"Apologists for particular governments...argue, precisely, that they offer protection from local and external violence. They claim that the prices they charge barely cover the costs of protection....But consider the definition of a racketeer as someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments' provision of protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering." Charles Tilly
It is worth asking whether we have so many enemies because they're bad and we're good or because the very fabric of American capitalist society, all they we enjoy, comes at the price of someone else's misery. In other words, we are just the absolutely best racketeers in the world. Expanding our business markets becomes necessary for us to continue to make more and more money and many times we have to protect our new markets with force.
Or we're exporting freedom and protecting peoples' rights to choose their government (as long as they 'choose wisely'). Or both at once. Either way, it is very, very expensive to make the world your market and then have to defend it all.
1 comment:
"Apologists for particular governments...argue, precisely, that they offer protection from local and external violence. They claim that the prices they charge barely cover the costs of protection....But consider the definition of a racketeer as someone who creates a threat and then charges for its reduction. Governments' provision of protection, by this standard, often qualifies as racketeering." Charles Tilly
It is worth asking whether we have so many enemies because they're bad and we're good or because the very fabric of American capitalist society, all they we enjoy, comes at the price of someone else's misery. In other words, we are just the absolutely best racketeers in the world. Expanding our business markets becomes necessary for us to continue to make more and more money and many times we have to protect our new markets with force.
Or we're exporting freedom and protecting peoples' rights to choose their government (as long as they 'choose wisely'). Or both at once. Either way, it is very, very expensive to make the world your market and then have to defend it all.
Post a Comment