Deathtoll caused by Capitalism

[Master Che]

Can someone give me a exact number of much Capitalism has killed in total? And if possible can you provide me with sources on those numbers?

[Latifa]

That's a hard ask

[ComradeOm]

You want the total number of people killed in Western countries in the past 200 years? Together with those killed in developing nations in the past century or so? Good luck with that.

[Led Zeppelin]

Over 500 million I'd say.

[JKP]

http://www.zmag.org/ZMag/articles/may01barsamian.htm



That’s half of what he says. The other half of his inquiry, which somehow escapes notice, has to do with another difference. He says China in the late 1940s began to institute rural public health and educational programs, as well as other programs oriented towards the mass of the population. India played the game by our rules. It didn’t do any of this and there are consequences, for example, in mortality rates. These started to decline sharply in China from around 1950 until 1979. Then they stopped declining and started going up slightly. That was the period of the reforms. During the totalitarian period, from 1950 to about 1979, mortality rates declined. They declined in India, too, but much more slowly than in China up to 1979. Sen then says, suppose you measure the number of extra deaths in India resulting annually from not carrying out these Maoist-style programs or others for the benefit of the population, what you would call reforms if the term wasn’t so ideological. He estimates close to four million extra deaths every year in India, which means that, as he puts it, every eight years in India the number of skeletons in the closet is the same as in China’s moment of shame, the famine. If you look at the whole period, it’s about 100 million extra deaths in India alone after the democratic capitalist period enters.


I'd take Chomsky with a grain of salt, but nonetheless it's interesting.

[RevolverNo9]

How are we to calculate? All those killed in capitalist nations? When are we to start the clock in different states? How do we ascertain which deaths were directly caused by the economic system... and then how possibly can one make a count? Are all wars to count as results of capitalist production? Merely those killed deliberately by capitalistic states and organisms? Do we include - perhaps escpeically - the results of the fascist states (even - hoho - the results of state-capitalism!?)?

In short: your question is unfeasable.

[Master Che]

Per day alone 20,000 people die because of Capitalism so yeah it is hard. I'd say the total is over a billion.

[Goatse]

Well it depends what you count as death caused by capitalism. It's a whole lot more than "commuist regimes" caused, though.

[TheComrade]

Too many to say - and even if you somehow worked it out there is no chance of even comprehending such a number...

[vladimirm]

"It doesnt matter though because all the people who die are all poor adn probably deserve it anyway" that was soethign my "mate" said a coupople of weeks ago, adn on friday in geography i got "the iraqi people deserved it"

[Creature]

Ive got the occaisional, 'We should turn it into a parking lot.' (it-Iraq) and 'Just bomb em all flat'

[vladimirm]

oh no the best i go twas "whats iraq?"

[TheComrade]

Ahahaha! I have had someone point out Africa and say it was India - but that doesn't compare to 'whats iraq?" !! :D