Why are mercenaries seen in such a negative view in modern times?

Carthage was a big one.

Carthage was unable to pay its mercenaries due to the indemnity imposed by the Romans. The disgruntled mercenaries, who had fought on Carthage's behalf for years without pay, broke out into revolt. They were barely suppressed, and Carthage was never fully reliant on mercenaries again.

every army on every side of the Thirty Years War

I think the Swiss, although I may be getting them being used as mercenaries mixed up.

>if you love fighting, and you're simply taking advantage of a way to earn a living doing it?

That would also describe murdering people in order to take their wallets.

>soldiers didn't hate the better paid foreigners

From classical Greece to late antiquity to Renaissance Italy and Africa in the 20th century, mercenaries have consistently proven to be the common denominator for the collapse of civil society.

In the absence of a force monopoly justice becomes pay to play and the guy with the biggest gang calls the shots. Especially if society starts to move in a way that he finds disagreeable and he happens to have the money and the muscle needed to stage a hostile takeover.

civil society fights their battles with ballots instead of bullets

Yea they hated them from a monetary standpoint not a moral one.

Actually they've been seen in a positive light only on modern times. 19th century adventure novels, Soldier of Fortune in the 1970s and 1980s action movies (Predator etc) romanticized them.

Before that they were viewed as pure scum. Just check any contemporary account of the 30 years war.

They fuck up societies. put it better than I could, when citing the dissolution of the monopoly of force so crucial to the continued functioning of a government.

It seems to me most of the bias against mercenaries stem from the West's experience of them.

But do others have any stances towards them, particularly amongst the Asians?

I know of only 3: Muslims, Chinese, and Japanese. Consensus: not so much.

The Muslims shared the European sentiment of mercenaries being untrustworthy fucks. This was largely what the Arabs saw the Mamluks as (though most Mamluks were military slaves.) Under the Ottomans, those cunts despised them not only for their entrepreurial approach to war, but also their lack of discipline. As such most mercenaries under the Ottoman service were relegated to Akinji (Raider) or Bashi-Bazouk (Irregulars) service of skirmishers & light infantry units.

Of the three I know, Chinese most definitely has an interesting cultural outlook on mercenaries: they saw them as romantic figures and in a positive light. This stemmed from China's legal system in which empowered civilians to own weapons to help out law enforcement, particularly in the countryside where rural villages were far away from army garrisons. As such, ex soldiers, hired muscles, and paramilitary private groups gained shitloads of positive fame as their presence meant that a village headman or county prefect can hire a bunch of them to keep law and order. Hence "Youxia" (wandering hero) genre of Chinese fiction. It is also interesting to note that China doesn't have that much FOREIGN mercenaries given the size of their fucking armies. Maybe only the odd Steppe Nomad warrior, but they tend to be auxiliaries.

In Japan, it's a bit mixed. Prior to the meme Bushido, the Samurai were literally just one big class of mercenaries. Which incidentally, is their origin. However, as a warrior caste, they did uphold themselves to some fucking military culture and standards given that they are a professional fighting class. The label of hated dog of war was relegated to the forebears of the Ashigaru- non-professional fighters hired to bolster armies and serve as as meat shields for the samurai, which they do with relish because they are paid in both a fee and booty. As such they were unruly soldiers lacking in discipline nor military ethics and were won't to flee when the battle turned sour. The most infamous incident of such fighters happened during the Onin War, when the cunts burned down Kyoto.

The other bunch of mercenarial cunts were the Ronin but again this was a mixed thing. Prior the codification of classes, Ronins were no big deal. Just Samurai who are between jobs lol. After the codification of Classes and Bushido, Ronin were increasingly seen as pariahs. Samurais ought to kill themselves when they lost their masters, but the Ronin of the Tokugawa period were often victims of land-seizures especially amongst the outer lords. That said, the mixed views still remained because while some ronin worked as instructors, teachers, and law enforcers, some became criminals.

What does that have to do with liking them, or having positive view of them? People employ janitors to clean up bodily fluids, but their social caste is quite low.

>Croats ate children.
Untrue.
t. Croat

>be a mercenary in libya
>get fucking rekt by ragheads
>be called an american contractor

Media, please

Because people don't like men who kill for money? A soldier in theory fights for homeland and similar shit, a mercenary is very honest what he has in mind.

>Russian mercenary in Libya
>try to leave
>get shot and stuffed in a freezer by the peaceful secular Islamist government

Anybody else remember that?

>Russians
Nothing of value was lost.

Like pirates or bandits, they cannot figure out a way to provide themselves with food, shelter and comfort without killing people. They aren't doing it to help a cause or idea protect anyone.

>viewed

They are pure scum.

Is there that much of a difference between a mercenary and a modern-day soldier? I always assumed that most military personnel didn't sign up for particularly noble reasons, they just did it because they thought it could be a good career or just benefit them in general, entirely self-centred reasons really. So I don't really see how they're much different from mercs.
Obviously some of them sign up out of a genuine desire to serve and defend their country, which is different, though. Maybe it's most of them, I don't know, I just always assumed most people just saw it like any other career choice.

A mercenary gets a 100,000 per year salary to use 1,000 per year native meatshields against 100 per year other natives.

A soldier, on the other hand, is paid in animé.

desu mercs have it worse than soldiers since they don't have the full legal benefits and support structure of being a legitimate member of a nations armed forces.

Because in modern times mercenaries were given truly dirty jobs like mopping up peasants revolting against fruit companies or ensuring compliance inside factory towns. Ever read about the Pullman Strike?

Lol, it was actually the the US Marines that did the former. The Latter was by the Pinkertons. Pinkies were first and foremost private investigators first and hired policemen next.

Well that's true of Chinese in the Ming Era but during the Tang around 700AD they were so much into hiring Turkic mercenaries to use against other steppeniggers that a huge portion of the Tang army became composed of them, until they were just legitimized as a military caste, and then An Lushan tried to have them take over China in one of the most brutal wars in all of history which led to anti-militarist feeling all the way until the Ming.

>during the Tang around 700AD they were so much into hiring Turkic mercenaries to use against other steppeniggers that a huge portion of the Tang army became composed of them
They were there as Auxiliaries.

The Li Yuan and Li Shimin during their wars to found the T'ang fought the Turkics as well and subjugated some of them. Subjugated Turks then considered themselves Chinese subjects and called the Emperor Heavenly Khan.

They weren't mercenaries in a sense that they are independent fighters on contract and were much part of the T'ang Army.

Not to mention the T'ang Army in itself was a nebulous thing. It was a mixture of state troops, part time soldiers, and private armies of the Jiedushi.