How much of that would you say is due to
a) effects of large scale conflict in those territories?
b) the lack of international aid efforts to relieve the famines to ‘socialist’ countries as opposed to non-socialist ones?
c) the odd way that the essentially continuous famines in various parts of Africa get split up into separate phases and where there are figures given for lives lost at all, they are counted as separate incidents?
Let’s also mention:
Famine was a routine event in pre-revolutionary Russia and China. Stalin and Mao both continued that; their successors did not. Life expectancy in the post-Stalin USSR was double that of Imperial Russia.
In a similar time period to the Soviet and Chinese famines, the completely avoidable Bengal famine in British-controlled India killed two to three million people.
To be fair to MrToad, he does mention the Bengal famine:
And did restrict his claim to the 20th C.
Which is fortunate, as otherwise these would have been relevant:
And, of course, there are the other factors mentioned upthread. Famines are rarely the product of one nation alone.
FREE ENTERPRISE ISN’T FREE. A few people make out like bandits and the rest of us get stuck with the bill. But that’s not the worst of it. The bad part is that severe wealth overdosing causes permanent brain damage: It causes Mr. & Ms. Megabucks to believe they know better than “the little people” how to run the country and that rich folks have an obligation to take control and tell everyone else what to do and how to do it. Even if that means not believing in climate change, dismantling public education, reserving health insurance for the “makers,” lowering their taxes and increasing ours. It’s happening right now, not only in D.C. but in your local statehouse as well. Go look!
Sounds like a faculty meeting. Nothing ever gets agreed upon and the same issues come up every month.
Seriously, though, coordination costs are not something to be blithely ignored and the freedom to try something new without getting everyone’s permission is important.
Umberto Eco explains it well
So you want to ignore all of the specifics and focus on the names? I don’t really think that’s a particularly useful thing to discuss. If you want to discuss the specifics regarding individual famines so that we can examine their actual causes, which are far deeper and far more complicated than some inherent failure or evil in socialist philosophy, we can do that. If all you want to do is argue with me and tell me all about how dumb you think socialism is, you’ll have to look elsewhere because I’m not interested.
I think that taking a quote from the DSA constitution out of context and giving it the least charitable possible interpretation is not really the same as “defining” or “knowing” the key tenets of the political organization.
Let’s put it back in context and discuss whether your interpretation is really fair:
We are socialists because we reject an economic order based on private profit, alienated labor, gross inequalities of wealth and power, discrimination based on race, sex, sexual orientation, gender expression, disability status, age, religion, and national origin, and brutality and violence in defense of the status quo. We are socialists because we share a vision of a humane social order based on popular control of resources and production, economic planning, equitable distribution, feminism, racial equality and non-oppressive relationships.
The italicized portion is what you quoted.
As I noted before, “popular control” is not the same as “government ownership”, so it’s not clear to me that the italicized portion means what you seem to imply it means. In context, I think it’s clear that the DSA constitution is not advocating for anything quite so sinister as you have implied. There’s many different political philosophies tied together under the umbrella of “socialism”, but you seem to be implying that the DSA advocates specifically for the totalitarian forms such as Marxism-Leninism.
I think if you’re going to lecture everyone about understanding and knowing the key tenets of socialism, you should at least be willing to listen and hear people out when they give accounts of socialism that are different from your knee-jerk interpretation of the DSA constitution. After all, most commenters here have not explicitly rejected capitalism, but instead pointed out that capitalism and socialism are often complementary approaches within real-world political economies.
I’ve heard this called “the worst argument in the world.” “System A is bad and also socialist. System B is socialist. Therefore, system B is bad.” It doesn’t follow logically – you’re just relying on making people form negative emotional associations between “bad” and “socialism” to come to the conclusion that socialism is always bad without going through all the difficult steps of proving that System A is actually bad because of socialism.
#1 seems to be China in 1958-1962. I think that one was completely avoidable. China was exporting food while her people starved. Of course there were famines before socialism. But some of the famines in China and the USSR were closely related to forced collectivization.
I would say that food waste is a serious issue here and abroad. I do not think a comparison of agriculture here and in socialist countries would show that socialist agriculture and food distribution is more efficient than it is here. It might even be accurate to state that in the modern era, farm workers starving while not in natural drought conditions is almost exclusively a socialist phenomena.
As farmers ourselves, my family always ate reasonably well, even in the great depression. They may not have had electricity, a car, or store bought clothes, but they at least could eat what they could produce, and sell the rest. In a socialist society, there is a good chance that in times of economic stress, the collective might decide that their plow animal or associated equipment was needed elsewhere, cutting their productivity considerably. Or the collective might decide that only certain crops should be planted. It is a certainty that in a socialist state, the farmer does not get to decide what he gets to keep, and what goes to the state.
But I guess that is getting off the subject somewhat. I did want to reply to the statement about capitalism being unique in throwing away food while people starve.
Does socialism in general imply forced collectivization, or is that specific to totalitarian socialism? Please explain your reasoning.
In our purportedly capitalist society, aren’t there massive incentives to plant only certain kinds of crops? If not, why is there such a preponderance of corn and soybean production?
Why is this a certainty? Please explain your reasoning.
It seems to me that:
I would go to that conference.
Well that’s fair enough. Nothing unique to capitalism about that.
It is at least equally a certainty that when it comes to the crunch, the farmer doesn’t get to decide that in a capitalist state either.
If you believe otherwise, I’d suggest you take a look at what happened in farming during the First and Second World Wars even sticking to the US, you’ll find significant government interference in farmer’s choices about what to grow, what they can keep and what they have available to grow it with.
Many people will of course argue that we haven’t actually seen many socialist states (if any) and certainly none that were in a position to run their polity without active adverse outside interference whereas we have seen any number of capitalist-leaning systems so we can judge how well that works.
I think we can all agree that it doesn’t really work all that well. The disagreement is whether it works better than anything else as the old phrase goes.
The general trend seems to be say that whatever happens in a capitalist society is either:
a) a blip, a temporary malfunction of the market that will correct itself in time, nothing to do with the system at all;
b) entirely natural and unavoidable, an inevitable result of human nature operating normally, nothing that can be done about that;
c) the result of deliberate bad actors but in no way the fault of the system overall.
Whereas for a nominally socialist system, the answer is always “See, that’s what happens in socialism!”.
England exported food in Ireland and India while people starved.
Don’t put words in my mouth, either.
I have very specifically brought up the five-o-as-socialism meme, and nothing else. There are many great points already made in this thread, from a variety of perspectives. As aforementioned, my point was regarding a pet peeve of mine that was up to my comment left unaddressed.
If this will clear things up, from the broadest macro-perspective I believe in an evolutionary economics that supracedes any particular theory concerning it. So the presence of socialism and capitalism, or socialism and feudalism, bartering etc. can and in fact are generally present in any given local/regional/national economy. I don’t believe that the evolution of economics is a linear process. I do believe that trying to control the uncountable number of economic interactions taking place at any given moment is a fools game, but that is not to say that we abandon human agency; simply put, if we fail to understand how economics function as opposed to how we believe it should function, we are only begging for extinction. I also happen to believe that the sanest, most rational way to achieve the goal is by allowing for anyone to have what they need, and bring an end to the idea that a few should have whatever the fuck they want while half or more of humans can’t be sure where their next meal is coming. So I suppose that makes me a commie.
I didn’t mean to put words in your mouth, so sorry if that’s how you took it. Sticking to your narrow point: I believe that, all else being equal, a government that uses taxpayer funded police that are sworn to serve and protect all citizens is more socialist than a government that does not provide a police force and leaves public safety entirely up to individuals hiring their own private security forces. You disagree with that, yes? Let’s leave it at that.
Elements within the US are dead set on destroying each and every one of those, unfortunately.
How about this for a defining aspect of proper hardcore socialism: nationalising the fucking banks.
Attempting to manage the affairs of a nation for the benefit of all is a fool’s errand while history’s most successful thieves are left to their own devices.
Exterminate them.
Republican governors in Illinois turn into Democrats. That’s no slam against Democrats; at least I know what they stand for and what they’re going to.
Yes, I can lay the state’s problems at the feet of the Democrats because they run this state. And as to greedy, why should public sector unionists be able to cash out after 30 years of work with incredible benefits? Talk about the pot calling the kettle black! Many people in private sector unions don’t even get that level of benefits because they live, work, and die in the real world. It’s a worker’s paradise, but only for the government ruling class. How sad.
And hey, I’m not anti-union. I have problems with public sector unions because the taxes I pay are used to claw more money from me. Private sector unions are OK. But, shouldn’t workers at least have a choice as to joining a private sector union? Shouldn’t private sector unions be held accountable just like corporations? Everybody is pro-choice, but union membership isn’t?
As to the poor, sorry but the Democrats really don’t care. And I’m not saying Republicans care more. The level of suffering on the west and south sides of Chicago/East St. Louis has existed for DECADES under Democrat rule. What’s changed? Not much. Maybe some public sector retirees would be willing to give up some of their benefits to help the poor? Don’t bet on it.
Who are these Socialist Democrat Angels? Everyone lives for their own selfish interest. That’s just human nature. Do you really think they’re going to be thinking of you as you give them more money and control of your life?
You need a job? OK; here’s a job digging ditches, but don’t complain - you have a job for life! You need a house? OK; here’s a house right next to the ditch digging union headquarters, but don’t complain - you have a house for life! And on top of that, a very short commute. You’re set for life. The Socialist Democratic’s job is done and is ready to help the next person who comes begging.
One last point. Bloomberg [which I think is fair to say Democrat leaning being owned by Mr. Bloomberg] posted an article how the Swedes are starting to questions the welfare state. Yeah, the Swedes who are pointed to as the example! https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2018-06-26/now-even-swedes-are-questioning-the-welfare-state
Like I said in my original post, Boingers are pretty smart. So I thank you for reply [and not flaming me too] and taking time to read my response.
It was the Republican governor who held up the state budget for a record amount of time. Sounds like he was running that, doesn’t it? Are you claiming a governor has no power?
Public sector unionists should be able to do so because that’s a humane and reasonable expectation for ANY kind of workers. They should also be able to do so because they fought for such benefits, via unions. All workers should do so.
I think a better metaphor here is “crabs in a barrel.” You’re arguing that because most workers have it bad (which is mostly the case because the owning class has done so much union smashing, just as your governor has been trying to do), all workers should have it bad. My reply is that all workers should fight for what the public sector workers that you’re railing against fought for, and won. You’re actually being pretty wimpy here! How sad.
They’ve been used to “claw” for reasonable working and retirement conditions, which (if you’re a worker) you and your co-workers should also claw for. Get organized! Instead of complaining about the successes of those who managed to do so.
And really, you should be happy about money that those working for your state earn, since it helps your state’s economy – most of what they earn goes right back into it.
That’s not human nature, it’s how someone born and raised under capitalism talks. Many societies are much more communal, with a majority of people who don’t mind paying higher taxes because they recognize the good that they do – for all, including themselves – when administered by government officials who are held accountable.
As for the article you linked, I reject its premise that Sweden is “socialist,” as does this writer:
What the Bloomberg piece points to as problems that are changing Swedish public opinion are results of neoliberalism, not socialism.
