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A comment on Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant?.

Re:Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant? by untangle on Sunday July 23, 2017 @07:09PM (#14834858)
The military is another largely "zero-sum" activity. If all militaries were disbanded immediately, no change in economic value would occur. In fact, the economic value of "winning a war" is questionable, let alone losing one. I'd extend this argument to the "war on drugs" as well. And the "war on terror" (as currently fought).
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Re:Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant? by refurb on Sunday July 23, 2017 @07:30PM (#14834933)
If all militaries were disbanded immediately, no change in economic value would occur.

Not sure I agree. If you define economic value to include future value generation, I would argue that getting rid of a countries military might turn their future value from $XXXB to $0B pretty quickly. South Korea is a good example.

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Re:Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant? by thethirdone on Sunday July 23, 2017 @08:18PM (#14835100)
How is South Korea a good example? They have a sizeable military (huge for their population), and have a high gdp.
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Re:Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant? by MagnumOpus on Monday July 24, 2017 @04:37AM (#14836789)
Yes, exactly. And if the did away with that military, the whole country would become a giant gulag within a few years.
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Re:Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant? by ryandrake on Sunday July 23, 2017 @08:50PM (#14835219)
Only works if all militaries and military activity were disbanded simultaneously. War is one of those weird economic activities specifically designed to be negative-sum. No matter the outcome of a war, society on average ends up worse off.
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Re:Is Productivity Growth Becoming Irrelevant? by Consultant32452 on Monday July 24, 2017 @12:19AM (#14835860)
I wonder if without war, or at least the fear of it, we'd have created the interstate highway system, or satellites, nuclear power, jet-liners, etc. No doubt we'd have probably invented something. It's not entirely clear we would've invented the same things. The threat of eminent death tends to allow governments to "rationalize" insane spending on R&D on projects that they'd otherwise not have the stomach to wait on.
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