The warfare state

A few weeks ago I remarked on the relatively high current defense spending for the United States. In hindsight I think this was somewhat unfair, the proportion of the budget that the United States spends on defense is rather small in a world-historical context. I was reminded of this by a datum in The Age of Confucian Rule: The Song Transformation of China (highly recommended by the way), even this exceedingly civilian dynasty allocated ~80% of its budgetary outlays toward military expenses. Historical surveys of the Roman Empire also infer that most of the expenditure was directed toward paying for the legions, not bread & circuses. These two civilizations were relatively unique in that they placed great emphasis on the need for a civilian aristocracy who were soaked in literate culture (the first non-literate emperor of the Roman Empire took power in the early 6th century, and that fact may ...