Max Weber’s concept of “booty capitalism” seems applicable to a great many such wars, whether conducted against competing states or against nonstate peoples on its periphery. “Booty capitalism” simply means, in the case of war, a military campaign the purpose of which is profit. In one form, a group of warlords might hatch a plan to invade another small realm, with both eyes fixed on the loot in, say, gold, silver, livestock, and prisoners to be seized. It was a “joint-stock company,” the business of which was plunder.
