“It’s cheaper to steal something than trade for it.”
- Only in the short term perspective.
The ideal is the situation we’re experiencing today; most parts of the world working hard and profiting from competing as well as doing trade with each other.
The Vikings tended to have a short-term perspective. Raiders always do.
Later in the cycle their attacks were more in the line of attempted conquest by kings or great lords.
But in the early days they were essentially smash and grab artists.