Communism killed TEN BILLION (!) CHILDREN at least

[Tim Cornelis]

So often, many on these forums insist "communism never killed anyone, it has never existed -- except of course for primitive communism." But now, reading about the Hadza people, whom perform post-natal abortions (infanticide) to prevent the child of living through misery when there is a shortage of food, it made me think... 'Communism' did kill people. In the prehistory there were about 5 to 10 million people -- let's take 7.5 million. If we divide this by 150 for each group of hunter-gatherer bands (which is large), and then assume they each kill, on average, 1 child annually (which is conservative), that means that in the 200,000 years of the existence of homo sapiens, at least 10,000,000,000 children have been killed under the reign of primitive communism.
How about that. So whenever someone says "Communism killed 200 million people" you can retort "Well actually..."

[Flying Purple People Eater]

Oh horror! Over the tens of thousands of years the Hadza have lived in Eastern Africa, people have died! The massacre! The blood is in primitive communism's hands!

But yea, there is a far more sinister taker of lives; LIFE ITSELF! That's right, Life has not only killed ten billion people - it has been responsible for the death of every dead creature on the planet!


Compare this to similar infanticides practiced by agricultural cultures (agriculture being responsible for massive population booms and all), and I'm sure you'll find a lot more terrifying statistics on child death. This practice has absolutely zero to do with communism or primitive communism at all - it has everything to do with scarcity and environmental crisis. E.g. many Arawak parents choked their children under Spanish rule to stop them being forced to work in the mines and either killed by a Spaniard for fun or die slowly of disease. This had nothing to do with the economic system and everything to do with the surrounding environmental impact. The mass famines and unpredictability of harvest in some early European agricultural societies would've been the cause of far more deaths.


Also, you can't just assume that all human groups in prehistory had the same societal structure, environmental conditions and customs as a tiny group (with a population of like 900 or something) of modern hunter-gatherers in Eastern Africa, because this simply is not the case. Why not reference some San groups - much larger hunter-gatherer groups who exist in scarcity-riddled environment and who do not practice infanticide?

[Blake's Baby]

Or, no, not 'much larger'. !San groups split when they reach about 150 (the number Tim goes for - look up 'Dunbar Number' on the web for some pretty solid anthropological research on this).

I'd quibble with Tim's figures but in general I think it's a reasonable point.

[Thirsty Crow]

Communism is Death Incarnate. The Grim Reaper is grim since there's no more communism.

[adipocere]

I think your "conservative" estimate is really very liberal. Infanticide has only been a known (rare) practice in social groups that live in environmental extremes. Also, you can't trust the accounts of ethnographers pre 1960. Why get on a few struggling hunter gatherers when you can watch the magic hand of the market smother poor children by the billions in real time?

[Ele'ill]

how many anarchists has communism killed

[bcbm]

infanticide was just legalized post-natal abortion, so it isn't murder anymore than abortion is.

[synthesis]

infanticide was just legalized post-natal abortion, so it isn't murder anymore than abortion is.

It strikes me as the difference between taking an infant off life support versus smothering him or her with a pillow. To be honest, your post almost reads like an argument against abortion - unless there's some aspect of it I'm completely missing.

[bcbm]

It strikes me as the difference between taking an infant off life support versus smothering him or her with a pillow.

the only difference is a few minutes. anyway as far as i am ware gatherer-hunter societies have limited access to planned parenthood 20000 years ago so what ya gonna do?

[DasFapital]

"it's called democide! Look it up people!"