Sorry, just catching up to this post... > First, if war were so expensive relative to peace why > does it exist? Maybe peace is more expensive, in > terms of risk for example, than open warfare.
The costs of war are born by those who pay for and die in the wars, and these people are not the same people that write articles and books in support of wars, and they are not the same people that benefit from wars, such as military industrialists, generals, and politicians, the latter two of which fulfill their legacies by agitating for war. It's more nuanced than that, of course; but I think there's something to Hoppe's and von Kuehnelt-Leddihn's arguments that monarchy is superior to democracy with regard to this general problem of what we might euphemistically call the externalities of war. > Second, > I might say that going to war isn't expensive, going > to war against ME is expensive, because I'm going to > recruit the demons who walk the earth. I won't put > Charles Manson in jail, I'll put him on the payroll. I don't understand this question. Shifting the dialog to another adversarial arena, it is precisely the costs of employing agents on one's behalf for extended battles that provides the incentive for people to settle their conflicts before they get to court. Approximately 95% of civil cases that try mediation (including those who are instructed to "try it" by the judge) settle. The analogy is apt, and I will defend it if necessary.
smime.p7s
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