War is no more a profitable business

Ever since human beings came out of forest to settle down in civilization, war is a unavoidable event. enslaving people and snatching stuffs from them is, probably, the first successful business human civilization has ever witnessed. with time appreciation for this business also grew. it became an auspicious duty for a king to conquer land and collect tribute.

This business always put the loser at heavy loss, interestingly, often it put victors also at loss. for eg, there were few like Mahmud and Nadir Shah who made huge amount of profit whereas we saw some victors like Ashoka who borne loss.

After Industrial Revolution

human society passed through many stages; from democracy to monarchy, from monarchy to democracy, from plutocracy to monarchy.. but never did it change the equation, until industrial revolution. with advent of modern transportation system and invention of perishable commodities, scope of a successful business changed radically: instead of occupying land and collecting revenues it became much easier to collect huge amount of revenue by supplying commodities. instead of enslaving people and make them work forcefully it became much easier to hire them and use machines to produce too much wealth.

but, ironically, industrial revolution did not end war and slavery. attempts to establish monopoly over market by European businessmen resulted two greatest devastating wars (WWI and WWII). However, in both these wars the winners (nations) had to pay heavy price. But business has made things very easy. We saw Bill Gates making unimaginable amount of wealth within a few years.