100 million deaths due to capitalism in the 20th century.

[Sword_Of_Truth]

The problem with the "bigger and better" model is that is based on coersion rather than barter, let alone free trade.

There is no actual problem with "Bigger and Better" for the purpose which I am proposing using it for. I'm not concerned with protecting people from being cheated out of bic pens and spools of thread by paper clip wielding bandits. My mission is to become the first new 1%er in BDs anarcho-socialist utopia. Reintroducing class into his classless society, thereby destroying it.

Here is a good example of the B & B run amok:

\

Running amok with it is essential to achieving my objectives.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

One thing I've always wondered was how these new communists plan on ensuring nobody gets an edge ? More police? Interrogations? The honor system?

What happens when the guy in charge of figuring out the crop quotas makes a mistake? Oops, 500,000 people starve?

The Chinese people weren't that lucky.

The hypothetical crop quota error you described actually happened and the death toll has been estimated at between 20 million to 40 million.

 

[Virus]

The horrors of Communism in China:

When a boy stole a handful of grain in a Hunan village, the local boss, Xiong Dechang, forced his father to bury his son alive on the spot. The report of the investigative team sent by the provincial leadership in 1969 to interview survivors of the famine records that the man died of grief three weeks later.

Starvation was the punishment of first resort. As report after report shows, food was distributed by the spoonful according to merit and used to force people to obey the party. One inspector in Sichuan wrote that “commune members too sick to work are deprived of food. It hastens their death.”

As the catastrophe unfolded, people were forced to resort to previously unthinkable acts to survive. As the moral fabric of society unraveled, they abused one another, stole from one another and poisoned one another. Sometimes they resorted to cannibalism.

One police investigation from Feb. 25, 1960, details some 50 cases in Yaohejia village in Gansu: “Name of culprit: Yang Zhongsheng. Name of victim: Yang Ecshun. Relationship with culprit: younger brother. Manner of crime: killed and eaten. Reason: livelihood issues.”

 

[Virus]

Imagine if you brought up the Holocaust and someone said that Nazism is innocent of any crimes because who's to say what a Nazi is. The Nazis weren't a monolith. Real Nazism wasn't supposed to be about racial genocide and besides, who knows how many people they really killed. All sorts of governments have killed people so why single out Nazis? They did it because they were German. Nazism had nothing to do with it.

 

[WildCat]

But how are we sure the human death atrocities that took place in China and Russia are completely the fault of the communist and not the fault the Chinese or Russian psyche's? Russia and China average 20 to 40 million dead bodies a century. I hardly find it surprising that a Regime change caused more deaths. Tsarist Russia and Imperial China inflicted the same death toll on its people that the communist have. I find it hard to believe that "free societies" would've changed this. WWI was inevitable, WWII was inevitable, and the Sino-Japanese Wars were also inevitable. They still would've had tens of millions of deaths with these situations alone.

You're right, communism has a similar death toll as other brutal totalitarian regimes or countries in a major war.

 

[L.Y.S.]

You're right, communism has a similar death toll as other brutal totalitarian regimes or countries in a major war.

That's not the point of that post. It suggests that regardless if communists would've got into power or not that millions would've died in those two countries anyway.

 

[L.Y.S.]

But you just attributed those deaths to the monarch!

And no, a monarch is NOT a capitalist.

*FacePalm*

Capitalism is a system of economics not government.

Monarchies can still opt to have a free self-regulated form of economics also known as capitalism.

Monarchy is a form of government in which its leaders inherit power after a previous leader dies. Monarchies are a system of government not a system of economics.

At any rate this is still a pretty lame excuse seeing that Belgium has a monarch but still has a representative form of democracy (constitutional monarchy).

If you use this sort of argument that means that the United Kingdom can't aspire to be capitalists (far from the truth), Spain can't aspire to be capitalists, or for that matter any country with a monarch that practices market economics. You’re sort of arguing for a dead end here.

 

[Ziggurat]

*FacePalm*

Capitalism is a system of economics not government.

And a monarch acts with the power of government, so ascribing his actions to capitalism is nonsense.

Facepalm indeed.

At any rate this is still a pretty lame excuse seeing that Belgium has a monarch but still has a representative form of democracy (constitutional monarchy).

Hey, you ascribed those events to the king, not me. I'm just taking you at your word. Apparently you take umbrage at that.

 

[L.Y.S.]

And a monarch acts with the power of government, so ascribing his actions to capitalism is nonsense.

Facepalm indeed.



Hey, you ascribed those events to the king, not me. I'm just taking you at your word. Apparently you take umbrage at that.

If only I didn't ascribe those events to a "free nation" this argument would be valid.

Wait.. why are we talking about monarchies? I thought this thread was about capitalism and communism.

And no, a monarch is NOT a capitalist.

Your exact words on the subject. You've just revealed your own ignorance.

With all this set aside there were "free nations" on the graph that another member gave. However, my problem with the graph is that it seems to only focus on "citizen deaths" and while "free nations" certainly haven't had many citizen deaths there are many atrocities which are indirectly in their hands. Am I the only one who remembers King Leopold II, king of the Belgians and leader of the Congo Free State?

My exact words on Leopold, does the word Capitalist appear in here? Or does the phrase "free nation" appear? Tell me when you’re ready to concede.

 

[Ziggurat]

Your exact words on the subject. You've just revealed your own ignorance.

Perhaps you have forgotten the post to which I responded:

Yes what happened in the Congo Free State was not King Leopold's fault.

You attributed responsibility for those events to the monarch.

 

[DC]

But you just attributed those deaths to the monarch!

And no, a monarch is NOT a capitalist.

you think Canada, Australia and the UK for example are not capitalist countries that have a monarch?

 

[L.Y.S.]

You attributed responsibility for those events to the monarch.

If only I didn't allude to the fact that King Leopold II and Belgium were and still are members of the "free world".

 

[Ziggurat]

you think Canada, Australia and the UK for example are not capitalist countries that have a monarch?

Did I say that? No, I did not say that.

Learn to read better. I said the monarch is not a capitalist. Note the missing "y" on the end of that word.

 

[Ziggurat]

If only I didn't allude to the fact that King Leopold II and Belgium were and still are members of the "free world".

What's your point? That you're now trying to talk about the "free world" rather than capitalism? Hell, you could have simply said that the subject had changed, and that would have answered my original question.

Something's not right with you.

 

[IDB87]

Those numbers are highly inflated and Ok.

How many deaths would you attribute to the Great Leap Forward and what is your source?

Thanks,

 

[Humes fork]

I don't know. Honestly. However, wasn't the 90's crisis mostly caused (or aggravated) by pegging the SEK, and the runaway spending a result of that?

Maybe, but fiscal order is a good thing, not a bad thing, in either case.

I would need to do some in-depth research of that, as it's clearly an important thing. This would of course involve textbooks on economic theory and the arguments (note: not opinions) of various sociological and economical academics, not the writings of right-wing bloggers or op-ed writers.

I linked to Sjöstedt's own blog. Which "right-wing bloggers" are you referring to?

Why do you even bother with this useless, despisable party in the first place?

Maybe something I'll do in 2014, but not right now, after all I have an education to wrap up and a university to get into.

University is overrated. At least if you are socially incompetent like me.

 

[theprestige]

If Bikerdruid were to successfully abolish the state, the one he and I both live in being Canada, then that would mean that no one is minding the armory at CFB Edmonton (maintaining standing armies being the function of a state).

Against a Leopard 2A6 main battle tank of the Lord Strathconas Horse Armored Regiment liberated from storage by someone intent on exploiting the sudden lack of state authority and control, his deer rifle would do little but give away his position.

Indeed if the Strathconas decided to band together and go into business for themselves, BD would be reduced to a life of guerrilla insurgency, sniping around the fringes of the "might makes right" domain of the freebooters. He could enjoy whatever he liked, so long as the Strathconas didn't hear about it and decide to come take it by force.

 

[Sword_Of_Truth]

Indeed if the Strathconas decided to band together and go into business for themselves, BD would be reduced to a life of guerrilla insurgency, sniping around the fringes of the "might makes right" domain of the freebooters. He could enjoy whatever he liked, so long as the Strathconas didn't hear about it and decide to come take it by force.

No, he wouldn't be doing any "sniping" either. CFB Edmonton is also home to the Princess Patricia's Canadian Light Infantry, which held the world record for long distance sniper kills from 2002 to 2009 .

If the Canadian state were abolished, whatever new state the servicemen at CFB Edmonton decide to form would be well defended against any attempt by Bikerdruid to explain to them that the state is an obsolete artifical social construct.

 

[trustbutverify]

My feeling is that whatever power structure emerges out of the new "stateless" Canada, BD and his "hey dude" collective will pretty much do as they are told.

 

[WildCat]

as an anarchist, my utopia is my home.
wanna try it?
i dare ya.

I'm sure lots of Georgians felt the same way once upon a time, then along came Sherman and a hungry army.