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Message: <blockquote data-quote="clearstream" data-source="post: 7974561" data-attributes="member: 71699">I guess I don't think of economics as any sort of business, but I do agree that people have the obligation and capacity to seek survival through peaceful industry and trade, and as you say that is a work in progress.I think this has changed over time. In the distant past, the labourer and the warrior could be one and the same. RPGs are seldom set in that time, which comes largely pre-agriculture. For any game set in a knights and armour setting violence is more often by the property-owning classes in pursuit of more property. Hardly ever out of concern that a few peasants were going to starve to death! Inflicting starvation on peasants was one of the tactics employed FTM. I am thinking here of almost any war in the ADs, with rare exceptions that resound through history... simply because they were so exceptional.Unsurprisingly, that which does not kill us leaves us maimed and incapable: starving peasants make bad soldiers.This is what I originally replied to. The putative negotiable middle-ground - any kind of "preemptive self-defense" is almost certainly going to be a cover for violent attack in the service of theft. The modern wars of the US or Japan being shining examples (although they are far from alone in that distinction, and the pre-modern period saw many others set the pace!)</blockquote>