Four Kinds of People

     Everyone falls into one of four categories.  Some people
are beneficial to you.  Others are detrimental to you.  Some
don't affect you in any way.  The fourth category includes those
who are both beneficial and detrimental.

     Consider a neighbor who gives you vegetables from his
garden.  He is beneficial.  When he annoys you with the noise
from his garden tractor, he is detrimental.  Many people,
including most relatives, neighbors and other people we directly
interact with, are in this fourth category.  Who do you know
who hasn't irritated or annoyed you at least once?

     People who are only detrimental find little sympathy with
those they damage.  Most of us generally see detrimental people
as enemies.  They are competitors who provide no benefits to
offset the detriment.  It is easy for people to decide it is in their
best interest to destroy detrimental enemies.

     Ignorance further complicates the matter.  Individuals are
often ignorant about the impact others have.  An individual may
fail to recognize either the detriment or the benefit flowing from
the acts of others.  People always choose and act on what they
believe, not on the unknown reality.  I could give a host of 
examples.  That must await another day.

     Self sufficient, isolated people benefit very little from
those outside their isolated tribe or nation.  For most of  history
distant people were irrelevant, usually unknown.  The world of 
that day didn't extend beyond the neighboring tribes.

     Mainly those tribes were seen as detrimental competitors. 
They competed for scarce resources -- wild animals, grazing
land, wood and water.  Those neighboring tribes were only
detriments.  In times of severe shortages they could be a life
threatening detriment.

     The natural state of relationships among tribes was
hostility and war.  Destroying the competitor was good.  The
existence of the competitor was an endless threat.  About the
only thing that restrained neighboring tribes from battling to the
death was concern about the costs of war.

     Tribe members generally had a different attitude toward
members of the tribe.  These members cooperated with each
other and benefited each other.  The tribe members usually were
at least sometimes beneficial.  Even within the tribe some were
seen by others as detrimental.  Those detrimental members were
well advised to watch their backs.

     Competing tribes might cooperate to defend against
stronger tribes.  This expanded the boundaries of beneficial
relationships.  Wars and unstable peace based on a balance of
terror was the state of existence for most of history.   Major
change began with the Industrial Revolution.  Specialization and
trade expanded the group of people we find beneficial.  We now
benefit from people all over the world.  Ignorance of those
benefits still leads to hostilities.

     The major cause of wars is isolation that renders people
on the other side of the line useless.  World trade collapsed as a
result of the US enacting the Smoot-Hawley trade bill in 1930. 
Fearing the inability to import the resources they needed,
Germany and Japan embarked on ventures to create isolated self
sufficiency.  And, they became useless to the rest of the world. 
Germany and Japan set out to conquer the resources they
believed they needed.  Vast regions of the world became only
competitors and enemies.  They weren't beneficial to each other.

     During the Communist era the world divided into
competing blocks that were largely isolated from each other. 
The biggest threats to peace today are nations such as North
Korea and Iran that either choose isolation, or others chose to
isolate them.

     Isolation is the road to war.  Interaction and free trade is
the road to peace.  Those who oppose free trade are marching us
to war, whether they know it or not.  Perhaps this is why anti
free traders are usually among those demanding an ever stronger
military.

     "When goods do not cross borders, soldiers will." 
Frederic Bastiat, nineteenth century French economist.

aldmccallum@gmail.com

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Copyright 2012
Albert D. McCallum
18440 29-1/2 Mile Road
Springport, Michigan 49284