Capitalist caused deaths

[ComradeChris]

I keep getting these annoying comments from stupid right-winged pundits, "Communism killed over 100 million people," etc. I know capitalism (if ideologies can kill to begin with), has killed many more, yet am having a difficult time finding numbers. Like there's the settling of North America that killed millions of Natives, exploitation of the third world, even decreasing the life expectancy of slaves...anything. I just don't have the numbers or the sources available. Anyone have any good sources that list such atrocities to rub it in the idiots' faces?

[Ell Carino]

Well, there's like 40million that die every year in Africa from poverty -- I'd blame the capitalist system for this. In Asia, ever year millions die fro poverty, in Latin America, millions die from poverty ever year.

It must be near 500,000,000 atleast.

[bunk]

Just tell them that it wasn't communism then hit them with the facts on capitalism.

[Black Dagger]

Well you could start by pointing out that the '100 million' figure is seriously flawed. I assume they're pulling this out of the 'black book of communism', which is very 'shady' history to begin with. Basically anyone who died during the the existance of the USSR, Maos' control of china or any manical dictator with red flag (khmer rouge) counts, if they happened to die because of a famine it was 'no doubt' instigated by the 'evil communist' regime. 'Famines' and other such deaths contribute, i think (a while since i looked at this 'book'), the majority of the deaths they cite. If not the majority, it's close, check the book yourself to be sure.

The problem is, in coming to the 100 mil figure, they used false calculations, something that the MIM (http://www.etext.org/Politics/MIM/) exposed. And this is not an argument grounded in political bias, if you actually examine the figures they use in the book in mathematical terms, the numbers dont' 'add up'. What MIM found (and the publisher has subsequently admitted) is that the figures in some sections were as the result of error, exaggerated by a factor of 10 (!). In China for example, there were years, where according to their figures more people reportedly died (from various nefarious causes of course) than were born, but somehow the the population 'increased'! Unfortunately for you though, i cant seem to find the link on the MIM site about this. They used to have a section on their dialogue with the publisher on the issue, maybe email them? Just as an aside, there's something incredibly hilarious about reading maoist movie reviews :lol: As i'm not a maoist, i tend to stay away from the 'serious' parts of the site, although they do have some good material on race and gender opression that's worth reading.

But anyway, the source of that figure is not completely 'credible', moreover, they included people like the khmer rouge in coming to this figure. I mean... come on now, most people, and not communists, dont' bother tagging the cambodian killing fields, 'communism' in practice, that's absurd. There's lots of examples of this kind of stuff in the 'black book' as well, not that i consider the USSR or China examples of 'communism' either, but i dont think that will convince your adversaries. Your best bet is to try to delegitimise the 'black book' (which has been thoroughly critiqued, and really is not considered all that accurate, outside fascist and rabid anti-communist circles). Then lay out the stats for capitalism. If they wish to use the 100 million figure, derived from the black book, which includes false numbers, but also stuff like famines and natural deaths, than it pretty much gives you a free hand to attribute every death in the world from poverty and preventable disease (outside of countries deemed 'communist'), so most of Asia, Africa, Latin America, Europe, pretty much the whole world (especially now days).

As for the figures?

According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, more than 25,000 people die of starvation every day, more than 800 million people are chronically undernourished.

Every 5 seconds a child dies from starvation.

Consider the following:

* One billion people lack access to health care systems2
* About 11 million children under the age of 5 die from preventable diseases each year3
* In 1999, more than 13 million people died of infectious diseases4 alone ... far more than the number killed in the natural or man-made catastrophes that make headlines.
* Tuberculosis kills 2 million people each year5. As the World Health Organization point out:

Tuberculosis kills 2 million people each year. The global epidemic is growing and becoming more dangerous. The breakdown in health services, the spread of HIV/AIDS and the emergence of multidrug-resistant TB are contributing to the worsening impact of this disease.

In 1993, the World Health Organization (WHO) took an unprecedented step and declared tuberculosis a global emergency, so great was the concern about the modern TB epidemic.

It is estimated that between 2002 and 2020, approximately 1000 million people will be newly infected, over 150 million people will get sick, and 36 million will die of TB - if control is not further strengthened.

— Tuberculosis6, World Health Organization, Fact Sheet No 104, August 2002

* About a million people die each year from malaria7 of which 3000 per day are children in Africa8.
* About a million children die from measles each year9 even though "effective immunisation, which includes vaccine and safe injection equipment, costs just 0.26 US dollars10 and has been available for more than 30 years."
* An estimated 600,000 people die from typhoid each year11

more poverty related stats, http://www.globalissues.org/TradeRelated/Facts.asp

these are all from http://www.globalissues.org/envissues/Popu...Disease.asp?p=1 (http://www.globalissues.org/envissues/Population/Disease.asp?p=1)
and it's related sub-sections

[Guest]

Originally posted by Josh of [email protected] 29 2005, 11:08 AM
Just tell them that it wasn't communism then hit them with the facts on capitalism.
That's what I do (because I know they weren't communist societies...but I mean if they'd like to believe it was communism, I'd just like to be able to slap them in the face with some numbers myself.

Thanks Black Dagger. I'm aware that they include starvation numbers (although I've never read the book), which is why I would like numbers on anything that can be directed back to capitalism, use the same manipulative tactics to show how big of idiots they are.
But thank you for all the numbers. I mean I know about most of these preventable deaths, but nothing of the numbers.

[ComradeChris]

Sorry that last post was from me...I forgot to sign in.

[OleMarxco]

Riiight....I just believe that, allright...anyknowhows, who the hell needs to ASK for resources about this? Just stick your head out of the window, man, you'll see it right there, no effort! - And DEFINATELY no research needed! Killing by Capitalism is happenin' everyday. You're having hard time findin' it on paper, however, since biased burgeouis-historicans is attempting (and succeeds in, too) to cover up that truth, too, and just blames Communism ;)

[ComradeChris]

Originally posted by [email protected] 1 2005, 05:54 PM
Riiight....I just believe that, allright...anyknowhows, who the hell needs to ASK for resources about this? Just stick your head out of the window, man, you'll see it right there, no effort! - And DEFINATELY no research needed! Killing by Capitalism is happenin' everyday. You're having hard time findin' it on paper, however, since biased burgeouis-historicans is attempting (and succeeds in, too) to cover up that truth, too, and just blames Communism ;)
I know...that's the problem with the written evidence aspect...it doesn't benefit them by writing it down. Too bad there's no honest capitalists.

[Cooler Reds Will Prevail]

Just in Latin America (more my area of expertise), the numbers are ridiculous... Remember though that if you do find numbers that there have been many more capitalist nations than socialist ones, so be prepared that your numbers must be much higher than theirs. But lets do some quick math:

About 36,000 people die from starvation every day, and according to starvation.net, 400 MILLION people have died from starvation in the last 50 years. Even if you assume that "Communism" is responsible for 100 million deaths for political reasons, from famine, etc., at least 300 million of those 400 million deaths from starvation alone were the responsibility of CAPITALISM (other forms of government e.g. fascism, monarchy could be responsible for a certain amount of these deaths also, I'm just estimating at this point)... You still have to take into account all the military dictatorships and capitalist societies where people have been murdered, like El Salvador which lost around 80,000 people just from fighting, not to mention those that had to suffer horribly because of the chaos and destruction of the country.... Just as one example of course



I don't think it would be a bad idea to get a group of people on the site to research how many people since like, 1900 have died unneccessarily under capitalist rule. Could be sort of interesting, and it seems like it would unify a lot of people on the site.



*edit* Also, remember to make the point that if they can count fanatics like Pol Pot and Kim Jong-il as communists, then you can count Hitler and Mussolini as capitalists. Though Hitler did nationalize some things, the majority remained in the private sector and there was still an imbalance of wealth and vast corporatism.

[OleMarxco]

Originally posted by ComradeChris+May 4 2005, 12:44 AM--> (ComradeChris @ May 4 2005, 12:44 AM)
[email protected] 1 2005, 05:54 PM
Riiight....I just believe that, allright...anyknowhows, who the hell needs to ASK for resources about this? Just stick your head out of the window, man, you'll see it right there, no effort! - And DEFINATELY no research needed! Killing by Capitalism is happenin' everyday. You're having hard time findin' it on paper, however, since biased burgeouis-historicans is attempting (and succeeds in, too) to cover up that truth, too, and just blames Communism ;)
I know...that's the problem with the written evidence aspect...it doesn't benefit them by writing it down. Too bad there's no honest capitalists. [/b]
Yeah, for who wants to be BURRYING THEMSELVES instead of US (Not U.S.) BURYING THEM(Selves?) by writing down the evidence of their crimes, leading to their doom? Sniveling cowards&#33; <_<

Anyhows, nicely retorted, Chirocozan, but let&#39;s stop focusing about the usual "your ideology killed more people than my ideology (or people pretending to be doing it)" argument&#33; That causes us just to go down at the level of these cappie-fools. BAH&#33; :castro:

[ComradeChris]

Originally posted by OleMarxco+May 4 2005, 06:03 AM--> (OleMarxco @ May 4 2005, 06:03 AM)
Originally posted by [email protected] 4 2005, 12:44 AM

[email protected] 1 2005, 05:54 PM
Riiight....I just believe that, allright...anyknowhows, who the hell needs to ASK for resources about this? Just stick your head out of the window, man, you&#39;ll see it right there, no effort&#33; - And DEFINATELY no research needed&#33; Killing by Capitalism is happenin&#39; everyday. You&#39;re having hard time findin&#39; it on paper, however, since biased burgeouis-historicans is attempting (and succeeds in, too) to cover up that truth, too, and just blames Communism ;)
I know...that&#39;s the problem with the written evidence aspect...it doesn&#39;t benefit them by writing it down. Too bad there&#39;s no honest capitalists.
Yeah, for who wants to be BURRYING THEMSELVES instead of US (Not U.S.) BURYING THEM(Selves?) by writing down the evidence of their crimes, leading to their doom? Sniveling cowards&#33; <_<

Anyhows, nicely retorted, Chirocozan, but let&#39;s stop focusing about the usual "your ideology killed more people than my ideology (or people pretending to be doing it)" argument&#33; That causes us just to go down at the level of these cappie-fools. BAH&#33; :castro: [/b]
I know I hate arguing stupid crap like that usually too. But I&#39;d just like a quick slap by saying... "well you&#39;ve killing hundreds of millions more."

I mean how does that saying go? Use the weapon of the enemy against themselves? Kind of like Marx being an economic theorist to promote communism.