Glad you liked the review!

Judasnose,

Excellent point… How would you reconcile it with the observation that in much of the Gap, blood-and-soil concerns of the past override monetary and rational concerns over the future?

A father is part of the past, an inheritance is part of the future.
Men fight for their futures.
That is why they get riled up if one messes with their offspring.

Thanks for the review.

You wrote:

“Yet on page 101, he accuses the country of not investing enough ('Our ancestors were willing to make this sacrifice.')”

One is talking about money and the other is talking about lives. Hope this clears up at least this point for you.

Best regards,
Chet

Thanks for stopping by!

Both capital and labor are factors of production — as a country grows relatively richer and capital but poorer in labor — as our country has — the production mix naturally shifts from labor to capital.

So you would equate somebody spending, say, $10,000, to the sight of a young Iraqi girl willing to sacrifice her life. You would find both equally compelling, especially if you were one of “uncommitted” in the developing world?

I will say one thing for your approach – it greatly simplifies the study of human conflict. For one thing, you don't have to worry about the “moral” aspects of human existence.

Chet

An excellent comment!

Labor and capital — human life and dollars — are both charged, but in different ways. We feel a greater loss by the permanent removal of one unit of labor than its equivalent valuation in capital — say, $1,000,000.

Of course, as Machiavelli wrote, men sooner forgive the murder of their fathers than the theft of their inheritance.

On the other side, we are seen as losing more when we lose a unit of labor than its equivalent in capital. Burning through fifty billion dollars would not emotionally damped us or charge up our enemies — losing 50,000 lives of course would.

I wonder, in much of the developing world, whether a family would regret losing a daughter more than, say, having the father lose a steady job at a local cement factory.

One thing I really like about Boyd's work, and your exegesis of it, is the focus on morality as a substantive, rather than a normative, concern. I think this is the best approach “moral warfare” – how moral instincts and behavior allow a side to triumph, rather than a guide as to what is actually morally right in a normative sense.