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Originally Posted by whswhs
Yes. It's the principal-agent problem and Plato's solution to it. He actually has quite a lucid explanation of the gains from trade and the productivity of a market economy early on. But then he supposes that the result wealth will attract thieves, robbers, and invaders; that you need protectors; and that you have to avoid those protectors trying to enrich themselves at the expense of the "protected." It's really the mirror image of the problem of how you prevent the democratic majority from voting to enrich themselves at the expense of productive capital.
Jane Jacobs writes about this in her short book Systems of Survival, which is about the need for the warrior ethic and the trader ethic to coexist, even though each regards the other as immoral.
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Uh-uh, that's where I got this. I think Jacobs goes overboard. Like I said there are several examples of societies of fighting merchants and not only are they often better at both fighting and trading than caste societies (Traders learn strategy and logistics by doing, Guardians often only learn tactics and not always that well), they also often sound like much nicer places to live. But than I suppose she would call that "knowledgeable flexibility". Her "Monstrous Hybrids" were when the rules for the one were used for the other. Though she may not have realized how often caste societies turn into monstrous hybrids (if Traders can't get status they make it for themselves, if Guardians have no supply of money they interfere in the market).
"Shun Trading" and "Shun Force" is first of all, "Thou shalt not Steal" (a merchant can pack heat on the road but using it in the market is armed robbery, a guardian has nothing to sell except the power of his office and that belongs to someone else). For Guardians it is also a matter of being ostentatious, respecting hierarchy and making rich use of leisure. Some Guardian tasks after all are not to be done by a more senior guardian (no judge can be an executioner because it will make the state less impersonal, and I doubt it was Queen Elizabeth's lifelong dream to leave her throne to be a guard at a woman's prison). So it is not just trading tasks that are shunned but guardian ones with less status.