Having large numbers of people starve to death seems like a pretty damning indictment of a system. But I dunno, maybe I’m overly attached to food?
How do you reconcile capitalism with climate catastrophe and ecological collapse?
These seem like a pretty damning indictment of a system. But i dunno, maybe i just like living things
Hey, I’m not trying to say capitalism is great. But when Germany reunited, the eastern, communist part was the one with incredible toxic soil, poisoned inhabitants and barely a fish in its rivers.
I don’t see that any of those systems is inherently better from the “living things” point of view.
It’s obviously a loaded question.
But I am still curious as to a historical interpretation of events.
Edit: even a historical awareness of events. W/ the Holodomor specifically, I expect in the immediate post WWII landscape, there would be no western interest on even recognizing it as occurred? I expect there would be at least an eastern European awareness, but was their media already under the thumb on the government?
Again, would love just an objective answer to the question instead of people just whattabouting the obvious ragebait
A carbon tax falls well within a capitalist system (much the same as any other tax or method of dealing with externalities) so I’d put that as a failure of democratic systems more than anything.
I’m also not convinced communism would actually solve the problem. Communists have historically been pretty reluctant to share bad news, from letting folks know about mass starvations to, oh, most of the world news in China.
Whether you realise it or not, you are making a very poor argument. I could reply that eating food falls well within a communist system, therefore you can’t blame communism for famines.
The fact is that the majority of the world is capitalist (including, of course, major oil companies who have known about climate change for decades and hid the research) and yet the planet is still being made uninhabitable almost as quickly as we possibly can.
Why does capitalism get a free pass for this but communism doesn’t get the same treatment?
could reply that eating food falls well within a communist system, therefore you can’t blame communism for famines.
Try again when you’re sober, that’s not a particular cogent argument.
I didn’t actually make that argument, I just said that I could. It would be of a similar quality to the argument you actually made though.
(Your argument is argument is poor because although carbon taxes could fall under a capitalist system, they are not being implemented in a way that is actually useful. You are arguing hypothetical but unrealised positives for capitalism but not allowing such arguments for communism.)
I won’t be replying to you again because I have better things to do than argue online.
I didn’t actually make that argument, I just said that I could. It would be of a similar quality to the argument you actually made though.
(Your argument is argument is poor because although carbon taxes could fall under a capitalist system, they are not being implemented in a way that is actually useful. You are arguing hypothetical but unrealised positives for capitalism but not allowing such arguments for communism.)
I won’t be replying to you again because I have better things to do than argue online.
I didn’t actually make that argument, I just said that I could. It would be of a similar quality to the argument you actually made though.
(Your argument is argument is poor because although carbon taxes could fall under a capitalist system, they are not being implemented in a way that is actually useful. You are arguing hypothetical but unrealised positives for capitalism but not allowing such arguments for communism.)
I won’t be replying to you again because I have better things to do than argue online.
And what is it that’s been undermining the democratic systems? Extreme concentration of wealth, courtesy of capitalism.
Whether you realise it or not, you are making a very poor argument. I could reply that eating food falls well within a communist system, therefore you can’t blame communism for famines.
The fact is that the majority of the world is capitalist (including, of course, major oil companies who have known about climate change for decades and hid the research) and yet the planet is still being made uninhabitable almost as quickly as we possibly can.
Why does capitalism get a free pass for this but communism doesn’t get the same treatment?
Whether you realise it or not, you are making a very poor argument. I could reply that eating food falls well within a communist system, therefore you can’t blame communism for famines.
The fact is that the majority of the world is capitalist (including, of course, major oil companies who have known about climate change for decades and hid the research) and yet the planet is still being made uninhabitable almost as quickly as we possibly can.
Why does capitalism get a free pass for this but communism doesn’t get the same treatment?
What do you hope to get from this post?
I’m morbidly curious. There are a lot of folks advocating communism who seem to lack any historical context. I’m curious as to whether it’s sort of like lemmys instinctive downvoting of anything negative about biden/upvoting of anything negative of trump, or maybe it’s genuine ignorance (I don’t imagine tik tok communist enthusiasts talk all that much about the tens of millions dead) or if there is actually some sort of group rationalization.
There are a lot of folks advocating communism who seem to lack any historical context.
Do you have a historical context? Are you comparing the economic system of communism against capitalism? Or are you comparing nations who claimed to be communist but were actually authoritarian governments against democratic republics? Remember, North Korea calls themselves a Democratic Republic, names don’t mean a lot.
Do we have any historical context for a democratic republic with a communist economic system?
Here’s part of the Wikipedia definition of communism:
A communist society would entail the absence of private property and social classes, and ultimately money and the state (or nation state).
I’m unaware of a society like that.
Tankies gonna tank.
compare that to the mass starvations happening on a daily basis under capitalism (including the one currently in progress in Gaza)
Are you really asking for a comparison, or is this a red herring?
3.9 million Ukranians died of starvation between 1931 and 1934. There are currently 0.5 million on the brink of starvation in Gaza, and 27 confirmed starvation deaths in Gaza (as of March 11th, and that is likely from incomplete data, but its what we have to work with unless we want to use imaginary data, and im assuming we don’t). If we assume a linear growth rate and extrapolate, we could expect ~100 confirmed deaths and 1.5 million on the brink in a similar time period.
So, if we use raw numbers the USSRs leadership in Ukraine led to a greater total amount of starvation, however, if we look at it from a per capita perspective, about 10% of Ukraine’s total population of ~ 32 million was starving and the 1.5 million number I extrapolated above would be almost 100% of Gazans.
Ireland famine, Indian famine, Ethiopia famine, … Do I have to say more?
Well, yes. Those are just the names of places. There were other Soviet/communists famines as well. All said, about 50 million died in various communist-nation famines. This isn’t a defense of capitalism…it’s just stating facts. If we actually want to reduce suffering, we need to be objective. As far as capitalism v communism goes, as far as I can tell, they’re both very flawed systems prone to authoritarian takeovers. I think the best we’ve got right now is the sort of socialist-democratic systems we see in northern Europe where most businesses are still privately owned, but markets are severely regulated. Education and elections are well-funded from public coffers, so it’s a fair playing field. Governments are comprised of multi-party coalitions that help force hard-liners to compromise, and no-cinfidence votes make it easier to reform government when it isn’t working well.
The British East India Company killed 40 million People. And that is just one singular corporate entity.
Are you… You’re trying to compare a people under a military blockade to the victims of communist governments?
Like, the Right accuses us of using palestineans as props but goddamn, in this case I’m inclined to agree.
At best, that’s a silly comparison. At worst, that’s just callous, ghoulish and ridiculous. Just… wow.
I’d suggest you read about the Irish and the Bengali. What economic system did those famines happen under?
The Irish potato famine was more an exogenous factor (a blight) not the direct result of mismanagement, which is generally a feature of communism. So that’s a pretty poor comparison.
Bengal was a mostly agrarian state so not really an advanced capitalist society. Again, not a particularly good comparison.
you are emphatically wrong about the irish famine ohhhmygawd.
Ireland was brought into the UK and were almost immediately subjected to renting (capitalist) landlords who mostly lived in England. they were kept in poverty and forced to be reliant on the potato as primary nourishment because the potato was the only fully-nutritious crop that was worth growing on their tiny parcels of alloted land, while the rest of the food they produced was sold out of country (by capitalists).
the British forced the Irish to be reliant on one staple crop, and when the blight happened it kicked the final leg out of the stool. to narrow this down to “an exegenous factor” is incredibly misinformed and ignorant in the face of disgusting colonialist practice.
Ireland was exporting food during the potato famine, which isn’t a sign that markets were functioning properly at the time and that government policy was in part to blame.
Bengal was somewhat wealthy and had a decent industrial base before the British took over the region. The whole Indian subcontinent went through a reverse in industrialization under the British as the British sought to destroy local economic competition and monetize resources in India.
There were significant famines under communism with links to the government, but the British have a lot of blood on their hands.
A lot of “whatabout capitalism?” responses here.
A lot of people Starve to death under Capitalism every damn day while excess food is destroyed to secure more of a profit. Not having enough to go around is bad and happened alot before the advent of modern farming techniques, but creating that deficit artificially to secure a profit is damning of the viability of an economic system.
Idk if you’re just stirring the pot or if you even care about an answer so I’ll be brief.
It doesn’t matter what economic system is used if your government is bad.
Actually how bad having a bad government is, is a function of how tightly your government controls the economy.
Some economic systems are centrally controlled, others aren’t. So yes it matters a hell of a lot.
Oh geeze, this seems like it’s going to be a productive discussion that’s starting out in good faith.
OP’s comments seem to indicate that they are asking in bad faith, but seeing no evidence given in other comments than “whatabout famine under capitalism?”:
destabilization efforts and economic sanctions. western capitalist countries, like the us, did a shit ton with the direct intent that communism would be utterly untenable. this was not 100% of the story, but in combination with policy failures and natural disasters, there is a lot more to blame than “the revolution.”
