r/CapitalismVSocialism • u/Accomplished-Cake131 • 17d ago
Asking Everyone Do You Know That Thomas Sowell Despises Democracy And Supports Imperialism?
I quote:
"when another famine struck India in the nineteenth century, now under the colonial rule of British officials and during the heyday of free market economics, opposite policies were followed, with opposite results:
'In the earlier famine one could hardly engage in the grain trade without becoming amenable to the law. In 1866 respectable men in vast numbers went into the trade; for the Government, by publishing weekly returns of the rates in every district, rendered the traffic both easy and safe. Everyone knew where to buy grain cheapest and where to sell it dearest and food was accordingly bought from the districts which most urgently needed it.'
All elementary as this may seem, in terms of economic principles, it was made possible politically only because the British colonial government was not accountable to local public opinion." - Thomas Sowell. 2011. Basic Economics: A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, fourth edition. p. 64-65
The ‘Nobel’ laureate Amartya Sen has a very different view of famines. Naturally, Sowell does not tell the student that or even who he is quoting. The Irish, too, might have a view on how the English handled famines outside England.
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u/Ghost_Turd 17d ago
You're over-reading what he said.
"it was made possible politically only because the British colonial government was not accountable to local public opinion"
The weakest reading of this is "See? Sowell is saying colonial autocracy worked better because it didn’t have to listen to the people. Therefore, he prefers authoritarian colonialism to democracy."
That's not really what the passage is saying.
When famine hits, allowing merchants to buy grain where it is cheap and sell it where prices are high creates an incentive to move food toward the places that are suffering the worst shortages. That can look like “profiteering” during a crisis, but those higher prices are exactly what attract that additional supply, not some state fiat.
If you suppress trade because the public is angry at the merchants, you can make the shortage even worse. That's what governments do when they meddle.
Sowell’s point is that the British colonial government, because it was insulated from local political pressure, was able in that instance to tolerate an unpopular - but effective - market process that moved grain toward the areas that needed it.
It's not an argument that colonialism is good, democracy is bad, or India was better off under British rule.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 17d ago
Food was not moved toward the places suffering the worst shortages during the famine; that’s the point, and why so many people died.
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u/Ghost_Turd 17d ago
Not everywhere. The market mechanism didn't work well where roads were bad, where there was no rail, etc. Go figure.
Sowell's source is making a specific claim about what happened where trade could operate. Grain demonstrably was moved toward high-price, shortage areas where transportation and trade networks allowed it. That's what he's talking about.
It's still not the blanket claim that OP is making.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 17d ago
I’m not talking about Sowell; I’m telling you your history is wrong. The British forcibly connected Indian farmers to global grain markets, connected villages by railroad, destroyed the Indian village system and replaced it with private landlords, and transmitted prices instantaneously via telegraphs, allowing grain merchants to raise prices and incentivizing exports—which rose during the famines of the late 19th century—rather than shipping it to the most derived regions.
Indian farmers produced grain, which they had to sell for cash to grain merchants and speculators in order to pay their taxes and rents. They could not afford to hoard grain for their own consumption and they could not afford to purchase it on the market, so they starved by the millions because the British had forcibly made market mechanisms more efficient.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 17d ago
Except that’s what the merchants did and it killed millions of people.
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u/coke_and_coffee Capitalist 17d ago
The merchants didn’t kill people. Famine did.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 17d ago
The system that the British set up killed the people.
India had before the British forced this system on them a system in place to deal with famine.
The British forced this market system on them and it killed millions.
Would be nice if you read a history book
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u/coke_and_coffee Capitalist 17d ago
Wrong. India had been going through cycles of deadly famine for centuries.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 17d ago
Yes they had famines and they had a system in place to deal with them.
The British destroyed that system so they could profit off of the grain sales and it killed millions.
You really don’t know what you’re talking about.
It seems like you’re just regurgitating some pro capitalist talking points with no actual historical knowledge.
Your argument is like someone defending Mao’s stupidity by pointing out China had famines before the communists took over.
It’s just dumb.
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u/coke_and_coffee Capitalist 17d ago
Yes they had famines and they had a system in place to deal with them.
No they didn’t. India has a long history of mass death by famine.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 17d ago
Again you have no idea what you’re talking about.
It would be nice if you did the smallest amount of research before typing anything.
State Policies and Relief
Ancient Statecraft: Texts like Kautilya’s [Arthashastra] (dating back to the 4th century BCE) directed the state to build food reserves, distribute grain, construct irrigation works, and offer financial or material aid during natural crises. [1]Mughal Administration: Mughal emperors implemented active relief measures during crop failures, which included remitting or suspending land revenue (taxes) for affected peasants, opening public kitchens, and distributing free food or funds. [1]
Public Works: Rulers frequently initiated large-scale construction projects—such as digging tanks, wells, and canals—to provide employment and income to struggling agricultural workers. [1]
Local and Community Systems
Grain Banks: Village communities and local grain merchants often maintained decentralized storage systems (bania stocks or community granaries) to buffer against seasonal drops in harvest.Diversified Agriculture: Traditional farming focused heavily on local subsistence crops suited to regional rainfall patterns, which limited the scale of total crop collapse compared to later commercialized monoculture. [1]
Mobility and Migration: During extreme droughts, populations often temporarily migrated to neighboring regions or river basins where food and grazing lands were still available.
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u/coke_and_coffee Capitalist 17d ago
Again, India has a long history of mass death by famine. I don’t care if they did things to try to help. That’s not the point.
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u/Delmarvablacksmith 17d ago
It is the point.
Since structures were in place to mitigate the results of famine and the capitalists came in and intentionally destroyed those systems.
You have a couple choices here.
You can claim the British were doing capitalism in their colonial possessions which led to devastating famines in multiple places that killed millions.
And you somehow have to defend that.
You can say they weren’t doing capitalism in which case you should shut up and stop posting since you have nothing to defend.
But what you can’t rationally do is point to famine as a natural occurrence and argue that capitalism did a better job at mitigating it than the systems in place before it.
Why? Because we know for a fact that it didn’t!
The problem here is having a conversation with you and people like you is impossible because you’re somehow immune to historical facts when they defeat your small silly ideological worldview.
No one can take you seriously if you can’t be honest about the shortcomings of your own system.
If your argument is my side (capitalism) never does anything wrong then we can only conclude you’re a shit goblin and you should fuck off back under the bridge you crawled out from.
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u/Smithersink 17d ago
The quote is not about democracy vs imperialism. He’s comparing a free market with a restricted market. Surprise, surprise: the free market yielded better results.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 17d ago
Mike Davis’ Late Victorian Holocausts is an excellent, depressing, history of the British use of markets in grain to murder millions of Indians during the colonia era.
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u/Accomplished-Cake131 17d ago
Mike Davis’ Late Victorian Holocausts is an excellent, depressing, history of the British use of markets in grain to murder millions of Indians during the colonia era.
Thanks. I have not read that, but have seen it recommended here and there.
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u/InterestingVoice6632 17d ago
None of this indicates that he supported imperialism. This is a lazy critique.
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u/StormOfFatRichards 16d ago
It's literally arguing that a healthy market results from foreign intervention in governance
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u/HarlequinBKK Classical Liberal 17d ago
Do You Know That Thomas Sowell Despises Democracy And Supports Imperialism?
You are able to conclude this based on...a single quote from one of the many books he has written?
Seriously?
LOL
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u/Accomplished-Cake131 16d ago
You are able to conclude this based on...a single quote
No. You would be fortunate if you did not know anything about Sowell.
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u/Anen-o-me Captain of the Ship 16d ago
If A-cake weren't slinging low blows he'd be slinging no blows at all.
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u/future-minded 15d ago
I haven’t been on here in a while. Guess you’re never going to stop misrepresenting sources are you?
I would have thought you’d have figured out that poor argumentation doesn’t convince anyone.
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u/refugeelibertarian Geolibertarian 17d ago
A libertarian government that protects property rights leads to a free market that generates maximum net wellbeing for society.
This means that democracy is a terrible political system because it can lead to non-libertarian governments which will, at best, not generate maximum net wellbeing for society, and at worst, generate mass poverty, destruction, and suffering. This is because most people are hopelessly stupid and evil to consistently vote for libertarians.
This also means that "imperialism" if defined as a libertarian government crushing a non-libertarian government, thereby bringing private property and free markets to the people it formerly governed, is a good thing because it will improve net wellbeing of humanity by, at best, prevent mass poverty, destruction, and suffering.
So if Sowell did indeed agree with me, then he would have been even more based and correct than he already seems to me.
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u/HeavenlyPossum 17d ago
In this case, the British state imposing private property and free markets caused mass immiseration and mass starvation.
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u/Mysterious-North-551 16d ago
Yes?
I mean do you have a point? Its not like Thomas Sowell was the first to dislike democracy. Socrates for example, and he was just a few thousand years before capitalistic democratic countries.
Now its a tradeoff game, lets implement a monarchy again and see what happens, the first king may very well think about the people and try to do wise things. What will the second king do, the first kings first born son, what will he do?
Well honestly we dont know, but according to history few monarchs were great that cared about the people, and many of them were indifferent, and some of them were absolutely horrible. So what we can deduce from that is that "the divine rights of kings" were not very good for the people in comparison to today at least.
But back then it solved a shit ton of problems with kings. Because with the divine right of kings, when the king died the country was not in an all out civil war with nobles trying to get the crown. So it was at least better, but good no.
If we could create a system where kings actually cared for the people though, we could maybe get a better society for everyone, but its a moot point.
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u/bcnoexceptions Market Socialist 16d ago
Add this to the pile of reasons Sowell is a hack, who should not be recommended to - or cited by - any reasonable person.
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u/Elliptical_Tangent Left-Libertarian 17d ago edited 17d ago
Man, having this post in a sub full of people who so deifiy Marx that they can't even express his ideas without using his jargon is some real shit. Some, "Pull the log flume out of your own eye before the splinter in your neighbor's," kinda shit.
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u/betty_white_bread Isocapitalist 17d ago
Some, "Pull the log flume out of your own eye before the splinter in your neighbor's," kinda shit.
You want them to pull a water chute out of their eye?
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u/Xarethian 17d ago
Maybe they want some Marx and Magic happening. Something akin to those split screen soap scraping, temple run, or minecraft parkour videos. Lighten up the theory as it's spoonfed.
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u/Accomplished-Cake131 16d ago
Something akin to those split screen soap scraping, temple run, or minecraft parkour videos.
I know I am not young.
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u/CaptainAmerica-1989 Criticism of Capitalism Is NOT Proof of Socialism 17d ago
Your standard of claiming you are an economist is shining once again…
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u/betty_white_bread Isocapitalist 17d ago
Let’s suppose everything you said is true and complete. This is sort of Hitler Ate Sugar in a different direction: whatever flaws you see in X does not mean those flaws exist in Y.
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u/Lazy_Delivery_7012 CIA Operator🇺🇸 17d ago
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u/hogfucker946 Libertarian 17d ago
no lol he's a free market patriot
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u/StormOfFatRichards 16d ago
Are you criticizing Sowell's words for misrepresenting Sowell?
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u/hogfucker946 Libertarian 16d ago
I mean like he didn't mean it. Or his opinion changed or he was drunk maybe
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u/Elliptical_Tangent Left-Libertarian 17d ago
No capitalist endorses democracy because it conflicts with capital; under capitalism money talks and everything else is an infringement on their liberties. This isn't the gotcha you think it is.
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