this post was submitted on 14 Oct 2024
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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How do you even quantify that?
"You died by capitalism" -- How?
It's impossible to quantify how many people were killed by an economic system because it's never direct. You would have to arbitrarily decide how many layers of abstraction are too many for the death to be attributable to the economic system under which it occurred, and the more layers there are the more unclear it is. That's why the "victims of communism" numbers and lists that get thrown around are all bullshit, it's entirely subjective. If you want to be objective you have to be specific about the cause of death and whose actions directly resulted in it.
For example, imagine an alcoholic homeless man dies of exposure after being evicted from a building he was squatting in. Who's responsible? There are lots of answers you could give; the cops who were sent to evict him, the owner of the building who sent the cops, the community who didn't help him, the person or company that sold him the alcohol, the alcohol itself, or even just himself. I can't objectively say that this man "died by capitalism," but I can say that it might have been prevented under a different economic system, that this is a systemic problem that requires a systemic solution.
But killing and revolution is an intrinsic part of a communist state, no? The whole uproot the rich and kill them? Historically, this seems to be the case at least, particularly China and the Soviet Union.
Killing and revolution is an intrinsic part of transforming society, whether that's from feudalism to capitalism or capitalism to communism. Listen, as an anarchist I'm not personally a fan of China and the Soviet Union either, but the demonization of communism as if it's this brutal and violent ideology is just silly. Violence and brutality are the tools of the state, no matter its' economic system. The actions of China or the Soviet Union are attributable only to China or the Soviet Union, not communism.
If you want to attribute a death to the economic system of communism you have to explain how the economic system resulted in that death. I attribute the deaths of homeless people to capitalism because there is a clear line of causality to follow, but like I said before there are many layers of abstraction and the determination is a subjective and philosophical one. When a cop kills someone capitalism is often a factor, but I don't blame capitalism, I blame the state.
Yes, but it is communism that gave rise to these states, and they do these actions in the name of being a communist state as well. Like purges were common.
Homelessness in the soviet union is very interesting, though. It wasn't reported often due to cultural reasons, falling under 'social waste' and work ethic, so we don't have much to work with other than some personal experiences and modern exploration. It existed, but the government didn't report it for fear of looking weak.
Crossing the Line: Vagrancy, Homelessness and Social Displacement in Russia By Svetlana Stephenson is a very interesting book that goes into detail about this unreported homelessness
regardless, these states did engage in genocide against dissidents and minorities, which you cannot deny. That's the main focus of this post.
I don't deny it, I just disagree that those actions are attributable to the economic system. The economic system of communism is fine, it's the marxist conception of the intelligentsia seizing the state and establishing a "dictatorship of the proletariat" that leads to problems. The responsible party for genocide is the state that carried it out, not communism. If not in the name of communism, they would have done so in the name of some other belief system.
Except they did do it for the sake of communism; it's in their own wording.
The US invaded Iraq for the sake of "democracy," in their own words. Did "democracy" kill all those Iraqis, or did the US government?
Edit: changed "freedom and liberty" to "democracy" for better clarity and accuracy.
Freedom and liberty isn't an economic system that requires the previous system to die.
The revolution was justified, the subsequent oppression was not. Both were done in the name of communism but the revolution failed to achieve it and the state never actually meant it.
I changed "freedom and liberty" to "democracy" in my comment above to make my point more clear. While democracy is a political system and not an economic one, it does require the previous system to die in order to be established.
Yeah, I kind of agree with you. You made some pretty convincing points. I do want to note some stuff, though.
I've mainly heard 'victims of communism' about the imperialism from these communist states. In the case of the Holodomor, the Ukranians had their grain taken by the Soviet Union as a means of control and collectivisation, this is directly tied to communism. It is the victims themselves who say it was communism, it is quite difficult to prove them wrong when that's what they say about their own history.
I think you can die to economic systems, such as homelessness being solely responsible by capitalism, but I also understand your point that you can apply it to anything, like the police, infrastructure, or even bad weather. Hence, my initial question was how an economic system can kill. Capitalism can also directly kill, such as corporations in Africa, like Coca-Cola and Nestle, killing unionists and deliberately starving towns.
But with communism, it's a little bit different. Communism (like any revolution) requires death. It's a part of it. Communist governments like the Soviets and China killed dissenters and their opposition deliberately and regularly. Later they each performed genocides, and both were imperialistic in doing so. They say it was for the sake of communism.
Still, they existed. They were communists. They killed to create communism. They kill for communism. They were the leaders of communism and were the most successful at implementing it. It doesn't matter if they weren't your version of communism or whatever definitions you want to use -- People died, that's the end of it. Perhaps we can say 'victims of communism' as communism is dead and gone. History is written by the victor, as you know.
You can argue saying, 'That wasn't real communism!' but at that point you're arguing over nothing. It's the same as 'guns don't kill people.' -- It detracts from the point. It's not about the gun; it's about the purpose of the gun, which is to kill. Once you start going into 'what-ifs' when it comes to history, then I think your argument is nonexistent, what if an asteroid hits? It's pointless.
But we're also arguing semantics and trying to apply something tangible to intangible systems, and we're both biased. This is not going to get us anywhere.
Though, at the risk of being off-topic, do you know anything about Capitalism's eventual takeover of Feudalism? I've discovered this topic recently, and it's quite interesting. So too is a divine economy, basically it's indulgence, but with mutual prayer as opposed to money-to-prayer.