Anyone with half a brain could tell you that this is the inevitable outcome of the dialectical process between the opposing social classes, caused by the underlying superstructure of the relations of men and women to the means of production. Have you ever even read of Marx or Lenin? Let me guess, you attended a indoctrination shop (school) of the bourgeoisie and all you got for your money (you greedy capitalist) was a false consciousness. Sheesh people…
/revleft off
@merlin: Ah, yes! I watched Thiel’s presentation at SSI (available here for others interested) and he’s the one who got me thinking along this “number of countries in the world” line.
I will say that I think it is more complicated than just “there are more countries now than there were during WWII”. There have been integrations and disintegrations. The EU is potentially a massive integration if it can hold together. The trend for a very long time before WWII has been integration and colonization, with some disintegrations along the way (e.g. disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian empire in the wake of WWI). After WWII, the Soviet Union disintegrated and there have been other notable disintegrations (e.g. Bosnia) but I don’t see that these disintegrations necessarily indicate a peak in the longer-term trend of integration… it could be that these are transient disintegrations along a larger trajectory of integration.
My optimistic side wants to believe that integration has peaked. My pessimistic side says that we might have a long ways to go yet.
Clayton -
I agree that merely pointing out that we have more countries now than we did 50 years ago is no proof, but one must keep in mind the current world situation.
Western countries will go bust. Break-ups are inevitable (Belgium is but the tip of the iceberg, Italy and Greece are just waiting in line). In East Asia, China is far from being a hegemonic power, and a roughly stable stalemate could develop. There is, of course, the catch that India is, as it has always been, held together with scotch and China’s multi-multi-ethnic society could also break up at the first sight of downturn.
All in all, I look forward to at least half a century of disintegration, most surely in Europe. After that, who knows. Perhaps nuclear weapons could become very, very cheap making war impossible. And without war, cantonisation could go further. All of Europe could end up with Swiss canton-sized “countries”.
Perhaps the economic reason for building up states de novo stopped existing a century ago, and after going bust there would be little point in setting up a new state (at least a big one).
Perhaps the EU will manage to ride over the crisis and become the new USSR. I myself am optimistic though.
Well, when WW2 broke out there where some 50 countries on earth,
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Participants_in_World_War_II#National_impacts The countries involved in or affected by World War II are listed, with a brief description of their role in the conflict.
There is then a list of 103 names of countries, each with a short description. I am going to assume that some countries that existed as WW2 kicked off did not make it onto this list. 50 seems really low.
@merlin: Well, I’m currently working through Charles Adams’ For Good and Evil: The Impact of Taxes on the Course of Civilization* which really illuminates the role that local states play in creating the potential for agglomeration into larger super-states. Once a population submits to taxation and regulation by a territorial monopolist of law and security, it is much easier for a foreign imperialist to conquer the entire territory at one swoop since the apparatus of taxation and regulation can be used to gather tribute for a foreign ruler just as well as it was being used to gather taxes for the local ruler. So, the ancient empires were built very much along the lines of the game of Risk: 1) conquer new territories 2) get more tribute 3) expand the military 4) go back to step (1).
Of course, this algorithm has always broken down, historically, and logically it must. Because if one power center can build an empire, another power center can capture it or portions of it and turn it to their benefit. So the whole game reduces down to turf war. And this is my operating theory of foreign policy, I call it “the gang-theory of international politics.” Essentially, each national government is a gang. It controls a certain turf (its territory). It can expand on the turf of other gangs or other gangs can expand on its turf. However, national boundaries are notoriously difficult to move, so it’s much easier to subjugate (or subvert) an entire territory than to expand into it by moving a border.
The means of national subjugation are depicted in the movie 300 or Godfather or (as in the LRC article) Quantum of Solace - buying off the local rulers if they cooperate or threatening to take them out if they don’t. The local rulers have two options - cooperate and accept a slightly less opulent level of parasitic wealth or resist. If they resist, they may keep their current standard of opulence if they win but they also risk annihilation. If the subjugating power is sufficiently intimidating, the local rulers face a fairly easy choice… cooperate and don’t sweat the losses, the taxes were never their own personal money in the first place.
But, of course, there is competition in this game of turf wars. Those gangsters that exploit their subject populations too mercilessly foment revolt and (what is worse) economic apathy. The enslaved population grows weary of its burdens and begins to produce less and less. This is why, as Hoppe explains, the most aggressive nations have always been the most liberal. The internal economic productivity is the result of “free trade” within the borders of the nation. The greater volume of economic productivity can fund much greater tax revenues (military). This excess military power, in turn, can be used to collect protection fees from other less powerful governments. The US has reached the absolute apex of its protection racket and its system is currently imploding on itself.
Let’s just hope we get a little more liberty for a change.
Clayton -
*Which the USPS was so kind as to drop into a mud puddle completely disintegrating the packaging and water-damaging the upper half of every page of the book. Unfortunately, Adams is a minarchist so his analysis of the State and taxation (that they can be good) is muddled and confused but his historical details are invaluable in making the case against the State.
@nir: Yeah, 50 sounds wrong but I do remembering hearing a stat that there were fewer nations than today… if you think about it, this is probably true with the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Bosnia, break-up of the Japanese empire, the freeing of several former US possessions, the independence of India and other European colonies and so on.
Clayton -
ah ok, maybe the statistic is arrived at by saying any ‘country’ that is part of an empire is merely an extension of the country that holds the imperial thrown etc. and should not be counted as a country; that seems to be the kind of thinking behind the ‘low-ball’ country number
@nirgram
After listing Azerbaijan, the article goes on to write: “During World War II, Azerbaijan was part of the Soviet Union as the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic.”
See, why you see 100 countries? If you’ve ever played Hearts of Iron 2, you kind of believe that 50 number.
I see, I guess the British Empire took the cake
Whether this is “planned chaos” or just plain chaos, I don’t know.
I think it’s probably planned chaos. The US economy/dollar is being destroyed so we can be merged into a North American Union with the Amero for currency. And the BP strike has tipped the scales so the next climate treaty in Cancun will be binding. Just my pessimistic thoughts.
Clayton - “the Deepwater Horizon explodes for reasons unknown.”
Go to Utube, 60 Minutes – the blowout part 1. Go to 4:00 to the end. The reason for the explosion is known.
Watched it. I still don’t think this says there was no funny business. I’m not saying there must be funny business but I find it spectacularly improbable that an oil company would fail to take seriously the consequences of such massive failures of safety measures.
Clayton -
Bosnia wasn’t broken up.
@ Clayton
In quantifying a generalized integration/centralization two other factors must be considered; a per-capita denominator; and the integration/centralization/globalization of business as well as government. As much as we might desire a free market where business and government are separate, the reality is that big-government and big-business often find common interest.
BTW that 60 minute piece featured a honest-faced electrician (not driller) (who BTW withstood being slammed across the room multiple times by 2000 lb doors, and has a small forehead scar to show for it) and a white-house appointed engineer, i.e. shill. Where are the actual drillers’ testimony? At the end of the piece 60 Minutes juxtaposed BP’s disaster losses against it’s profits implying that the disaster was insignificant … yet early in the show they portrayed BP as panicked about the overruns in drilling costs which led them to taking foolhardy risks to recoup the mere $25 mil in tools left at the bottom of the first well. In the end that 60 Minutes piece served only to demonize BP and squelch suspicions. But it just made me more suspicious.
You must make a prediction or it’s no good. Like one of the posters said, stuff happens, then, later, more stuff happens. If we are willing to be generous enough with our interpretations, anything could be shoved into that third slot. After all, let’s not forget that the Boston Celtics won the NBA title in '86 and came in second in '87… disturbingly similar to their '08 title and '10 runner-up finish. They even lost to the Lakers in '87 and '10, but does anyone really think there’s a causal connection?
Okay here’s a prediction:
In a hundred years we will all be dead. People will still be flawed creatures who will demand that a state be in power. Technology won’t have changed nearly as much as it should have due to state imposed ip laws. We will still be living in a draconian society.
As far as the next 2 years, I don’t think it makes much of a difference whether the state gives us a tiny bit more “rights” (privilages) or not. It will still be in control of granting those “rights” or privilages. So life will suck ass living next to people who are more than willing to give up any and all control to the state.
Of course big government and big business go together. It is the Marxists who set up the “free market = big business” narrative. There is nothing in economics that tells us ahead of time what the size of businesses will be in a free market. We know that State regulations tends to raise the bar to entry to any market which will, predictably, reduce the number of competitors in the market and increase their average size.
Whether there’s funny business going on or not, it’s clear that this 60 Minutes piece is contributing to a larger media attempt to set up an “accepted narrative” on this incident.
My sentiment remains “deeply skeptical.”
Clayton -
“Of course big government and big business go together.”
Does this imply the exclusion of one without the other, or is it like “ham and beans go together”? I simply observed a dialog on the subject of integration that seemed to focus exclusively on government. Does not big business also indicate a trend towards integration/centralization?
“There is nothing in economics that tells us ahead of time what the size of businesses will be in a free market.”
Please, I’m not an economist, but at some level this must be wrong. Each enterprise has a certain economy of scale. I know for a fact that coal-fired electric generation will not succeed at a cottage-industry size, even without regulation. Yet in certain geographical areas water generation could work on a Mom and Pop scale as long as regulation allows access to the grid.
lol
Yes, I agree. But there is nothing in economics that can tell us that businesses would be larger in a free-market than in a regulated market. As noted before, if anything, firms are probably larger - on average - than they would be in a free market. If firms are not as large as they would be in a free market, that is only because government regulations can create artificial under-capitalization as well as over-capitalization. The consequences to economic efficiency are just as destructive either way.
Clayton -