James Lu Week 10 - The Economy of Power
The Economy of Power
Power is many things, but the ultimate power lies within those that have the most support, the biggest guns, and the most loyal troops. However, all of these can be purchased at the right price.
The average man can spend just two hundred American dollars in Iraq and get a original Soviet-made AK-47. Hand grenades, which cost forty-five dollars to create and can easily be marked up three hundred percent in the United States black market, are sold for only twenty-five dollars in Somalia. Shoulder mounted rocket launchers, or the more famous RPG, are sold for a mere one hundred dollars. Bullets, which cost fifty cents a piece in the United States, are a mere fifteen cents in Iraq. With enough money, you can arm enough people with so many weapons that even if they are untrained, something is bound to hit something if enough bullets, rockets, and missiles are fired in the general direction of the enemy.
Mercenaries, or the infamous "soldiers of fortune" can cost from a hundred dollars a day to twenty thousand dollars a day. The quality of soldiers also ranges massively: soldiers from El Salvador can be hired at a fraction of the cost that hiring former SEALs would cost. While the soldiers from El Salvador may be unreliable and poorly trained, former Navy SEALs are nothing to scoff at: true professionals that ask no questions and do as asked for a paycheck. Even when hired by the United States Government during various conflicts in the Middle East, Blackwater, or Academi now, committed several violations of the Geneva Conventions from murdering surrendering troops to torture of captured soldiers. With enough money, a country or person can literally purchase a premade army loyal to you and you only.
Buying the support of another country is perhaps more difficult. However, it is always possible. Promises, such as the ones made by Egypt to aid the Soviet Union in exchange for weapons and vehicles, are possible. When Egypt chose the Soviet Union to build a dam during the Yom Kippur war, they gained the support of another country at the cost of several billion dollars. With enough money, a country can buy the favor, or at the very least the neutrality of another country in a conflict.
With enough money, I can literally carve out a territory in a region with no leader. With the net worth of Elon Musk, I could easily take over a country in Africa. It would cost me several billion dollars to bring a large enough military force to takeover the country and maintain order, but it is easily doable. I could roll enough Cold-War era tanks through the Banjul, the capitol of the Republic of the Gambia, to make the city shrink in terror. With several billion dollars, I could purchase enough explosives to level the entire country lower than Dresden was during the Second World War. I could hire enough military or paramilitary troops to march through Gambia like Hitler did with Poland. With enough money, I could do things that conquerors of the past could only dream of.
Power. With enough money, you can even buy power. You may not be able to buy respect or love, but you can buy enough guns, hire enough mercenaries, and pay off enough countries to have the power one can only have ruling an entire nation.
Hi James! I am quite concerned about your elaborate detail in your scenarios about taking over entire countries I haven't even heard of but you do you. I would also like to know where you even get all these random facts about countries and war in all of your blog posts such as how you even know the prices of different weapons from different countries. Overall though, your blog was very interesting and informative and I learned a lot. Also, I thought that the Blackwater logo was for a sports team before I read the caption.
ReplyDeleteHi James, it is good to know that we can hire soldiers if we want to. In that point of view, it is true that money does have the ability to buy power. However, if money can't buy respect from the citizens, it makes me wonder how that gained power can be sustained through money alone.
ReplyDeleteHey James, you make a more cynical approach to the value of money and its relation to power that I entirely agree with. While money may not be able to directly provide you happiness or love or so on, like the saying goes, money does definitely establish a level of influence and power that no other substance can really guarantee. Money makes the world go round, and having enough of it can make you immensely powerful, capable of influencing people to do as you wish, like how you mention with hiring personal armies. Guaranteeing massive paychecks can convince people to do things they wouldn't regularly do, and with most people there is always a number that could convince them to do something.
ReplyDeleteHi James, your blog post was very eye opening for me. I definitely knew that money had power, but I was more informed about how money can be used to control other people and get away with immoral actions at a more local level. I never really considered that money had enough power to cause international havoc. It is frightening to think that there are many people in this world who have enough money, and as a result, enough power to quite literally change the world maps and rewrite the history books. I sincerely hope that those top 1% of world wealth do not end up using their money and power to do some of the horrendous acts that you mentioned in the blog. Hopefully, they use their power and privilege responsibly and to help others, rather than to overtake them and put them through misery. In any case, I definitely think that this economy of power is very dangerous and your blog is a great reminder of the tumultuous state of our world. If someone with money like Elon Musk wishes it, the world could very quickly be drawn into yet another World War.
ReplyDeleteHi James! I completely agree with your point about the correlation of military power with wealth. Although, I'm shocked to see how little wealth is required in Iraq to be able to access military grade weaponry like assault rifles and grenades. I didn't even know that paid mercenaries were actually available for those with enough money, as I had previously thought that it was only something you would see in movies. If anything, your point about the potential of billionaires to take over an entire territory was by far the most surprising, and after reading I've certainly had to reconsider what the extremely rich are capable of.
ReplyDeleteHi James! In terms of the concern of how much of an effect money has in regard to giving individuals more power due to their “larger territories,” larger lands, guns and machines has definitely been detrimental to the improper usage of weaponry. As you have mentioned that there are many weapons such as rocket launchers, bullets, rockets, and missiles that are being sold to members for a cheap price of ones who have no proper training or license in this area, there could be wrong decisions being made by people who don’t necessarily deserve to making the complete decision. I do agree that it is essential to have some sort of weapons for personal safety from attack; however, with simply being a bit more rich than the others around people, they are able to commit acts of dangerous effects for others. Shrinking people into terror and taking over land from other smaller countries could possibly give people personal satisfaction, but they have very saddening effects for the people around them. Thank you for your blog and I hope to read further on topics such as these from you!
ReplyDeleteHi James, this is really interesting; it looks like you're really passionate about this concept. I agree with the sentiment that "with enough money, you can even buy power." I feel like that is often overlooked, but many people who hold power right now were able to get there through money, and through force. It is not the person that holds power; it is their money, and I feel that you really show the impact of this in your post. Thank you for sharing, and I look forward to reading more from you.
ReplyDeleteHi James! The power and influence money has on politics and moral issues is quite harrowing to me. Though this isn’t particularly concerning weaponry, your blog reminded me quite a bit of the price of certain medicines in the US such as Insulin. Insulin costs around five dollars to produce and is sold for 78-139 dollars in the US. Though the issue is more complicated than it sounds, it’s quite terrifying to me how people are struggling to pay for something that can potentially save their lives. In Biology I heard a story about a young man in his 20s who could not afford to buy insulin in the US and passed away due to complications from his diabetes. This issue is largely centered around the greed of three big companies that control the market for insulin and work in a way that makes it hard for any other company to sell generic insulin. It’s really shocking how much control corporations have on our lives. Money is intertwined with safety, power, and health and many who live in poverty cannot live without it.
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