That's true. I am not debating the fact that CONCORD condones capsuleer wars (just that it seemed a bit stretched), but your pov based on economics makes sense to me, even if that's a little far from their actual mandate. The only thing that it can point out actually, is a strong ethos and morale on their behalf if they are so much interested in the well being of baseliner economy, which is not quite the field they are supposed to bolster in the first place. Why would they help baseliner planetside economies considering what is their mandate in the first place, if not for ethics and ideals ?
A strong ethos and sense of morality is not necessary because they have a pragmatic and self-interested reason to expand interstellar trade. See CONCORD's history:
For the first few decades of its existence CONCORD wielded very limited power, but in recent years their authority has grown alongside that of inter-stellar trade, ... The root for this development lies in the evolution of CONCORD itself. It’s no longer simply a neutral ground for the empires to hammer out diplomatic agreements - it has become an independent institution setting its own rules and regulations and, more importantly, is both willing and able to uphold them. .... The only hold the empires have had on CONCORD, that of financial support, is waning day by day as the revenues garnered through customs, confiscation of illegal goods, selling licenses, and more, are steadily increasing.
Emphasis mine.
In other words, CONCORD's power and independence as an organization is dependent on revenues earned through its control of interstellar trade. Expanding interstellar trade expands its revenue base and solidifies its autonomy vis-a-vis the empire governments.
Okay, sounds fair. Makes sense interpreted that way.
In any case, again, I am not debating the fact that CONCORD has amoral sides, just pointing out that I hardly believe something can be completely black in eve. I am just lazy to re read all the concord lore again but I was pretty sure to have read here and there a certain emphasis on ethics and also on an administration almost free of corruption and underground dealings.
What makes me itch in your analysis is that you seem to portray them more or less completely in black, and that's just not true in my view. I like your arguments on the justification for making capsuleer wars legal, and why not for bounties too with that in mind, yes. I guess I would have liked a little more to see the bounty system to be founded by someone else than CONCORD, like a pirate underground. Firstly it was easier to explain, and secondly, more importantly, it would give some love to the pirate side of the lore. It would also have set the bounties system as a direct underground challenger/threat to the legal conventionnal war system regulated by CONCORD. It makes even more sense when you think that the bounty system is more or less independant of any CONCORD space regulation (you can't shoot your bounty in high sec, have to endure sec penalties, etc... note that I am not speaking about killrights, that truly belong to CONCORD though).
Why indeed ? Makes no sense. The same way that the opposite point of view possesses a lot of similar inconsistencies. Why cannot we fire at planets, civilian ships, why aren't we able to cause any damages to stations or space objects rendered invulnerable by game mechanisms ? Why are we cut into pieces within a few seconds when facing CONCORD police in high sec while missions against CONCORD makes them appear like standard weak and squishy NPCs ? (and how is that we kill millions of NPC battleships everyday, depleting the whole population, and how is that Newtonian physics are not respected in space, etcetc ?)
I am trying to conciliate the two, to the risk of actually combining both flaws... But meh. 
Technically, Dust will allow podders to fire at planets. The circumstances that allow this are still vague.
We can fire at civilian ships. Try shooting up the grey crosses traveling from station to station for loot. You can do this in both hi-sec and low-sec, and you can even get away with it with your ship intact in hi-sec.
The disparity between police CONCORD and squishy NPC CONCORD is the big one, and probably the one that you can attribute the most to game mechanic demands. A handwavy explanation involves CONCORD supported by its full infrastructure in hi-sec space, and CONCORD forces caught out in low-sec where they're operating in unfriendly territory.
Population issues concerning crews and battleship losses are an interesting subject, but unrelated to the issue of CONCORD's motives.
Dust will allow podders to fire at a specific point on a planet. I still can't shoot at Crystal Boulevard if I want to. I can't nuke half of Pator surface if I want to (to explain why everything is under the water derp).
I did not say that we can't shoot the few NPC transports that fly here and there (there are so few... that's unrealistic as hell by the way). We can't do a single damage to a lot of space objects. Why ? Because if no interference is coming from somewhere, I want to know what kind of materials they use in their hulls, that could be handy at times.
That's precisely why I prefered my first point of view. Wars, bounties, whatever, could be handled another way in the lore. It can be changed. Targeting stations, planets, drastic differences between concord NPCs, everything like this tied to game mechanics, hardly can.
The same way, but in more extreme, I believe, that state capsuleers belong to their faction which is responsible for them (see what happens when Noir decides to crash into a station... could we do the same ?)
The Broker did the actual crashing. That character operates under so few restrictions that it's more accurately termed a plot device.
Does not make any sense to me.
TonyG I guess.
Oh, pragmatically, yes, definitly. Would you however allow military unfaillible selective devices shoot at each other in the middle of a street, large or narrow, whatever, with the justification that they will obviously never harm anyone since they aim accurately at their targets ? What would all the mortal non-capsuleers flying around think of that, however ? I know that I wouldnt like myself to see weapons of the apocalypse firing huge beams of destructive power near me, even if they are supposed to never cause any harm to me.
The opinions of potentially offended mortal non-capsuleer bystanders don't really amount to too much.
No, seriously. Capsuleers shooting each other in hi-sec space is constitutes a minority of the violence there. The majority of apocalyptic huge beam firing in hi-sec space is done by capsuleers directed at non-capsuleer targets by empire authorities.
Those last ones are criminals, not the average citizen. The ones that are part of the economic basis that makes CONCORD live according to you ?
I tend to agree with Shaalira here. For CONCORD it's far better to isolate and contain capsuleers by having them focused on killing and destroying each other rather than potentially having them upset the established order of things with their signatories. By providing outlets for violence and the use of nominal incentives they create system where capsuleers are more or less contained in their own little bubble and the interstellar framework is more or less maintained.
It's a pragmatic policy that allows CONCORD to focus on other threats to the peace and strengthens their own position because they don't have to respond to each and every dubious and questionable act capsuleers may commit in the course of their careers.
I am not denying that, duh. Again, I am pointing out the flaws of two different interpretations of CONCORD powers and mandate.
I'm not sure why CONCORD should be the 100% perfect UN/Space Police when it seems New Eden is a dog eat dog world for a capsuleer and I don't think one will get much sympathy or outrage when another capsuleer attempts to "grief" them from the average joe if one considers the prevalent sterotype of the class is one of supposedly powerful technological ubermensch.
I am not sure why CONCORD should be the 100% pragmatic amoral bloated UN/Space Police either, when it seems New Eden is a grey world, not a dark for the sake of being dark, one.
