Changed to OT I'm not an economist (as may become obvious very quickly) but I' dare to suggest that there are some dangerous assumptions in this argument (even though some are made by as eminent a person as Wagner :-)). > Now that the Cold war game is mostly behind us, it becomes visible that it > served the purpose of driving the involved countries economies. > The Space Race was another such game. Yes - both the same game actually. > > One should never forget that IF one opponent can produce as many ROOKS as > > he wants, using his OWN money, producing it in his OWN country - > > factories - material and manpower, it will MOVE more money and create MORE > > jobs, IMPROVE his economy and his factories, cycle his TAXES speed, > PROMOTE > > his technology development and more. This argument has some merit in that it is obviously useful to increase one's skill levels, employment rates etc BUT if at the end you have a product which has no value in its own right then you have not used your resource optimally. If the same resources shad been used to produce something of inherent worth one would be further ahead. An "arms race" (ie two or more competing participants developing escalating capabilities whether in weapons systems or many other areas) does have the affect of driving capability forward but not necessarily as effectively as could have been achieved in another environment. The value of the end product MAY be that one has more resources than one would have had without it (eg if we hadn't had the MK16a phasor then they would have stolen all our gold) but if all parties had combined to produce MK32c plough-shares all may have been better off. ie I'm saying that the next paragraph is almost always sub-optimal > > Sometimes it is a good business to trade the 6 adversaries only PAWNS by 20 > > of your own ROOKS, mostly when you can produce other thousand ROOKS if > > necessary. > > One should never forget that when you expend 60 billion dollars in his own > > country, it means exactly 60 billion dollars in motion money, not a single > > coin wasted. Manufacturing resource is an asset. If the product is "make work" then you have largely or completely wasted that asset. The value that allows you to spend that 60 billion dollars on motion money has to have come from somewhere else. eg spend 60B on making statues to the great leader and you may all starve. If you can spend 60B on making Bushes of the great statue (something wrong there :-)) and NOT starve anyone then there is resource coming from somewhere else as well. It may be that the statues make you feel good, increase national pride, discourage other competitors or make your people more satisfied and perhaps less questioning about the rest of the resource, but there are liable to be alternative uses of the great statue $ that would have fed your people better. If the people are already well enough fed, clothed etc etc then the statue may be fine, but until they are, it's not. (cf Maslow's needs hierarchy) An example great statue, which happened to cost ABOUT $60B, was US Moon program. This is an excellent Great Statue analogy. I'm a space enthusiast and I am pleased that the US went to the moon, but I think it was a poor way to do it and a poor use of resources. It DID produce much work for people. It DID enhance technology levels, skills, factories, tax flow and more. It did increase scientific knowledge. But its main aim was, its generally agreed, to prove the superiority of the US to the USSR. And to help them to be superior by the skills which were developed along the way. And to help grind the adversaries down by making them compete in areas which they would perhaps not have engaged in otherwise. At the peak of the "space race" it was costing every US man woman and child $US0.50 per day to fund the project. Quite cheap for the results obtained. Great entertainment. Feeling of national superiority. Crushing blows to soviet morale (very important). Better electronics & miniaturisation. Better missile systems (although arguably the net affect was to divert money from this area)(possibly a bonus :-). Diversion of the other guy's money from areas he would rather have spent it in. Some spinoffs in industry developments. etc But IF the US and Soviet people had got together and developed the same capability jointly it could have cost less, been done quicker and been done better. (Better, cheaper, faster - choose all 3 :-) ). But, of course it wouldn;t have been. The arguments over who got the pork belly spinoffs - whose state / country it would have been made in, the political philosophy, better dead than Red / Blue, and lack of motivation and drive, would almost certainly have made it more expensive and less effective. In short, human nature gets in the way. Here the capitalism versus communism and all their variants rear their heads and must be stamped on quickly lest this turn into a yelling match :-). If we could have arranged some external motivating influence that so gripped the wills and beliefs of all combined that they KNEW that they MUST work together in the common interest with the outcome as the goal and not all the spinoffs, then it could have been done better. But until we have such a motivating factor (don't hold your breath) we will build rooks and pawns galore as make work and believe we are doing good in the process. > > That's the same old story of two guys in a Vegas Casino. I think the casino analogy has too many assumptions that need to be made to make it fit the wider economic model well. But it's a fine example of human nature. Russell McMahon -- http://www.piclist.com hint: To leave the PICList mailto:piclist-unsubscribe-request@mitvma.mit.edu