this post was submitted on 28 Nov 2024
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Insanity.
My dude absolutely no. The entire premise was to point out this "100m died due to socialism" is a joke and people repeating it come off as completely foolish. The entire idea of attributing an economic system to death is ridiculous. Flipping that back onto any system you'll only see insane death tolls that are goofily interpreted to press a point not tell the truth.
Second this over run point of socialism = famine and capitalism doesn't is fuckin SILLY.
9 Million people a year from malnourishment now
Over a century that's 900 million people. Ridiculous numbers goofy.
The point is people want to fucking feed people. We both you and I wanna help people. Under this system now that rules globally we aren't doing it at least I and others like me do not. The points you're making is capitalist crap propaganda, unhelpful goalless and mostly soulless. Cherry picking death tolls by countries is an asinine way to judge government structure. How many died from the Military-Industrial complex or resource/land wars?
Socialists in western democracies are looking to create food banks, free housing, and accessible healthcare. Help those literally dying from this. Why do you argue so hard against those people lol
They're not, they're attributing a political system to death, because that political system enabled and perhaps rewarded those in power to do it.
Here's a Wikipedia article about it, which has plenty of sources and some criticism. There's no consensus on exact figures (which range from 10-20M all the way to 148M), but there does seem to be consensus that the number is high (definitely millions).
If you have a scholarly alternative to those mentioned in the article, I'd be interested in reviewing it, especially if it makes a strong case for Stalin and Mao not being responsible for tens of millions of deaths by starvation. But just know, once someone puts themselves in charge of coordination of production and distribution of food, I will hold them accountable when that goes wrong.
The capitalist system works around these issues by encouraging and rewarding over supply, since a famine in one area is an arbitrage opportunity in another. Communism, on the other hand, punishes over supply since that means workers aren't efficiently allocated. It also rewards hoarding because that means you're getting more than your fair share and is the closest thing to "profit" (and you can barter excess for other goods you want).
And in most cases, the cause of that is corruption and authoritarianism. Western countries try to send aid to help solve hunger and malnourishment, but dictators take that aid so it doesn't reach the people, because hungry people don't have time to rise up.
Most of the countries with the worst malnutrition are in Africa, and largely in areas known for poor rule of law and high corruption. That said, aside from the early 2020s so far, hunger has been on a consistent downward trend. I couldn't find the source I saw earlier, but this one shows a general downward trend since 2000, and the other report I saw before showed a downward trend since 1900.
There isn't a system that rules globally. Malnutrition tends to be much less in areas with freer markets and less repressive governments. The real enemy here is autocracy, the economic system isn't the interesting factor when it comes to things like access to basic necessities.
I'm only arguing against authoritarianism, and that is what pure socialism tends to devolve into. I have no problem with food banks and other charitable endeavors, in fact I actively support that type of thing. But I draw the line at "just trust me bro" when it comes to putting control of an entire economic system into the hands of a political party. I just don't trust human nature that much.
Roll my fuckin eyes
Wonder how Gaza is doing.
The bros you are trusting are leading the corporations and the capitalist enabling governments they rule.
https://www.mercycorps.org/blog/facts-global-hunger
Food is thrown away under capitalism, locked in garbage bins. Most people who grow the food are the ones starving. 9 Million a year die of malnourishment. That's almost a billion people under capitalism in a century
You're a goon
That's not capitalism, that's either feudalism or slavery.
What's special about those countries? They have a lot of corruption, poor economic policies in government, and barriers to foreign investment
Source and details for Ethiopia
(US State Department on Ethiopia:Source and details about Kenya
Article about Kenya.And for Somalia, it's mostly civil war (ironically sparked by military dictatorship founded on Marxist principles) and now Islamist insurgency (against an Islamist government backed by Ethiopia).
That said, Western countries provide aid where possible (US aid to Kenya, US aid to Ethiopia). Also, here's aid by countries, funny how it's the capitalist countries that give the most favorable terms... There's also a number of charities that add to that aid.
But the problems in these countries have less to do with food distribution and more to do with corruption and poor economic development. They rely on agriculture in an area with poor land for agriculture, as well as poor investment into agriculture (as in modern farming technology). The governments in these areas are failing their people, so what they need is more capitalism (foreign investment to create jobs) and better political policy. Kenya is moving in the right direction while Ethiopia is floundering (though they are taking loans from China, so hopefully that ends up helping, but I have my doubts).
If these areas had stable governments based on capitalism, there would be more foreign and domestic investment, meaning more jobs, corporate tax revenue, and other local investment.
So clueless. Back to step one with this kid. Capitalism doesn't let anything else live it subverts and uses violence to control. Tale as old as time. The famines in India because of the British, the famines in Ireland because of the British all in the name of capital and money making. Disgusting.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
Not capitalism, that was imperialist mercantilism (source):
The British took money from peasants and used it to fight in Afghanistan. That sounds a lot like feudalism or mercantilism to me, not capitalism. Capitalism doesn't funnel money into war, governments and warlords do.
This one is much closer to capitalism:
Basically, it seems to have started with a colonial mindset (absentee landlordism) and transitioned rather abruptly to laissez-faire capitalism, with a backdrop of racism. Basically, Protestant supporters of Elizabeth 1 were granted a lot of land, and they rented that out to the Irish people. It's a bit more complicated than that, but it absolutely didn't start out as capitalism, it started out with grants from the monarch, and then during the famine, London transitioned to more laissez-faire policies, which basically just cemented the position of those large land-owners.
Laissez-faire capitalism can absolutely help longer term, but there needs to be enough time for more productive owners to beat out entrenched owners, and that's just not possible in a famine, and it certainly doesn't happen overnight. The way this would work is some natives would pool up enough money to buy land outright (or accept foreign investment to do so), improve it, and get more profit than the absentee land-owners who didn't care to invest in their properties (and the farmers didn't care to improve land they're merely renting). Once land is producing more, that would lead to excess and opportunities to invest elsewhere (e.g. factories).
Great Britain completely mismanaged things though, especially the transition from crown handouts to laissez-faire economic policy. So I think the biggest explanatory factor here is racism ("divine providence" or whatever).
Yes, the reasoning in both is to make money, but neither was operating under a proper capitalist system, since both operated under the thumb of British aristocrats. If you want to see what can happen when people throw off the aristocracy, create a stable government, and actually let laissez-faire capitalism work, look at the northern United States after independence from Great Britain. They abolished slavery and progressed the economy very rapidly, to the point where they could largely hold their own against the British in the war of 1812 less than 50 years later.
This is state capitalism, which is closer to whatever China is than laissez-faire capitalism. It's pretty much textbook cronyism, since the only ones allowed to actually operate in the economy are cronies of the state.
Lol
"tHaT wAsN't CaPiTaLiSm!!!"
yes it was. Capitalism has existed in Europe since the 1500s and dominated it for most of the time since then. The entire imperialist age of Europe is because of capitalism.
Just shy of a billion dead over a century dead from malnourishment. The cause of every war from preventing any other political scene to unfold to the Holocaust. All from Capitalists.
Go on tell me the Nazis were socialist lol tell me Mussolini built Fascism based on Socialism or something stupid
That's just not true.
Capitalism is economic activity with little to no interaction with the government. When the economic activity is done directly by or closely affiliated with a government, I don't consider it capitalism. Capitalism is all about private ownership, meaning not the government, so the more distanced the activity is from the government, the more pure capitalism is.
They certainly used certain socialist institutions, but no, they absolutely were not socialist.
They were fascist, and fascism is built on the idea that everything should be done in service of the state, which is the justification they used for seizing private businesses to use in service of state interests. Fascism is directly opposed to socialism, because socialism is built on the idea that everything should be done in the service of the collective, and the state only exists to serve the interests of the collective.
Capitalism, on the other hand, is opposed to both, since it's built on the idea that everything should be done in service of the individual, meaning individuals should be empowered to make their own choices. Fascism is also directly opposed to capitalism, because fascism does not care at all about the individual and only cares about the state. Fascists will lie to you and say they support capitalism, but once they get in power, they'll seize your assets if it furthers their interests.
Socialism is dangerous because the "state" and the "collective" often get confused, and those in power prioritize the "state" (i.e. themselves) over the collective. It's not a problem with the ideology directly, but with how humans naturally behave. Fascism is dangerous because it doesn't even pretend to prioritize the needs of anyone, it only exists to get more power for the people in charge. Capitalism is dangerous because individuals can get too powerful by accruing wealth, which is why a strong government must exist to keep the playing field fair, and it needs to simultaneously be as separated from private interests as possible so it doesn't devolve into oligarchy (as in, those with money also get political power).
So far, it seems like liberalism paired with (mostly) free markets has done the best at preserving and protecting individual rights and slowing the collapse into authoritarianism. But the human condition seems to gravitate toward authoritarianism, so nothing is prefect.