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The reasons for the failure of these states are varied, but one common characteristic leaps out: they are all politically and economically introverted.
How Asia Works
Joe Studwell
A stored food surplus built up by taxation can support other full-time specialists besides kings and bureaucrats. Of most direct relevance to wars of conquest, it can be used to feed professional soldiers. That was the decisive factor in the British Empire’s eventual defeat of New Zealand’s well-armed indigenous Maori population. While the Maori achieved some stunning temporary victories, they could not maintain an army constantly in the field and were in the end worn down by 18,000 full-time British troops. Stored food can also feed priests, who provide religious justification for wars of conquest; artisans such as metalworkers, who develop swords, guns, and other technologies; and scribes, who preserve far more information than can be remembered accurately.
Guns, Germs, and Steel
Jared Diamond
What was once a system for raising money to grow a business is now an arbitrary high-tech system of fluctuating numbers. It is estimated by the World Bank that the global market capitalization (size of all publicly traded companies) is $69 trillion. The derivatives market, however, is an astounding $1.2 quadrillion.
WallStreetBets
Jaime Rogozinski
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