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Kenny__Loggins t1_j3130zt wrote

Reply to comment by Bovolt in A family finds swastikas in the lawn as antisemitism surges by Shaul_Ishtov

It's always weird when people get out the calculator for ML deaths but then when capitalism has people dying from lack insulin and wars for oil, that's just the way things be

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HammerTimeHTFU t1_j313nma wrote

I think the idea is that many people oppose capitalism and also oppose authoritarianism in any/all forms.

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Krunch007 t1_j31ej45 wrote

That's a bit of an oversimplification of capitalism's failings. And there's nothing wrong with keeping in mind how to NOT design the next socialist system.

I'm not saying it's a good faith critique of ML, it's not used as such. I agree with you that capitalism killed a lot of people too. However, I see no point in defending ML at all. Whatever good emerged from it could have emerged without all those deaths if Lenin, Mao and Stalin weren't such massive cunts. If it was democratic. Really, there's no point in mounting a defense of that failure.

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CatDog1337 t1_j31h4n4 wrote

Saying that capitalism also killed people does not defend communism.

Also pointing out that people let other people die/suffer because they want to make more money sounds like a pretty good description of capitalisms failings.

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Kenny__Loggins t1_j328qmr wrote

If the argument is "communism bad because people died" and the alternative is a system that also leads to people dying, then it is a defense against the notion that the current system must be maintained.

Now, if there are other systems that are even better, great. But usually when people trot out the "communism killed 27 kajillion people" argument, they are using it to argue that capitalism is better.

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Krunch007 t1_j32hufo wrote

You agree context matters I assume? In the context of addressing deaths caused by ML, saying capitalism causes deaths too sounds very much like an intended defense.

That being said, every political system ever has caused deaths, whether intentionately or not, so it's a moot point anyway. I hate arguing it. It's much more relevant to just say capitalism's falling is actually the intentional fueling of inequality through false meritocratic rhetoric, which results in death and suffering due to not affording vital necessities, class tensions which result in a more divided society, stifling human progress by focusing on what's more profitable instead of what's better for people as a whole, so on and so forth.

So no, I do think it's an oversimplification that doesn't even touch the problem, since it's a trait it shares with all past political systems, and perhaps with future ones as well.

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Kenny__Loggins t1_j329hva wrote

Sure. I think the main issue here is that there will probably never be an accurate accounting of the effects of any system, especially communist ones when empirical powers are extremely capitalist. For example, historians don't even agree that the holodomor was intentional, but most people assume it was and count that as a black mark against the USSR.

And that's without even mentioning that communism has never been given a proper chance because of the fact that capitalists have a vested interest in knocking it's legs out from underneath it at every step. So even the most accurate analysis of a communist country would not allow us to really compare the results of a capitalist world with a communist one.

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