Oh geeze, this seems like it's going to be a productive discussion that's starting out in good faith.
this post was submitted on 17 Mar 2024
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How do you reconcile capitalism with climate catastrophe and ecological collapse?
These seem like a pretty damning indictment of a system. But i dunno, maybe i just like living things
It's obviously a loaded question.
But I am still curious as to a historical interpretation of events.
Edit: even a historical awareness of events. W/ the Holodomor specifically, I expect in the immediate post WWII landscape, there would be no western interest on even recognizing it as occurred? I expect there would be at least an eastern European awareness, but was their media already under the thumb on the government?
Again, would love just an objective answer to the question instead of people just whattabouting the obvious ragebait
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(4 replies)
Idk if you’re just stirring the pot or if you even care about an answer so I’ll be brief.
It doesn’t matter what economic system is used if your government is bad.
Actually how bad having a bad government is, is a function of how tightly your government controls the economy.
Some economic systems are centrally controlled, others aren’t. So yes it matters a hell of a lot.
A lot of people Starve to death under Capitalism every damn day while excess food is destroyed to secure more of a profit. Not having enough to go around is bad and happened alot before the advent of modern farming techniques, but creating that deficit artificially to secure a profit is damning of the viability of an economic system.
Not to defend the profit above all model but excess food destruction is largely a misconception dating to the early COVID crisis.
People spread alarmist headlines about farmers having to eliminate excess produce and byproduct,
People immediately jumped to profit reasons but it was actually because of supply chain collapse leaving them unable to ship it off before they had new produce and byproduct to put into their own storage.
Because at least in the US the rule for excess produce and byproduct is that the government buys it from you to put into cold storage for release whenever crops and production come up short due to a dry spell or a heat wave or just bad production that year.
Just to nip another potential misinformed example in the bud to boot, farmers are not paid to fallow their fields for profit reasons either, it's to allow the soil to rejuvenate to avoid another dust bowl happening.
People starved many many times in those places before the communist revolutions. People starved all over the world under many economic systems. Most of the time due to climate events.
That is basically what happened in the two famines you are thinking of. There was extreme drought in Europe and Central Asia for decades, which did kill a lot of people. In Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, and yes Ukraine. They also died in Eastern Europe, Southern Europe, parts of the Middle East. Just like many died in the US from massive droughts in the decade before.
What you probably purposefully leave out is how there was never famine again in the USSR. People experienced better caloric intake than the US up until the collapse of the union and neoliberal shock-therapy brought hunger back.
In any case, was there mismanagement during the famine of the 30s? Yea, of course.
Was there sabotage by counterrevolutionaries? Yes, of course.
Who is to blame? Not a single person, and likely not even people in general tbh.
Almost all of this also applies to the famine in China.
So idk, I know the OP doesn’t care and isn’t trying to look for an alternative to his narrative. But others who come in here might take something positive from the comments we leave.
You didn’t mention all the farmers who got killed in Ukraine. Why not? Don’t you think murdering a bunch of farmers might have had something to do with the famine?
No “farmer” was “murdered”… Kulaks were killed yes, but they were the counterrevolutionary forces that were burning food supplies. They were literally in armed struggle against the state and were committing acts of terrorism. What do you suppose was the correct response against them?
Reminding you that most were not killed, and were just arrested.
OP’s comments seem to indicate that they are asking in bad faith, but seeing no evidence given in other comments than “whatabout famine under capitalism?”:
destabilization efforts and economic sanctions. western capitalist countries, like the us, did a shit ton with the direct intent that communism would be utterly untenable. this was not 100% of the story, but in combination with policy failures and natural disasters, there is a lot more to blame than “the revolution.”
Confirming that the comment history shows bad faith. Just block this loser.
compare that to the mass starvations happening on a daily basis under capitalism (including the one currently in progress in Gaza)
Are you really asking for a comparison, or is this a red herring?
3.9 million Ukranians died of starvation between 1931 and 1934. There are currently 0.5 million on the brink of starvation in Gaza, and 27 confirmed starvation deaths in Gaza (as of March 11th, and that is likely from incomplete data, but its what we have to work with unless we want to use imaginary data, and im assuming we don't). If we assume a linear growth rate and extrapolate, we could expect ~100 confirmed deaths and 1.5 million on the brink in a similar time period.
So, if we use raw numbers the USSRs leadership in Ukraine led to a greater total amount of starvation, however, if we look at it from a per capita perspective, about 10% of Ukraine's total population of ~ 32 million was starving and the 1.5 million number I extrapolated above would be almost 100% of Gazans.
Ireland famine, Indian famine, Ethiopia famine, ... Do I have to say more?
Well, yes. Those are just the names of places. There were other Soviet/communists famines as well. All said, about 50 million died in various communist-nation famines. This isn't a defense of capitalism...it's just stating facts. If we actually want to reduce suffering, we need to be objective. As far as capitalism v communism goes, as far as I can tell, they're both very flawed systems prone to authoritarian takeovers. I think the best we've got right now is the sort of socialist-democratic systems we see in northern Europe where most businesses are still privately owned, but markets are severely regulated. Education and elections are well-funded from public coffers, so it's a fair playing field. Governments are comprised of multi-party coalitions that help force hard-liners to compromise, and no-cinfidence votes make it easier to reform government when it isn't working well.
The British East India Company killed 40 million People. And that is just one singular corporate entity.
And 40 million sex-selective abortions happened under China's one-child policy, 30 million starved during the 40-yr-famine and an additional 4 million outside Ukraine in the USSR. The problem isn't communism/capitalism it's authoritarian vs democratic.
20 million people die from starvation, lack of access to clean water or preventable disease under capitalism EVERY YEAR.
These are solvable problems but its not profitable. 1/3 of food produced globably is thrown away. We've plenty of solutions for access to water. Preventable disease, it's in the name.
I'd suggest you read about the Irish and the Bengali. What economic system did those famines happen under?
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(3 replies)
Do you actually know anybody who is bemoaning the communism of 1910?
We don't even have moderate capitalism anymore, and that's a much more real problem. Today's fight is between extreme capitalism and super extremist perverted capitalism.
First, the USSR and China under Mao were not communist and did not even claim to be communist. So you have to understand that many people who are advocating for communism do not even want to emulate the Soviet Union. They are talking about a fairly different system. In fact, communism is theoretically meant to be stateless, so it shouldn’t really have a government in the sense that we would understand, though there is some debate over exactly what this means.
But most people who have studied history recognize that the Soviet system of government did not work well and oversaw numerous crimes against humanity. Of course, the same can be said for many western governments. And it’s worth noting that it’s not very clear that capitalist governments have been particularly better at avoiding famines. Several examples have already been given in this thread.
In fact, since the discovery of modern agricultural techniques, the majority of famines have been caused not by environmental factors but by the deliberate and usually violent deprivation of people from land and food resources. Recognizing this fact, which is common to all types imperialist powers, whether western or eastern, allows us to see that the root cause is not the economic system but the political system. Specifically, the oppression and exploitation of one group of people by another which happened in the USSR and China and happens today and historically under US hegemony.
Tankies gonna tank.
Looks like you already have your mind made up
Didn't they also have mass starvation before Communism and then become superpowers after?
Starvation was a regularly cited cause of uprising during dynastic change in China
A lot of "whatabout capitalism?" responses here.
How about you write a sentence with a stance and a little bit of actual insight rather than an open ended question that doesn't really have anywhere to hop off of?
Stalin and Mao are to communism what Hitler is to facism.
The mass starvation wasn't because of communism it was because of bad science.
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