Saturday, December 7, 2019

100 Million Dead From Socialism

Socialists need a better answer when critics raise this issue.  "But that wasn't REAL socialism" or "I only mean Denmark."  There is some validity to these replies but for a lot of people I think this isn't good enough.  We need to address it head on.  That's what I intend to do here.

Any system will produce avoidable death.  The question is whether the socialist system produced more death than the capitalist system over a comparably sized population and time period.  I would submit that it hasn't come close.

If we accept the 100 million figure from 1917 to 1990 that is about 14 million dead every decade.  If that makes socialism a failure what do we do with 1.8 billion dead in India alone under British capitalist domination from 1765 to 1938.  That's over 100M every decade.  For 17 decades.

And it wasn't accidental death that the British worked to avoid and mitigate, as in China during the Great Famine.  The Great Famine is regarded as a failure of planning and management, not a deliberate effort to starve Chinese peasants.  The British actively starved people.  This article talks about how the British conducted experiments to see how few calories the people could survive on, then implemented that knowledge throughout the country.  They report of human skeletons walking around doing the work required by the British.  Churchill knowingly diverted food away from Indians he knew were starving, and said it was their fault for breeding like rabbits.

China and India achieved independence at about the same time, with India pursuing a more soft capitalist approach with a fair amount of government intervention in the economy and China pursuing a more aggressively socialist agenda.  China did suffer the Great Famine, but also had some success in terms of rural education, health, and food programs.  The result was 39 million excess deaths per decade in India as compared to China.  This again exceeds all deaths attributed to socialism from all countries.

We're talking about one country and the death toll dwarfs that of all of socialism.  We haven't touched on Vietnam, Iraq, Guatemala, Indonesia, East Timor, Kenya, the Congo, Korea, Iran.  If this is our metric capitalism is an incredible failure.

25 comments:

HispanicPundit said...

The accusation isn't really about raw death counts. Or intentional vs unintentional. The accusation is more about inherent or not. In other words, the accusation states that Socialism (traditionally defined) is INHERENTLY deadly to its citizens.

The British situation, for example, could easily be blamed on colonialism. No need to even bring in capitalism. Also, i could give a ton of strongly capitalist countries that have never had mass killings of their citizens because of capitalism.

Socialism, by contrast, is different. Take the most socialist countries in the world: Soviet Famines, Chinese Famines, Ukraine Famines, and these are just the most 'successful" socialist countries, to say nothing of the lesser and equally deadly socialist satellite states like East Germany, North Korea, Cambodia, Bulgaria, Romania, etc etc They ALL experienced deadly killings of their own citizens either by famine or purges. It seems mass death is so prevalent in socialist countries that it is BY DESIGN.

In other words, capitalism has proved it can be massively successful without having to starve its own citizenry. Socialism can't, not even if you just restrict the comparison to socialisms 'best' countries like USSR and China. It's endemic to the socialist system itself.

One could say: inequality is a part of capitalism like famines and purges are part of socialism. :-)

Jon said...

I agree that the inherent nature of the death is what matters. But colonialism is inherent to capitalism. The British went to China and forced opium addiction to enrich bankers. They grew poppies rather than food and starved Chinese people because it was profitable on the capitalist system. The US invaded Iraq to control oil resources as a result of our economic system. Colonialism came about as a result of capitalism, it was inherent at the time, it remains inherent. This is why the US is working to overthrow the Venezuelan government now and install one that is more favorable to our economic interests.

Is it your view that the British killing 100M every decade for 17 decades was OK because Indians were not British citizens?

I just don't agree. All this death matters regardless of which side of an imaginary line the victims were born on. But even if we accept this standard that killing non-citizens is not a problem you still have India after the British left. Under Indian managed capitalism more people died as compared to China than all deaths attributed to communism anyway.

Again, for me this is not an acceptable standard. I think killing foreigners is just as bad. But if you believe killing foreigners is fine capitalism is still worse. But that's a really horrible standard, you should reconsider.

HispanicPundit said...

The communists countries of the 20th century didn't practice colonialism? Colonialism seems to be a common denominator, not something unique to capitalism.

To reiterate: What the British did to the Indians was horrible, but any cursory reading of history would see it as the fault of colonialism (easier to kill 'others'), not capitalism. I understand why socialists would prefer it the other way, but an honest reading of history puts the blame squarely on colonialism.

But to clarify the point: I can point to many capitalist countries where the citizens both exhibit a high standard of living AND there is no incidences of mass starvation and/or purges of its citizenry. Can you point to ONE communist country that can claim the same? If not, doesn't this point to something INHERENT in socialism?

Jon said...

Just because it's colonialism doesn't mean it's not also capitalism.

I'm not saying there is no communist colonialism. What I'm saying is that if they did that has to be included in the death toll tally. I don't get to say it doesn't count because it's colonialism, not communism. If your system produces colonialism as a direct result of economic incentives then obviously the system must take ownership of the related death.

So is it your view that capitalist Britain killing 100M every decade for 17 decades is proved to be a good system because they were killing Indians rather than British? And if they killed British but Indians were unharmed then it would be a bad system?

I think the Native American genocide is probably the biggest genocide in world history. Do you think this is not really a problem because Native Americans technically weren't citizens?

HispanicPundit said...

Looks like we keep talking past each other. I'll let my previous comments stand and if that isn't enough, let me add Bryan Caplans great response here specifically with regard to Britain and India.

To reiterate, the question is about inherent qualities, so let me refocus and ask again since it seems to be getting missed: I can point to many capitalist countries where the citizens both exhibit a high standard of living AND there is no incidences of mass starvation and/or purges of its citizenry. Can you point to ONE communist country that can claim the same? If not, doesn't this point to something INHERENT in socialism? <---Key question that is being asked.

Jon said...

I don't think we're talking past each other. Before answering your question about whether there are any communist countries that have a high standard of living and no incidences of starvation or purge for CITIZENS ONLY I'm asking you a preliminary question. Does this question matter? Does it reflect well on capitalism that it spares citizens and imposes massive death on foreigners? Is Britain a success because it is rich, hasn't purged it's people, and has killed hundreds of millions of brown people?

I understand your question and you understand mine. I don't want to answer your question until you answer mine. Because if the question doesn't matter my answer doesn't matter.

So why won't you answer my question? Because you know the decent answer makes your question irrelevant. And you don't want it to be irrelevant.

I'm not afraid of your question, I can answer it. But I think we should first see if we can agree on whether it is relevant to this topic that I'm raising. If capitalism has produced some instances of success for citizens (like in Britain) along with unbelievable suffering for non-citizens then it's still a worse performer than socialism by this measure. Do you agree with that?

HispanicPundit said...

I want to clarify that I don't buy that capitalism can be blamed on what colonialist Britain did to India. Readers can look at our exchange above, read Caplans response, your responses and decide for themselves. That discussion is done.

More generally, if I understand you correctly (clarify if i get it wrong), you are asking: is government killing of its own citizens WORSE than killing others? I mean, I could ask the question a different way: Is killing a family member worse than killing a stranger? I would think so, yes. I mean, if someone killed their innocent brother, or innocent father, or innocent son, I would think the person is MORE morally depraved than killing an innocent man more generally, yes. I think that moral intuition is in all of us. Of course, all killing of innocent people is wrong but if you are asking to split hairs, yes, I think most people would find killing family worse than killing strangers.

There are other hierarchies too. Killing women and children seems morally more deprived than killing men. Families being killed, for example, is seen as much more cruel than say soldiers in war being killed. I mean, if your question really is to split hairs on wrongs, then yes, sure: family worse than non family, citizen worse than non-citizen, women and children (family) worse than men. Civilians worse than soldiers. I could go on....

Jon said...

You've answered a question I didn't ask. I didn't ask if it is worse to kill family. Nobody is killing family, Stalin did not kill his family, Mao was not killing his family. The question is about killing citizens vs non-citizens. Can you just answer the question that I asked above directly? I'll re-post.

"Does it reflect well on capitalism that it spares citizens and imposes massive death on foreigners? Is Britain a success because it is rich, hasn't purged it's people, and has killed hundreds of millions of brown people?"

HispanicPundit said...

Let me cut and paste from my previous comment above with highlights:

I mean, if your question really is to split hairs on wrongs, then yes, sure: family worse than non family, citizen worse than non-citizen, women and children (family) worse than men. Civilians worse than soldiers. I could go on....

Jon said...

I do appreciate the answer. We do disagree on this. Imagine, we haven't really tallied the numbers of those killed in China, Africa, the Americas by the British. For me it's kind of self evident. Yes, Britain created some prosperity for themselves and killed billions of people doing it. For you creating a mountain of dead bodies so you can make a mole hill of people rich is a good system. It's not surprising you are a fan of capitalism.

I do think this is something that distinguishes progressives and people like you. Empathy. They way I think about it I could have just as easily been born in India. Honestly I don't see it as so much worse to kill a family member as to kill an acquaintance, a stranger, someone born outside of my country. To me these are really the same. For you it's about protecting your tribe. Killing foreigners I'm sure you would agree is not great, but apparently if it makes a few people rich within your border it's worth it. To me that's kind of bizarre. Maybe a little scary.

Let me answer your question since you were willing to answer mine. There is no communist country that matched the wealth of the US and Britain so obviously I can't name any communist country that was as rich as us and didn't also have purges/large scale death events. I think you do have to look at countries case by case to discuss why they were not rich if we are going to determine if poverty is inherent to socialism. Supposing 10 out of 10 cases were places that ultimately were poor. All potential causes of that poverty need to be considered. Maybe they are poor because they got to keep to keep the fruit of their labor rather than passing it off to a non-working ownership class. I don't think that makes any sense and I would look to other factors.

HispanicPundit said...

Jon writes: "For you creating a mountain of dead bodies so you can make a mole hill of people rich is a good system. It's not surprising you are a fan of capitalism."

Responses like this are self evident examples of your confirmation bias. I mentioned above, repeatedly, that I don't buy the British colonialism argument. But here, not only do you take it as a given, but you assume I do too. Sheesh. Also, 'splitting hairs' and saying, for example, killing women and children is worse than killing men, or more specifically, killing citizens is worse than killing non-citizens does not logically lead one to conclude that therefore killing men or non-citizens is acceptable. I was 'splitting hairs', I said both are wrong, I said so repeatedly. But your confirmation bias and lack of logical foundation allowed you to make the jump to therefore I think killing men and non-citizens is 'fine' or 'acceptable' or "Killing foreigners I'm sure you would agree is not great, but apparently if it makes a few people rich within your border it's worth it". You even went so far as to deem one whole group with more 'empathy' than the other. These are huge logical jumps. It just doesn't follow. But since this isn't the core argument here, I wont address this further. I'm fine to leave you in your confirmation bias and logical jumps. Other readers can judge for themselves on this point.

Back to the inherent question now. Again, I am making the argument that capitalism does have its vices (the unequally sharing of wealth, for example), but so does socialism traditionally defined (purges and famines). Even ignoring Britain and the USA, I could point to a TON of countries that are capitalist and did not 'purge', did not have 'famines', and to address some of your points: did not colonize other countries, did not participate in meaningless wars, etc. So I can clearly show that purges and famines, and to add frivolous wars and colonialism are NOT inherent to capitalism. But ALL socialist countries - and let us remember there was a point when nearly half the developed world, and the two greatest super powers, were divided between capitalist and socialist - and yet ALL socialist countries had purges and famines. The rich ones, the poor ones, ALL had an extreme human toll on their citizen populations. Staggering numbers. The death toll was especially harsh on the poorest members of societies: farmers, civilians (as opposed to soldiers), families, women and children. Starvation and gulags on a massive scale.

And yet, the socialists walk around with confirmation bias so strong that they feel they are on the empathy side of this debate. It's breathtaking.

Jon said...

I don't think you know what confirmation bias means. Confirmation bias is when you interpret new information as if it confirms your prior belief. Maybe an example would be when confronted with the fact that British capitalism killed 1.8B people in one country you conclude that this proves that capitalism is great since it resulted in prosperity for some.

I didn't have some prior belief that you were happy about killing Indians if it results in prosperity. In fact I'm a little surprised by this. The issue here is you haven't explicitly admitted this. I've asked you over and over if this is your view and you won't directly answer. Instead you talk about how killing one type of people is not so bad as killing another. Citizens vs non-citizens, family vs non-family. Women and children vs men. Combatants vs non-combatants. In the context of my question you are implying that killing Indians is not so bad as killing British. You're not denying it. So though you haven't directly answered my question I am inferring that this is your view.

It does sound horrible I think. Again, this is not confirmation bias on my part, this is taking what I think is implicit in your statements. That is your view, right? For the British government if they kill Indians it is not so bad as compared to if they killed British? Is that your view? Of course not you will say, you explicitly say this is not your view. But if that's not your view what is your point in talking about how killing some people is not as bad as killing others in the context of my question?

It's like David Duke saying he's not a racist. "I explicitly said I am not a racist, yet you conclude I am a racist. You must have confirmation bias." But when you said Jews are inferior this implied you are a racist. Your explicit denials don't change that.

I've explained why British capitalism is responsible for British colonialism, just like I'm granting something like the invasion of Afghanistan can be laid at the feet of Soviet communism. I understand that you've "mentioned above, repeatedly" that you don't buy this, but you haven't rebutted my argument, so your verbal denials don't make much difference to me. Anybody can just say "No, you're wrong, I don't agree." But that isn't an argument.

Jon said...

I think you are very confident in things you don't know. You are confident that ALL communist countries had purges, all had staggering numbers of dead within their borders. Also that tons of capitalist countries did not purge. I'm not pretending to be an expert, I don't know, but I don't think you know either. You mistakenly think my inference about the meaning of your statements is a "self evident" example of confirmation bias, in fact it is not confirmation bias at all, let alone "self evident" evidence. At worst it is a possible mistake, even though I don't think it is. Why so strong with your confidence level? You talk a lot about what high school economics courses teach, what the consensus of economists is, these sweeping statements about what happens in ALL communist/socialist societies. I think this over confidence about what you want to pretend is obvious and known to all is just masking an insecurity or lack of confidence. Why not have some humility and just admit your own limits? Maybe we could explore questions like this together, you may be right, but let's admit the limits of our knowledge. And the fact that we live within a certain society that conditions us to believe certain things about communism.

I had a very fascinating discussion with a relative just this last weekend. Over Thanksgiving I had brought up my thoughts on our anti-communist beliefs. He blew up pretty hard as I kind of expected, how I was an idiot because I didn't believe Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn and his claims about 60 million killed in Stalin's gulags. My point was just that we need to recognize we live within a certain propaganda bubble that deludes us with these kinds of stories and so we need to be skeptical, but I didn't really know the details about Solzhenitsyn. But between Thanksgiving and Christmas I looked a bit. What I found suggests that this is totally bogus. The Soviet archives were opened in 1987 and we got the raw numbers, which people like Solzhenitsyn said would confirm their assertions. In fact it was 1 million who died in prisons (or you can say "gulag" if you prefer the US propaganda term), mostly from infection prior to the invention of antibiotics. These were not death camps even if you want to criticize them.

Well my relative subsequently went into another tirade. He talked about 1.8 million Stalin killed in some sort of Polish massacre. I sat quietly as he ranted. I googled on the side. I found an upper end estimate of 500K Pols killed by Stalin total from 1939 to 1946. He had said this was inter-WWII. Himming and hawing followed, as we Googled further we find he's talking about the Katyn massacre. I say "It's 22K dead. How does 22K turn into 1.8 million diead." He left the room, went to a desktop computer to work on it, came back and admitted his error. This is a guy who studied Russian history. And he's a big Clinton-esque liberal.

My point is I don't pretend to know everything, but maybe think about your sweeping statements about what ALL economists believe, "self evident" confirmation bias, ALL socialist countries with purges, etc. Admit what you don't know and be open to learning. That's a better way. I have a lot to learn, I don't know so much about ALL communist countries and how so many capitalist countries were great. I don't know the detailed history of say Canada. How much abuse have they spread around? Maybe you think zero, but then maybe you don't know.

HispanicPundit said...

I have two problems with the British and India thing. First, I don't think it can be blamed on capitalism. I gave the reasons why above. I provided links. I addressed your arguments with my own. You disagree. Fine. But from here on out, you cannot assume I agree that capitalism caused Indian deaths and make a case for how I don't have empathy with that as a basis. That would be an example of confirmation bias. Again, I repeatedly said I don't agree with that premise. I provided links. I gave reasons. (however, you just stated, but the one who provided the links and rebuttals is the 'very confident one'?? More confirmation bias). Second, I never claimed that Indian deaths, whether they were caused by colonialism or capitalism or Indias own Socialism, are 'fine', 'acceptable' or in anyway morally okay. They suck. They are 'splitting hairs' away from killing women and children. In other words, really bad too.

All this talk about splitting hair killings are there because I was just answering your question. If you ask me is killing women and children 'just as bad' as killing men? I'm going to answer. If you ask me is killing non-combatants 'just as bad' as killing combatants, again, I'm going to answer. Same with non-citizens vs citizens. In other words, I am addressing your question. To be absolutely clear, I think killing citizens and non-citizens alike are horrible. Sure, killing citizens is a hair difference more horrible than non-citizens, but again, both are horrible.

Now that we have went round and round on your question, can you answer mine? Remember, I am asking here, not asserting, so your long winded paragraphs about over confidence miss the point. Also, this is your post I am responding to. I stated early that the argument is about inherent qualities, you agreed, so my question is merely in the spirit of sticking to the point. The point of the post you provided. If I can show a decent percentage of realistic cases of capitalist countries not involved in colonialism deaths, citizen deaths, and even frivolous war deaths (Mexico? Guatemala? Uruguay? Canada? Norway? etc) i have shown that the criticisms you have against Britain or the USA or any other colonial power are not inherent to capitalism. Similarly, if you cannot show that there were a decent percentage of realistic cases of socialist countries not involved in purges, or famines, then it is a fair criticism to conclude that they are part and parcel of socialism. Just as F.A. Hayek, Nobel Prize winner in economics, predicted.

Btw, here is a good summary of the death count just under one communist country and under just one of its dictators. There really is no need for any to exaggerate the death counts, the agreed upon numbers alone are pretty staggering.

Jon said...

It is incorrect of you to say we're going round and round. What's happening is I'm asking a question and you're ignoring it, so I just put it back to you. You basically ignore my question many times and then act like it's my turn to provide an answer. Let's review the history of this argumennt thread.

HP1-In other words, capitalism has proved it can be massively successful without having to starve its own citizenry. Socialism can't, not even if you just restrict the comparison to socialisms 'best' countries like USSR and China.

Jon1-Is it your view that the British killing 100M every decade for 17 decades was OK because Indians were not British citizens? <---First time asking

HP2-But to clarify the point: I can point to many capitalist countries where the citizens both exhibit a high standard of living AND there is no incidences of mass starvation and/or purges of its citizenry. Can you point to ONE communist country that can claim the same? If not, doesn't this point to something INHERENT in socialism?

Jon2-So is it your view that capitalist Britain killing 100M every decade for 17 decades is proved to be a good system because they were killing Indians rather than British? And if they killed British but Indians were unharmed then it would be a bad system? <---Second time asking

HP3-I can point to many capitalist countries where the citizens both exhibit a high standard of living AND there is no incidences of mass starvation and/or purges of its citizenry. Can you point to ONE communist country that can claim the same? If not, doesn't this point to something INHERENT in socialism?

Jon3-we should first see if we can agree on whether it is relevant to this topic that I'm raising. If capitalism has produced some instances of success for citizens (like in Britain) along with unbelievable suffering for non-citizens then it's still a worse performer than socialism by this measure. Do you agree with that? <---Third time asking

HP4-More generally, if I understand you correctly (clarify if i get it wrong), you are asking: is government killing of its own citizens WORSE than killing others? I mean, I could ask the question a different way: Is killing a family member worse than killing a stranger? I would think so, yes.

I mean, if your question really is to split hairs on wrongs, then yes, sure: family worse than non family, citizen worse than non-citizen, women and children (family) worse than men. Civilians worse than soldiers. I could go on....

Jon said...

I've asked three times by now, gotten two yes's but it's a little like you are dancing around, I'm not sure if you are exactly answering what I'm asking so I ask again.

Jon4-Can you just answer the question that I asked above directly? I'll re-post.

"Does it reflect well on capitalism that it spares citizens and imposes massive death on foreigners? Is Britain a success because it is rich, hasn't purged it's people, and has killed hundreds of millions of brown people?" <---Fourth time asking

HP5-Let me cut and paste from my previous comment above with highlights:

I mean, if your question really is to split hairs on wrongs, then yes, sure: family worse than non family,


That's three times yes in response to my question about whether it reflects well on capitalism that it kills billions and makes riches for it citizens. And so I take you at your word and you are flabbergasted.

I think the issue here is you have two separate logical arguments in response to this issue with capitalism killing so many in India that you are conflating. #1 capitalism isn't responsible for this colonialism and #2 capitalism is better because any death attributed to it is biased towards non citizens. I'm taking these two questions separately. In this thread I'm trying to get you to focus on this second aspect.

So maybe I'll put it slightly differently if this helps.

Let's ASSUME capitalism is responsible for the death it produces via colonialism. I know you don't actually grant this assumption, but consider it for the sake of argument. This is how we address the relevance of your argument #2. If capitalism is responsible for the death capitalist societies impose via colonialism then...Does it reflect well on capitalism that it spares citizens and imposes massive death on foreigners? <---Fifth time asking

If you can answer no then we can discount argument #2 and focus on argument #1.

Jon said...

For that matter let's review the colonial argument thread.

HP1-The British situation, for example, could easily be blamed on colonialism. No need to even bring in capitalism.

Jon1-But colonialism is inherent to capitalism. The British went to China and forced opium addiction to enrich bankers. They grew poppies rather than food and starved Chinese people because it was profitable on the capitalist system. The US invaded Iraq to control oil resources as a result of our economic system. Colonialism came about as a result of capitalism, it was inherent at the time, it remains inherent. This is why the US is working to overthrow the Venezuelan government now and install one that is more favorable to our economic interests.

HP2-The communists countries of the 20th century didn't practice colonialism? The communists countries of the 20th century didn't practice colonialism? Colonialism seems to be a common denominator, not something unique to capitalism.

To reiterate: What the British did to the Indians was horrible, but any cursory reading of history would see it as the fault of colonialism (easier to kill 'others'), not capitalism.

Jon2-Just because it's colonialism doesn't mean it's not also capitalism.

I'm not saying there is no communist colonialism. What I'm saying is that if they did that has to be included in the death toll tally. I don't get to say it doesn't count because it's colonialism, not communism.


Let me note an important point in my response I call Jon2. I'm not saying there was no communist colonialism. But I'm not saying there was either. I'm not sure I know enough about this history. I don't think the invasion of Afghanistan was really colonial. The socialist government in Afghanistan begged the SU to help them against the crazed US backed religious radicals and they reluctantly agreed, much to the satisfaction of US planners. In terms of the states that were part of the SU, like Ukraine, Estonia, etc, I'm not sure it is fair to call them colonies or more like members of a confederacy. I suppose when the SU formed some people in those states resisted and others supported, obviously the SU won those battles and these nations were part of the SU. But it might be like the southern US states. They didn't want to be part of the north, today they are but they are not colonies. I think the capitalist examples of colonization are more obvious, it does seem colonization is more inherent to capitalism than communism.

Jon said...

Back to the argument:

HP3-Looks like we keep talking past each other. I'll let my previous comments stand and if that isn't enough, let me add Bryan Caplans great response here specifically with regard to Britain and India.

Jon3-If capitalism has produced some instances of success for citizens (like in Britain) along with unbelievable suffering for non-citizens then it's still a worse performer than socialism by this measure. Do you agree with that?

HP4-I want to clarify that I don't buy that capitalism can be blamed on what colonialist Britain did to India. Readers can look at our exchange above, read Caplans response, your responses and decide for themselves. That discussion is done.


I see no actual argument against my point that colonialism was produced by capitalism. Maybe "inherent" is the confusing issue. Not all capitalist countries are colonialist. The powerful capitalist country colonizes and may turn the weaker country into a capitalist country. They are too weak to colonize others, they are being colonized by another capitalist country. So like Guatemala, Iraq, etc. Your link to Caplan addresses post-colonial India so it's not relevant to this question. So you have offered no answer on this, you've just denied my argument. "No I don't agree, why are we still talking about this? I explicitly said I don't agree. Must be confirmation bias." This is just silliness to me. For me I don't see any response to what I have in Jon1 above so that means to me that my point stands.

HispanicPundit said...

I think we definitely are going round and round. Let me clarify some:

First, adding in a response Jon (conveniently or just blinded by confirmation bias?) skipped:

Jon1-Is it your view that the British killing 100M every decade for 17 decades was OK because Indians were not British citizens? <---First time asking


HP1- What the British did to the Indians was horrible, but any cursory reading of history would see it as the fault of colonialism (easier to kill 'others'), not capitalism. I understand why socialists would prefer it the other way, but an honest reading of history puts the blame squarely on colonialism.

Right away, the very next post after Jon1 asks the question it is answered. The British part in Indian deaths was horrible, irrespective of citizens or not is how i read that. But notice Jon completely misses this response in the first summary above? This is why when Jon asks it again, im thinking I already answered. Should I really have to cut and paste again and again (I had to do that on the citizen vs non-citizen question later, too....it was answered in the previous post and he just misses the responses, so to make it obvious I wrote "cut and pasting from previous response").

I could go and on with this...but why? I'm fine leaving it up to the reader to decide. Id rather spend the time reading a book, or playing with my kids. This a waste. It's why I've drastically reduced my interaction with Jon.

HispanicPundit said...

Let me answer the new question Jon poses and I will let Jon have the last word. Jon asks:

Jon-Let's ASSUME capitalism is responsible for the death it produces via colonialism. I know you don't actually grant this assumption, but consider it for the sake of argument. This is how we address the relevance of your argument #2. If capitalism is responsible for the death capitalist societies impose via colonialism then...Does it reflect well on capitalism that it spares citizens and imposes massive death on foreigners?

In that situation, no it does not reflect well on capitalism/colonialism. However, this is a good time to remind the readers (or is it, reader) where the disagreement lies. At the very top, my first response to Jon was reiterating that the death charge of socialism "isn't really about raw death counts. Or intentional vs unintentional. The accusation is more about inherent or not. In other words, the accusation states that Socialism (traditionally defined) is INHERENTLY deadly to its citizens.

Inherent is the key theme here. Jon agreed. Jon wrote: I agree that the inherent nature of the death is what matters. But colonialism is inherent to capitalism. This is the framework - agreed by both of us - that I am operating under. This is the KEY question I am trying to address. This is in the back of my mind with every response, and I am assuming in the back of Jons mind too.

So say colonialism is responsible for mass deaths. Or even capitalism driven colonialism is what is responsible for mass deaths. The key question though here is whether colonialism is inherent to capitalism. Or to say it a different way, can there be capitalism without colonialism? And if so, how should those colonialism deaths reflect on capitalism without colonialism? Given that we are discussing inherent, my responses above are relevant.

I mentioned (and Jon did not deny) that communism also colonized other countries. Thus, at the very least, colonialism is part of both capitalism and communism - at the very least, it is not UNIQUE to capitalism. I then mentioned (again, Jon did not deny) that there were many capitalist countries - even excluding the USA and Britain - that did not colonize. Thus, there CAN BE capitalism without colonization and thus colonization is NOT inherent to capitalism. And thus, colonization can be judged apart from capitalism. Im saying colonization is bad, Jon equivocates that thus capitalism is bad too....but my responses showed that colonization can be judged apart from capitalism. I can say I judge colonialism, but defend capitalism apart from colonialism.

HispanicPundit said...

Let me address Jon's new comments on whether colonialism is inherent to capitalism:

Not all capitalist countries are colonialist. The powerful capitalist country colonizes and may turn the weaker country into a capitalist country. They are too weak to colonize others, they are being colonized by another capitalist country.

This is not true. Most of todays richest capitalist countries - even excluding USA and Britain - are not colonizers. Hong Kong, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Taiwan, France, Korea, Canada...i could go on. In fact, depending on how one defines China, it is actually China (atleast communist politically) trying to eat up capitalist Hong Kong and Taiwan, against the will of the citizens of these two countries. Again, as I argued above, there could be capitalism without colonialism and it is that that I am defending.

I'd like to end with one observation that shouldn't go unnoticed: throughout this whole exchange, it has only really been Jon that imputes a moral dimension to others. Jon is of course more empathetic than his opponents. This case is made even when the logic is based on arguments explicitly denied. Jon is also more omniscient too: he just KNOWS that i dont know what I am talking about. Despite the fact that I have read alot of economics books and am on something of a WWII and cold war reading frenze lately. I am also half way through this book on the cold war as well. But Jon, instead of sticking to arguments also has a tendecy to impute. Re-read my responses, I have gotten much better at just ignoring those comments but they give a good basis to see why I limit my interactions w Jon.

Anyway, Merry Christmas and Gods blessings to you and your family.

Jon said...

Right away, the very next post after Jon1 asks the question it is answered. The British part in Indian deaths was horrible, irrespective of citizens or not is how i read that.

That's not an answer to a question I ever asked. Where did I ask if you think the death of Indians is horrible or not? I didn't. The question is about whether the suffering caused is worth it. Does it reflect well on capitalism if it was responsible for all this death even though it produced prosperity? You have not answered this question.

Until now. Now FINALLY we get the answer.

In that situation, no it does not reflect well on capitalism/colonialism.

Hooray!! You did it, you finally answered. That wasn't so bad, right? So we can dispense with this talk of citiznes/non-citizens, women/chidren vs men, etc. This is beside the pont. The real issue is does the capitalist system create colonialist type oppression. Now, let me clarify what you think is the inherent issue and where I would differ. You write:

So say colonialism is responsible for mass deaths. Or even capitalism driven colonialism is what is responsible for mass deaths. The key question though here is whether colonialism is inherent to capitalism. Or to say it a different way, can there be capitalism without colonialism?

I don't think colonialism has to be inherent to capitalism. What's inherent to capitaism is domination by the propertied class against the working class. That domination can manifest itself as colonialism. That domination can cross borders. But it doesn't have to. But when it does and it kills people those deaths must be laid at the feet of capitalism. And when it kills people within its borders even if it doesn't kill outside the border because of domination within border, this is just as much a problem for capitalism. Capitalism doesn't have to be colonial to be shown to be problematic, but it can be.

So when you say this:

Thus, there CAN BE capitalism without colonization and thus colonization is NOT inherent to capitalism. And thus, colonization can be judged apart from capitalism.

I don't agree. Capitalist oppression can take different forms. Across border and within border. It doesn't have to be both. But there is no reason to say across border can't be considered in our evaluation of capitalism. I wouldn't absolve communism and say communism must be judged apart communist driven colonialism because not all communist societies are colonialist.

Of course I've already said this, you just keep repeating the same points while not responding to my already written rebuttal.

Jon said...

This is not true. Most of todays richest capitalist countries - even excluding USA and Britain - are not colonizers. Hong Kong, Japan, Sweden, Finland, Denmark, Taiwan, France, Korea, Canada...i could go on.

Most of these examples are not good. Again, not that I think all capitalist societies must become colonial. But Hong Kong WAS a British colony until 1997. Japan was a brutal colonizer until it was defeated in war. RIGHT NOW the USA has a strong military presence in Japan and we have prevented them from pursuing domination of other countries. France has a horrific colonial history. Korea was in fact dominated by US imperialism. A fascist extremely murderous and brutal government imposed by the US. Canada has some pretty awful stuff in it's history as well I believe. Not that I'm an expert, but I think these are not good examples. Again, not that I expect all capitalist countries to oppress via colonialism. They can oppress in other ways.

So I think the main take away is that when you see the 1.8B dead Indians you say capitalism didn't do it, even though it was a capitalist system that brought this death to advance their capitalist economic interest.

I don't believe you would use this standard with a communist country. If a communist country colonized and killed you would take those deaths and say communism is responsible for them. Even though certainly not all communist countries have colonized. So you might say colonization is not INHERENT to communism. So I think you are altering your standard so as to preserve your pre-determined preference.

Confirmation bias is what you might call that. You keep using this term wrongly, it applies better to your unwillingness to see the death of Indians as a problem for capitalism.

I doubt there are many readers, you should just address me like we are talking. Turning away from me and talking to an empty room is kind of annoying.

HispanicPundit said...

Was in South America the last couple weeks so didn't have time to respond. Quick response below.

First, alot of the confusion here is because of Jon's language usage. Jon's question that he claims I repeatedly avoided answering is: Is it your view that the British killing 100M every decade for 17 decades was OK because Indians were not British citizens?

This is a logical fallacy called a "loaded question". It's like asking someone: "Have you stopped beating your wife?" I mean, there are atleast 3 premises in the question i disagree with (all listed below). So of course, when answering, its going to broken into pieces. Of which I did. A simple yes or no answer would have made it seem like I agreed with the premises.

Quick summary on the India charge, my rebuttal is as follows:

1. It wasn't capitalism, it was colonialism. The two are distinct.
2. The problems were not the result of capitalist economic policy, since India had a very socialist leaning economy during this era. I provided a study showing this. So on this point alone, one could argue, persuasively, that it was Socialisms fault.
3. It is a special case, not common to capitalist economies.

Readers can rehash and read Jons rebuttals and decide for themselves, Im done with this topic. I'll let Jon have last word on it.

I do want to turn now and discuss my question, the main one I leveled from the beginning and the one Jon mostly avoided addressing: the accusation states that Socialism (traditionally defined) is INHERENTLY deadly to its citizens.

While socialists search endlessly to find one example of mass starvation under capitalism, and a very weak one at that, the experience under socialism has been universal: The more socialist the economy, the worst are its human rights towards its own citizens. Famines, purges, history has shown they are endemic to socialism. The more powerful the socialist country, the worst are the atrocities. The larger the socialist country, the more the death count.

Famines were common in all prior economies and dictatorships, what is historically unique now is that famines don't occur. But again, that has universally been in capitalist economies.

So while capitalism largely solved famines, socialism brings them back with a vengeance and throws in some of the worst purges seen in the history of humanity. And not just in one off socialists countries but in ALL: from the strongest to the weakest. Where socialism goes, so does death and starvation to its citizens. FA. Hayek argued that this was the case in his thought provoking book, The Road to Serfdom, and history has largely proven him correct.

Unknown said...

Hispanic Pundit seems to be continuously dodging the question of what stirred the intentions behind British Colonialism. Was it Colonialism? Definitely. No one disagrees with this premise.

Now, when it comes to colonialism, it doesn't spring out of thin air, it is incentivized it has reason and purpose behind its existence; no one rapes a country with no reason, it's not only determintal to the resources of the country but to the overall productivity. So how does one replenish the effects on capital that colonialism has? Simple answer through robbing the country of its wealth and establishing a source of capital from which they can extract as they please, this is textbook capitalism, I don't know how you could disagree with that, if colonialism is incentivized by gaining of capital, it is inherently capitalistic in nature. (This doesn't mean that communism is exempt from colonialism).

And India was socialist during this period? Have you lost your mind? It was only after Independence that India implementated a socialist system, after which it turned to globalization and capitalism around the mid 70s. If you look at actual statistics regarding India and it's economic system, you'll see that it still suffers greatly from food deprivation and ranks 100th in a 119 country 2017 study on global hunger.