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What happens when you run out of inferior people to pillage and loot?
Also, who exactly provides the "services" won in war if not the underclass that you defeated?
Capitalism's greatest virtue was enabling continuous growth through continuous competition. Making competition physical either creates a real risk of winning and stagnating, lacking enemies, or you have to make the entire war a 1984-esque sham.
Also also, war isn't even fucking fun in a rah rah primal kind of way anymore. You don't get to see the whites of the enemy's eyes. Unless you're stomping primitives through vastly superior firepower in a way that can hardly be called war and certainly isn't edifying, all you get is cowering in a foxhole, waiting for a drone to pinpoint your location and either get you shelled or drop a grenade on you.
Well you don't kill them all. Don't commit mass genocide, that's barbaric and wasteful.
(@JeSuisCharlie this is also my reply to you)
Three models I can think of in (relatively) modern times are the late Victorian British empire, the Antebellum American South, and the post-Stalin USSR.
(I feel compelled to mention at this point that I'm just offering this as a thought experiment, using all three of those plus the Klingons from Star Trek as a very loose example. All three of those have some obvious horrifying parts, and I particularly despise slavery)
The thing that all three had in common was that, although they were a heavily militarized society with many of their upper class men serving in the military, they weren't particularly interested in expanding their territory. They already had all the territory they could possibly use—arguably too much. Of course, to some extent they did go to war with other nations, but most of their normal military action was either:
(a) preparing ever greater amounts of force to make sure they never had to go to war (the best weapon is one that never has to be used) or (b) internal force against the tribute states of their empire (Czech or Afghanistan for the Soviets, India for the British, Blacks and American Indians for the Antebellum South)
Of course, the most obvious benefit of such an empire is the resourcees it provides. Natural resources like oil and minerals, but also humans to do all the work that no one else wants to do: work the farmland in harsh rural areas for example, or low-wage service work in the cities. In our capitalistic meritocracy, this leads to an endless dog-eat-dog struggle as everyone is in competition for the "good jobs," leading everyone in fear that they'll be stuck with one of those lesser jobs, and no one will offer them any sympathy—it's their fault for not doing better in school, or hustling harder, or something like that. With the empire model, things are much more clear—you're born into the lower caste, and you stay there, so there's a little more stability to build a culture there and offer some stability.
In our society, military service is usually offered as a path out of poverty for the lower class, while those in the upper class either making a token gesture of it (like the royal family in England) or skip it entirely (like Trump). In the "empire" model, it instead acts as a test of merit and one of the most respected careers, with many of the upper class choosing to make their career there. After leaving the military, they then get a huge advantage for later careers in things like law and politics, which seems a lot more fair and just than offering them to kids who got a high LSAT score and went to top law schools with no prior career experience. Or they can simply retire and live the rest of their life as a gentleman of leisure, with their military pension and discipline keeping them on a respectable path, which is much better than the aimless NEETS of today who have ample leisure time but nothing to show for it.
I would certainly not expect it to be "fun," and I'm aware there would be a heavy price paid in blood for all of this. But it might lead us back to an actually "great" society, where people have a sense that they are part of something truly grand and have an important role to play. The current vision of "you are all residents of an economic zone, go forth and maximize GDP" is somewhat... lacking in its appeal to our nobler spirits.
The South actually was pretty interested in expanding its territory. I think in a scenario where they successfully separate from the United States they probably end up with Cuba and possibly large parts of Mexico and South America.
As I understand it, that was mostly for political reasons. They felt outnumbered and wanted more congressional votes to survive.
Political power of the slave states was a major consideration, but they also contended (I think sincerely) that if slavery was not permitted to expand, the system would collapse.
http://civilwarcauses.org/al-nc.htm
Hmm, that's interesting. It seems like they were afraid of runaway population growth in their slaves, to the point where the entire south would just be overpopulated with slaves if they weren't allowed to expand territory. Suffice to say that kind of population growth is no longer a concern these days.
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