tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7389997189655525246.post5321991257729204127..comments2024-03-04T18:00:48.815+00:00Comments on More in Heaven and Earth: How many did Communism kill? — 65-70 million people. Stephen Wigmorehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/15604582974059809054noreply@blogger.comBlogger3125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7389997189655525246.post-46561155097383241242023-05-05T21:36:44.177+01:002023-05-05T21:36:44.177+01:00Thank you for your comment. I tried to cover this ...Thank you for your comment. I tried to cover this I'm the article, but to put it differently, in this article I'm considering Communism as a political system, not as a vaguely defined economic alternative to an even vaguer capitalism. I basically define Communism as the series of Regimes both ideologically and practically descended from the Russian bolsheveik'd of 1917.<br /><br />Capitalism is a term used very vaguely of political regimes and economic systems that are really quite different, from 17thC Britain and Holland to modern states worldwide today. It would be meaningful to catalogue e.g. the victims of 19thC British Imperialism, and people have done so. But not really to tally all supposedly capitalist countries together over centuries and totally different political and economic systems.Stephen Wigmorehttp://www.stephenwigmore.comnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7389997189655525246.post-86851750042882578342023-05-05T20:01:49.109+01:002023-05-05T20:01:49.109+01:00The currently prevailing neoliberal system is buil...<br />The currently prevailing neoliberal system is built on just as coherent an ideology (even if, just like communism, this ideology is always largely a pretext for powerful people to do what benefits themselves at the expense of others, irrespective of whether it fits in with their nominal political ideology. Just like China, a nominally communist country, embraces many neoliberal ideologies, so do many nominally neoliberal people happily embrace policies that would be labelled socialism if only they weren’t geared at benefitting only themselves) as communism ever was, and its causal linkage to mass human suffering is just as obvious.<br />For a well-known historical example we don’t even have to venture out of Europe (e.g. to any of the entire continents that were practically, if not literally, enslaved by Europeans), we have to look no further than the irish potato famine. This was clearly a disaster caused by capitalist policies and ideology (exploitative farming systems that forced the Irish to rely exclusively on one single crop because it was the only one that enabled them to sustain themselves under the circumstances), clearly one that could have been avoided otherwise (hence why it is the irish potato famine, not the worldwide potato famine), and that was made worse by the greedy, misanthropic and arguably racist policies of the English at that time (such as forcing the Irish to keep exporting other crops that they were farming instead of eating them themselves).<br /><br />Of course we could find any number of such examples in any number of countries where Europeans gained dominance during the last few centuries. Aren’t for example the Opium wars fundamentally caused by capitalist aggression?<br /><br />If we want to analyze the causalities even further here, it would be worthwhile to consider that communism and all the evil caused in its name (which is a phrasing a bit like "christianity and all the evil it has caused", of course that evil is done in the name of an ideology does not necessarily mean the ideology itself is evil) would never even have happened if it weren’t for the evils of capitalism that preceded it.<br /><br />All that of course is just speaking of historical examples, and not even considering the future ramifications of the greatest catastrophe in human history, the climate and biodiversity crisis, that is currently under way and mostly caused by the capitalist economy (though indeed communist countries did have their part in it, it is undeniable that the steps necessary to mitigate it are fundamentally at odds with the central tenets of neoliberal philosophy, and it is consistently the most ardent neoliberal people and parties that undeniably oppose these steps. It is also important to note that communist countries, while not generally showing much regard for these issues, mainly contributed to them at a time when they were not yet common knowledge, whereas capitalist economies are overwhelmingly happy to continue causing them even after the causality had been scientifically proven beyond a shadow of a doubt).<br /><br />So when will we get a calculation on how many people capitalism has killed? Even more interestingly, I’d be interested in how many people it will have killed. I am aware that such calculations are pretty much impossible to do, although it seems hardly plausible that it will be less than billions by the end of the century.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7389997189655525246.post-39550464361773221932023-05-05T20:01:41.223+01:002023-05-05T20:01:41.223+01:00"These famine victims are counted because the..."These famine victims are counted because the famines they died in were directly caused by ideological Communist policies of state control and mass collectivisation that devastated farming." True, and I think it is absolutely appropriate to count them as victims of these communist regimes, because they are to blame for them.<br /><br />But that should not blind us to the reality that colonialist, neo-colonialist and capitalist practices commonly did, and often still do, the same. To treat famines caused by communist policies as totally distinct from famines caused by capitalist policies is to gravely downplay the latter. <br /><br />Which is all the more dangerous. Most people nowadays don’t need to be explained that Mao and Stalin were evil dictators and mass murderers, almost everyone agrees on that. On the other hand, it requires a conscious effort, especially for those in developed countries who tend to benefit from these crimes (at least in the short term), to accept that our global political and economic system is built on the systematic oppression and exploitation of entire continents of people. <br />Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com