The arguments above are “cost benefit” arguments, that is, arguments that make sense for an small individualistic agent, that do not take into account the systemic consequences of its decisions.
Why would cost-benefit analyses only work for a “small individualistic agent”? Cost-effectiveness analyses are often done at a national and multi-national level, so they can encompass the welfare of many agents.
History show that aggressive states conquest their neighbors (often enslaving or killing their populations). How “the other cheek” strategy can stop that?
I think aggressive states today rarely hold killing people as an intrinsic goal. They will only kill people as a means of e.g. acquiring control over territory. If the invaded party only resists non-militarily, killing people will become much less instrumentally useful for the invader (in the same way that a burglar has much less incentive to be violent if the victim just hands over money without resistance). So I am pretty confident that a priori we should expect pacifism to result in less killing.
After some interatioms, pacifists are all conquered. That is why do not observe much pacifism in commanding positions.
The way I see it, pacifism is not about being against all wars. It is about having a prior that war is pretty bad, such that non-trivial evidence is required to justify it. For example, Russia had been expressing their intention to invade Ukraine for a while, but I do not think they have explicitly said they would like to take control of all European countries. If Russia had said that, then one should update on the margin towards supporting Ukraine militarily being good.
Why would cost-benefit analyses only work for a “small individualistic agent”? Cost-effectiveness analyses are often done at a national and multi-national level, so they can encompass the welfare of many agents.
You don’t ask what is “the cost” of war, because as romans said “non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro”. Once you have loss freedom, how will you keep the gold? This is strategic thinking. The dominant issue is incentives and reactions. The reaction to pacifism is perhaps not “more killing” but for sure more “empire building”. Why not? It is for free!
“The way I see it, pacifism is not about being against all wars.”
Caplan is against all political coordination! Wars are only a particular case.
On the other hand, Russia is a classic imperialist state and it wants to control as much as possible. This is a quite a natural thing for small oligarchies. If you invade and do not grant political rigths to the invaded, where is the limit? A drive for unlimited conquest is the natural state of affairs; what make democratic states less prone to it, is that when you get the place, you also get the voters: the fiscal assets are earmarked with political liabilities. In fact, democracies can be quite imperialistic, if conquest does not imply voting rigths...
Thanks for commenting, Arturo!
Why would cost-benefit analyses only work for a “small individualistic agent”? Cost-effectiveness analyses are often done at a national and multi-national level, so they can encompass the welfare of many agents.
I think aggressive states today rarely hold killing people as an intrinsic goal. They will only kill people as a means of e.g. acquiring control over territory. If the invaded party only resists non-militarily, killing people will become much less instrumentally useful for the invader (in the same way that a burglar has much less incentive to be violent if the victim just hands over money without resistance). So I am pretty confident that a priori we should expect pacifism to result in less killing.
The way I see it, pacifism is not about being against all wars. It is about having a prior that war is pretty bad, such that non-trivial evidence is required to justify it. For example, Russia had been expressing their intention to invade Ukraine for a while, but I do not think they have explicitly said they would like to take control of all European countries. If Russia had said that, then one should update on the margin towards supporting Ukraine militarily being good.
Why would cost-benefit analyses only work for a “small individualistic agent”? Cost-effectiveness analyses are often done at a national and multi-national level, so they can encompass the welfare of many agents.
You don’t ask what is “the cost” of war, because as romans said “non bene pro toto libertas venditur auro”. Once you have loss freedom, how will you keep the gold? This is strategic thinking. The dominant issue is incentives and reactions. The reaction to pacifism is perhaps not “more killing” but for sure more “empire building”. Why not? It is for free!
“The way I see it, pacifism is not about being against all wars.”
Caplan is against all political coordination! Wars are only a particular case.
On the other hand, Russia is a classic imperialist state and it wants to control as much as possible. This is a quite a natural thing for small oligarchies. If you invade and do not grant political rigths to the invaded, where is the limit? A drive for unlimited conquest is the natural state of affairs; what make democratic states less prone to it, is that when you get the place, you also get the voters: the fiscal assets are earmarked with political liabilities. In fact, democracies can be quite imperialistic, if conquest does not imply voting rigths...