tranquilium
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Right, because the old and true scenario of the current dominant power fearing the rise of a new power is because a bunch of bills and digital credits instead of, oh, I don't know, industrial might, resource, etc.
War between top powers is never about monetary wealth. The reason is that top power are often fairly close to strength that a war is almost guaranteed to be far more costly than the gain. In this in contrast to war between major and minor powers where the spoils are sufficient to offset the cost.
Of course, back to the topic, there is a reason why private wealth is not used to measure a nation's strength. Take China's Ming dynasty for example, its private wealth is unparalleled at the time, so much to the point that 1/3 of the silver at that time wounded up in China, but at the end of the day, one of the main reasons for Ming's collapse is due to a shocking reason----the government ended running out of money and can't support its military.
This is because Ming's private wealth situation is a lot like US' situation today, ie, individual has too much money, but unwilling to do anything with it unless it is getting them more money. Even though the nation as a whole is getting wealthier, the government (which is responsibility of maintaining military, disaster relief, national coordination of project such as infrastructure) is actually getting poor. Ming's collapse also has another very worrying trend------as the private wealth owners get more money, their political influence expands in the central government where their proxies are only concerned with two things: 1.) expand their personal political power 2.) Protect the wealth of their sponsor, which means even less money for the central government and setting up unfair regulations which favors their patrons-------sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Things gets a lot worse from there as well, as the private wealth owners expand their political influence, it enters a disastrous cycle where money--->power--->using that power to setup more schemes to net them more money (often at the commoner and the nation's expense)---more power--->rinse and repeat. In fact, the wealthy elites refused to part with their money even as Ming's capital is sitting under siege of the rebelling commoners----which, by the way, is caused by said wealthy elites' action in the first place. After the capital fall, the rebelling peasants managed to execute these wealth elites by the thousands and all their money ended up in the rebel's hands. (Of course, this is the story of 东林党)
Modern historian in China recognized that towards the end of the days of Ming dynasty, no amount of reforms can actually save the empire precisely because the private wealth is getting out of hands. It is too entrenched in the political system and economies that nothing but the complete destruction of the old system can fix.
This is also why the whole US' style of general election is such a touchy subject in China. We have already know what would happan when wealth, especially private wealth, is allowed to gain political power. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt (well, more of the forced hair cut and braids), three centuries of slavery and degeneration to a semi-colony nobody until the rise of PRC in 1949.
War between top powers is never about monetary wealth. The reason is that top power are often fairly close to strength that a war is almost guaranteed to be far more costly than the gain. In this in contrast to war between major and minor powers where the spoils are sufficient to offset the cost.
Of course, back to the topic, there is a reason why private wealth is not used to measure a nation's strength. Take China's Ming dynasty for example, its private wealth is unparalleled at the time, so much to the point that 1/3 of the silver at that time wounded up in China, but at the end of the day, one of the main reasons for Ming's collapse is due to a shocking reason----the government ended running out of money and can't support its military.
This is because Ming's private wealth situation is a lot like US' situation today, ie, individual has too much money, but unwilling to do anything with it unless it is getting them more money. Even though the nation as a whole is getting wealthier, the government (which is responsibility of maintaining military, disaster relief, national coordination of project such as infrastructure) is actually getting poor. Ming's collapse also has another very worrying trend------as the private wealth owners get more money, their political influence expands in the central government where their proxies are only concerned with two things: 1.) expand their personal political power 2.) Protect the wealth of their sponsor, which means even less money for the central government and setting up unfair regulations which favors their patrons-------sounds familiar, doesn't it?
Things gets a lot worse from there as well, as the private wealth owners expand their political influence, it enters a disastrous cycle where money--->power--->using that power to setup more schemes to net them more money (often at the commoner and the nation's expense)---more power--->rinse and repeat. In fact, the wealthy elites refused to part with their money even as Ming's capital is sitting under siege of the rebelling commoners----which, by the way, is caused by said wealthy elites' action in the first place. After the capital fall, the rebelling peasants managed to execute these wealth elites by the thousands and all their money ended up in the rebel's hands. (Of course, this is the story of 东林党)
Modern historian in China recognized that towards the end of the days of Ming dynasty, no amount of reforms can actually save the empire precisely because the private wealth is getting out of hands. It is too entrenched in the political system and economies that nothing but the complete destruction of the old system can fix.
This is also why the whole US' style of general election is such a touchy subject in China. We have already know what would happan when wealth, especially private wealth, is allowed to gain political power. Been there, done that, got the t-shirt (well, more of the forced hair cut and braids), three centuries of slavery and degeneration to a semi-colony nobody until the rise of PRC in 1949.
