cases in which security (such as in the war in Iraq) presides over the search for wealth as it is, for all countries the #1 desire.
Peace occurs because of agreements made by those looking out for their best interests and/or the interests of their countries. So long as wealth is an interest of a country, which in most cases, it certainly is, peace is a byproduct of that pursuit.
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2 comments:
Do you really think the US would have spent the money saved had it not gone into Iraq on social programs or would we simply be 1 trillion less in debt? People often talk about how else the money could be spent without thinking about if it would be spent. Since you say national security is the major policy objective of most states, the question arises: are we willing to spend $1 trillion on security that we would otherwise be unwilling to spend?
No. The 1 trillion would not go towards improving our own country, however since we would not have such a large national debt, then we would be more likely to expand the budget in said areas.
Honestly, I dont think that we should be in debt at all. If we need more money for one area, we should cut back on spending elsewhere. If there still isnt enough money, then maybe we shouldnt go to war - or we should end it more quickly. Debt detracts from wealth and thus we should avoid it. Once out of debt, we can devote more money to domestic improvements and security.
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