commune took on the role of a person, like a lord, in the same way as a company today takes on a legal personality. — Londoner
The fact remains that in terms of scale of destruction, communist regimes have no equal. — frank
It's a little easier to pin deaths on communist regimes because there are records left from the time and we know that actions that resulted in depopulation were deliberate and in line with communist policies.Did you not read the statistics I summarised? The largest loss of life by a huge margin caused by deliberate human activity was the advertising and commercialisation of cigarettes. 79 million dead and still counting. — Pseudonym
The second largest (depending on estimates) was the colonisation of land occupied by tribes with a significant history of isolation, possibly up to 50 million depending on sources. Communism is at least third, and that's taking it as a whole. Just one single act of free market capitalism has killed more than every act of communism across the world put together.
No way. Ideal capitalism is one massive fat person owning everything in the world; the end game of competition, with the rest of the world dancing hand and foot on his every whim hoping to make enough money to buy enough to live on. — charleton
Regarding the history lesson, we are discussing what 'communism' is. I'm saying that if somebody had looked up the word in a dictionary when Marx was writing they would have found references to medieval communes, since neither the Soviet Union nor hippies existed yet. — Londoner
Not really. The beautiful side of it was all the naive hopes of 19th Century liberals. It was all about trust in nature and devotion to freedom. Pure capitalism failed spectacularly. It produced the cultureless wasteland of early Chicago. — frank
It could not be global because change would be provoked by the crisis in capitalism, but this would only come about in advanced capitalist societies. — Londoner
Deaths from colonization? That was primarily accomplished by diseases spread by travellers. Measles has no ideology. — frank
it's easier to pin deaths on communist regimes because records are left from the time and we know actions that resulted in depopulation were deliberate and in line with communist party policies. — frank
Just as one example, the Indian Famine of the late 19th Century, caused directly and with full knowledge by British colonial policy, killed 29 million. — Pseudonym
Over half a million Native Americans killed directly in wars, Australian aborigine massacres probably totalled the another half a million, each African colony almost without exception has its massacre if not several. Then there's slavery... — Pseudonym
It's not easier to pin deaths on communist regimes, it just suits the right-wing agenda to do so. — Pseudonym
If we assign those deaths to capitalism, we still don't have quite a holocaust there, with a holocaust being a unit of mass death equalling about 6 million people. Those victims should be remembered, but they don't make it to the top of our list of human failures. Communism sits squarely in that position. This isn't controversial. — frank
I'm more than happy to learn something new. Could you explain how this famine was a result of colonialization? And more specifically, how did it result from capitalism? — frank
If we assign those deaths to capitalism, we still don't have quite a holocaust there, with a holocaust being a unit of mass death equalling about 6 million people. Those victims should be remembered, but they don't make it to the top of our list of human failures. Communism sits squarely in that position. This isn't controversial. — frank
A Commune is an example of Communism. — René Descartes
Some estimates put the total death toll from the imposition of colonial export crops at 50 million. — Pseudonym
It absolutely is controversial. For a start, there's all the data above, which I've given in different formats several times now but which you seem to insist on ignoring. — Pseudonym
If you're blaming Communism for the actions of states which happen to be communist, then why are you not prepared to blame Capitalism for all the deaths that have taken place in states which just happen to be capitalist ones? — Pseudonym
I'm just missing the facts that would allow me to do that. Wikipedia says there were four 19th Century Indian famines. A fat Wikipedia estimate of the death toll is about 6 million. Where did the estimate of 50 million come from? — frank
1) To what extent could pin these disasters on poor management? — frank
2) Did racism play a part? — frank
For the record, I didn't ignore your presentations. I didn't see them. — frank
if you will honor the victims of Russian and Chinese communism by openly and honestly admitting how they died, I will honor all those who died directly or indirectly as a result of capitalism. And we'll leave it at that. — frank
It is as specified, the total death toll "from the imposition of colonial export crops", not the Indian famines alone, and it comes from calculations done by historian Mike Davies who puts the figure as between 32 and 61 million, the majority of which could have been avoided had subsistence farming still been in place, and export prices not been set by free markets. — Pseudonym
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