Say what you will about Gangsta Rappers or the Mafia but you gotta admit they just totally, totally, lack ambition.
After all, they only aspire to waste a few dozen victims over their lifetimes.
But each of the three ganger-bangers dictators of the 1933 to 1953 period aimed much higher.
Each individually 'wasted' tens of millions of people during their reigns.
These were those millions upon millions of people they neither killed during combat nor set out to deliberately and directly murder by gun, rope or needle.
These were all the people that these three dictators figured they could afford to kill off fairly quickly by starvation, neglect and overwork , because the value of their continuing physical labour and brainpower was judged less valuable than the minimal cost of providing them a little more food and care.
Against the minimal numbers of low level people these three killers judged were actually needed in a Mechanical Age and a Mechanical War , there seemed lots more expendable human hands still pouring out the pipeline.
But, in fact, all three lost their wars ( including Stalin) because of their desperate shortages of 'manpower'(ie people) actually needed to successfully impose their will upon Mother Nature and upon other nations.
Forget their millions of deliberate murders - these three spendthrifts 'wasted' more lives than they murdered : even if they had never murdered one soul during their reigns, their Crimes Against Humanity would still make the stones cry out....
Showing posts with label solow's war. Show all posts
Showing posts with label solow's war. Show all posts
Monday, March 5, 2012
Can our world, particularly our world at war, get along without natural resources (such as most people) - substituting pure mental ingenuity instead?
Which is to ask, " was the war of 1939-1945 better labelled 'SOLOW'S WAR' ?"
Fundamentally, the leading lights of the Allies , as well as those of the Axis , would have agreed.
(As would the elites of most of the Neutrals, if they had been asked to think about it).
They all thought that, in the end, human mental MINDpower could surmount anything MATERIAL that Mother Nature could throw at them : be it a feast of bad weather or a famine of natural rubber.
Now nobody started an aggressive war (or conducted a defensive war) between 1939 and 1945 because of the economic theories of Robert Solow.
He was only 15 when the war began and he didn't utter his immortal quote that:
Besides as which, the theory hardly originated with Professor Solow --- it would be far, far better to lay credit where credit is due , at the feet of English Chemist John Dalton and his multitude of disciples in all the scientific and quasi-scientific disciplines.
But Solow is the one who has made the concept famous in contemporary times and who can say whether Dalton might have changed his views, in the lighter of newer scientific knowledge, if he had lived that long.
Robert Solow is still alive, has never fundamentally denounced this claim and so let him wear it.
Solow and Dalton's theory is basically a re-statement of The Good News Law (the First law of Thermodynamics) without the awkwardness of The Bad News Law (the Second Law of Thermodynamics) raining on the parade.
One could call The First Law of Thermodynamics the apogee of human hubris, just as the Second law of Thermodynamics is its nadir.
But haven't I already used that line to describe WWII ?
And your point being ?
Fundamentally, the leading lights of the Allies , as well as those of the Axis , would have agreed.
(As would the elites of most of the Neutrals, if they had been asked to think about it).
They all thought that, in the end, human mental MINDpower could surmount anything MATERIAL that Mother Nature could throw at them : be it a feast of bad weather or a famine of natural rubber.
Now nobody started an aggressive war (or conducted a defensive war) between 1939 and 1945 because of the economic theories of Robert Solow.
He was only 15 when the war began and he didn't utter his immortal quote that:
"If it is very easy to substitute other factors for natural resources, then there is, in principle, no problem. The world can, in effect, get along without natural resources.
("The Economics of Resources or the Resources of Economics.") Robert M. Solow. The American Economic Review, Vol. 64until 1974, 35 years later.
Besides as which, the theory hardly originated with Professor Solow --- it would be far, far better to lay credit where credit is due , at the feet of English Chemist John Dalton and his multitude of disciples in all the scientific and quasi-scientific disciplines.
But Solow is the one who has made the concept famous in contemporary times and who can say whether Dalton might have changed his views, in the lighter of newer scientific knowledge, if he had lived that long.
Robert Solow is still alive, has never fundamentally denounced this claim and so let him wear it.
Solow and Dalton's theory is basically a re-statement of The Good News Law (the First law of Thermodynamics) without the awkwardness of The Bad News Law (the Second Law of Thermodynamics) raining on the parade.
One could call The First Law of Thermodynamics the apogee of human hubris, just as the Second law of Thermodynamics is its nadir.
But haven't I already used that line to describe WWII ?
And your point being ?
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