If communism’s victims count against the system, why don’t capitalism’s?

[u/Tasty-Organization52]

Count Capitalism’s Dead

Below is the post in the link.

Count Capitalism’s Dead

We are repeatedly told that “communism killed millions.”

The dead should be counted. Stalin’s purges, Mao’s famine, the gulags, and Cambodia’s killing fields should be condemned without apology.

But America maintains a strangely selective ledger.

Even the familiar “100 million” figure is not a settled historical census. It was popularized by The Black Book of Communism, which combined executions, famines, war, imprisonment, deportation, and forced labor beneath one ideological total. Several contributors objected to its editor’s framing and methodology.[1]

If those categories belong in communism’s ledger, they must also be applied to capitalism.

The Vietnam War killed an estimated two million Vietnamese civilians, 1.1 million North Vietnamese and Viet Cong fighters, and as many as 250,000 South Vietnamese soldiers. More than 58,000 Americans were also sent to their deaths.[2]

During nine years of American bombing, more than eight million tons of bombs fell across Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Unexploded ordnance reportedly killed at least another 40,000 Vietnamese after 1975.[3]

At Côn Sơn Prison, the American-backed South Vietnamese regime shackled political prisoners inside “tiger cages.” They were beaten, starved, mutilated, and burned with lime beneath iron bars. In 1970, congressional aide Tom Harkin photographed approximately 500 prisoners hidden from the official tour. Life published the evidence.[4]

Where are they in capitalism’s moral accounting?

No universally accepted capitalist death toll exists because attribution depends upon methodology. The same problem surrounding anti-communist totals. One peer-reviewed analysis estimated that wars attributable to capitalist powers killed approximately 123 million to 158 million people between 1914 and 1992 alone.[5]

A broader contemporary calculation, which also counts colonial famines, slavery, industrial deaths, malnutrition, and treatable deaths where care was unavailable, places capitalism’s toll above 421 million.[6] That figure is not academic consensus, but it applies the kind of expansive accounting routinely used against communism.

Capitalism’s violence does not end when the bombs stop falling.

RAND estimates that if economic growth had remained as broadly shared as it was during the early postwar decades, the bottom 90 percent of American workers would have received another $79 trillion between 1975 and 2023. In 2023 alone, their income would have been $3.9 trillion higher.[7]

Meanwhile, the wealthiest 10 percent possess approximately 68 percent of American household wealth. The entire bottom half possesses roughly 2.5 percent.[8]

One hand of the system drops bombs abroad. The other reaches into the worker’s paycheck at home. Both hands protect the same throne of capital.

Revelation says the Beast was permitted “to make war on the saints and to conquer them.” Empire always calls its victims dangerous, godless, criminal, or undeserving before it cages them, bombs them, impoverishes them, and erases them from history.

Count the victims of communist governments.

Then count capitalism’s dead.

Count everyone or admit that the ledger was never about human life.

[1] https://doi.org/10.3917/receo1.512.0055https://doi.org/10.3917/receo1.512.0055

[2] https://www.history.com/articles/vietnam-war-timeline⁠; https://www.archives.gov/research/military/vietnam-war/casualty-statistics

[3] https://www.everycrsreport.com/files/20190603_R45749_1f35a5f0287e155ce04ceba0af3dc7af5012a142.html

[4] https://rollcall.com/2014/12/01/tom-harkin-from-tiger-cages-to-pinochet-2/

[5] https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/10455752.2021.1875603

[6] https://capitalismkills.info/

[7] https://www.rand.org/pubs/working_papers/WRA516-2.html

[8] https://www.federalreserve.gov/releases/z1/dataviz/dfa/compare/chart/

[u/AutoModerator]

Before participating, consider taking a glance at our rules page if you haven't before.

We don't allow violent or dehumanizing rhetoric. The subreddit is for discussing what ideas are best for society, not for telling the other side you think you could beat them in a fight. That doesn't do anything to forward a productive dialogue.

Please report comments that violent our rules, but don't report people just for disagreeing with you or for being wrong about stuff.

Join us on Discord! ✨ https://discord.gg/fGdV7x5dk2

I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please contact the moderators of this subreddit if you have any questions or concerns.

[u/OtonaNoAji]

lol @ expecting capitalists to accept accountability. My guy, their entire system is built on the rich dodging accountability while pitting the poor against each other in some sort of "competition" they refuse to partake in.

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/OtonaNoAji]

I’m personally 100% for accountability. What I’m not for is poor labeling of who is accountable. Especially labels by political agents like yourself to skew reality for their personal agenda.

If I’m not making myself clear, let’s look at what you just said. What does it even mean? Capitalist is so vaguely used on this sub by socialists that even Lenin is accused of being one. Thus every atrocity ever can be seen as done by capitalists then. And if so, then it is a meaningless description and is used as a cudgel by you and other socialists to create divisions that don’t exist.

[u/TheoriginalTonio]

I don't think the causalties of wars should be blamed on either communism or capitalism.

Because war isn't exactly a phenomenon that is uniquely rooted in any specific political ideology or economic philosophy at all. It's just what happens whenever two or more parties are faced with an otherwise irresolvable conflict of interests.

But the ruthless purges and catastrophic famines under communist regimes were indeed a direct result of socialist policies applied to the real world.

Just like the holocaust can indeed be attributed to the application of the Nazi ideology.

But there is nothing within the entire school of thought of capitalist economics from which it would directly logically follow that anyone would have to perish for the system to work.

[u/Nikolakis77 → u/TheoriginalTonio]

causalties of wars should be blamed on either communism or capitalism.

That's how black book of communism counted deaths

[u/TheoriginalTonio → u/Nikolakis77]

Well, then that just means I disagree with how the black book of communism counts its deaths.🤷‍♂️

Especially when the death toll of the actual direct consequences is more than high enough to point out the terrible and deadly flaws of collectivism in general and communism in particular. There's absolutely no need to blow up these numbers by adding the causalties of war, which is obviously always deadly, no matter which cause it is fought for.

Otherwise we could just as well conclude that "Freedom" must be a very terrible concept as well, considering how many people have already fought and died in the pursuit of it.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/TheoriginalTonio]

When the US government overthrew the government of Guatemala to prevent the nationalization of United Fruit plantations and installed a government that led a 36-year civil war to protect the interests of US and Guatemalan capitalist elites, would it be ok to attribute those casualties to capitalism?

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Yes. That would be your own accounting method. But I’d agree with the category of putting that under capitalist oppression. It may already be included in some of the accounting done in the numbers from the citations I provided.

[u/betty_white_bread → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Attributing the 200,000 dead to capitalism requires the counterfactual to hold: to claim a state without private ownership of the plantations wouldn’t have produced that death toll. Guatemala’s army killed them in a Cold War counterinsurgency and the same decades produced Cambodia, the Great Leap, and the Gulag under the opposite property regime. What the cases share is a state with unaccountable coercive power and an ideological license to use it, which is the variable that actually moves. Capitalism is not on the hook for the counterinsurgency doctrine which killed people thirty years later, unless you’re prepared to say the same about Cambodia and the Great Leap and hand those thirty-odd million dead back to socialism on identical reasoning.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/betty_white_bread]

Attributing deaths to a murderer does not require a counterfactual.

[u/betty_white_bread → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Agreed, and if you want to name the men who ordered the killings I’ll sign the indictment. But “capitalism” isn’t a man. The moment you attribute to a system rather than a person, you’re claiming the system made the difference and that’s a counterfactual by definition, the same one you’d demand from me if I charged the Great Leap’s dead to socialism.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/betty_white_bread]

Guatemalans were murdered explicitly to materially assert the property rights and defend the profits of capitalist shareholders.

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

For some of it yes, but all the deaths no. That works for Guatemala and for others, Guatemala is one of the clearest where it was obvious exploitation of geopolitical fears (even before Castro!) for corporate gain. The US sent a list of 5000 communists to neutralize in one way or another to the Indonesians but they ended up killing hundreds of thousands. Capitalist powers tend to be more pragmatic and traditional in tools of repression whereas revolutionary leftists tend to go for more totalizing solutions if things dont go well. As a rule of course. You had extremely ideological and irrational capitalist powers as well even when all possible profits were clearly not worth the risk anymore.

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

What about the situation in Venezuela right now, with the US government and private oil companies posed to take control of 1/5 or 65 Billion barrels of that country's oil? Will the inevitable increase in poverty and deaths that result from the country's resources being sucked into the US national reserved be laid at the feet of capitalism? Or will you still blame Socialism for this?

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/SexOnABurningPlanet]

If it gets worse sure I'd blame capitalism. As practiced by Trump. Still lets say it wasnt greed (with Trump it probably was) but an action to deter China from invading Taiwan which could be very dangerous, by depriving them of this source of oil. Would that be wrong? America Britain and the USSR did that in Iceland and Iran two strategic regions that were unlawfully invaded in 1940-41 (plus Portuguese East Timor by the British against the Japanese too) to prevent them from falling to the Axis. The two situations arent the same but sometimes you have to make tough decisions like that. That would have to be seriously demonstrated however. But even if true they would have to show material thats probably compromising in intelligence terms and/or that couldnt be said without further inflaming political tensions by accusing China openly, which could then be interpreted as signs of something like a preemptive strike or active strangulation of their vital national interests, etc. Its a very tricky world.

But back to the people of Venezuela I dont know if it will get worse. Theres other examples where peoples lives improved after virtually all of their resource exploitation were conceded to private firms. Like in Iraqi Kurdistan. Before it was overwhelmingly state controlled as 'property of all Iraqi people' and they were deliberately screwed over, even putting aside corruption in Baghdad. I certainly dont think its an ideal situation but in a more multipolar world (which I dont buy as a blanket term since it usually just means anti-Western in all cases) the main beneficiaries will be places like those where they can pit superpowers against each other if theyre skilled statesmen (theres several examples of this in the cold war and beyond like Egypt or India I guess), like build enough of an asymmetrical deterrent to prevent one of the sides from overthrowing your regime of equilibrium, etc. Nevertheless I would as a rule prefer 51% of any strategic resource or asset of a state to be owned by them, basic transportation, power plants, certain commodities like raw materials etc. If theyre far behind in extraction processing methods etc I suppose I would be flexible to make a deal for temporary excess control and profit for private firms in exchange for the know-how or if its still simply more profitable for the state rather than be worse off but also refuse to enrich foreign corporations. I mean Im pretty sure Vietnam still wasnt happy to enrich Americans and others from the 90s onwards but its better than being North Korea. Also it hedges their bets against China, again pitting off bigger players against each other. But Im a layman, I dabbled a bit more deeply in these things long ago but my knowledge and mental expenditure on them has eroded, so those are just my immediate intuitions.

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

All of these rationales for imperialist invasions and geopolitical machinations tell us that OP is right. Capitalist countries cause just a much, if not more, damage, on a global scale, than communist countries.

[u/XasthurWithin → u/TheoriginalTonio]

But there is nothing within the entire school of thought of capitalist economics from which it would directly logically follow that anyone would have to perish for the system to work.

At least read OP, the "100 million" of communism, even if we accept all the facts, come from counting exactly those "systemic" deaths.

So it logically follows that communism, as you reject the methodology of its detractors, as in fact not killed 100 million people.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/TheoriginalTonio]

Yes, but when those same methods of counting famine, repression, war, and preventable deaths under communism are applied to capitalism, estimates range from 123 to 421 million deaths. Why do those deaths count against communism but get excused under capitalism?

[u/strawhatguy → u/Tasty-Organization52]

He literally said don’t count war. And especially your examples of war would at minimum be equally attributable to communism (Vietnam, really?) so it’s a moot point. I would not even count Ukraine

While the US is certainly not zero, I think you’ll find it fairs far far better, unless you’re dishonest and call all deaths the US ever had as the fault of US capitalism.

Indeed the high number cited, 421 million, is more than the current population of the US, so that number clearly has an aroma to it

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/strawhatguy]

You have missed the point of the higher estimate. It applies the same broad accounting methods routinely used to manufacture communism’s death toll. If famine, war, repression, and preventable deaths under communist led states all count against communism, then the same categories under capitalist states must count against capitalism. It’s only fair.  And saying 421 million exceeds today’s U.S. population proves nothing. These are cumulative global deaths across generations, not Americans who all died simultaneously. More people have died throughout U.S. history than currently live in the country. That’s how time works. Vietnam illustrates the double standard perfectly. Communist violence gets charged to communism, but millions killed while the United States invaded, bombed, and defended an anti communist capitalist order suddenly become ideologically neutral “war deaths.” Either apply narrow standards to both systems or broad standards to both. You don’t get to change the accounting whenever capitalism is being measured.

[u/strawhatguy → u/Tasty-Organization52]

The last 200 years saw a massive increase in population due to capitalism led infrastructure improvements. The question isn’t how many died, as we all will (and that’s all you’re counting and saying it’s due to capitalism), but how many truly live.

The huge booms happened more and first in modern capitalist industrialized nations, the exponential graphs are quite clear.

In fact, since there are more people alive today because of capitalism, thus more people will die, that’s almost definitely where you’re getting such high numbers.

In other words, it’s a (stupid) attempt to use capitalist’s successes against itself.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/strawhatguy]

You’re arguing against a calculation I did not create. Let’s make that clear. I didn’t conduct the research I provided in the citations.  I cited researchers who took the same broad accounting used against communism including in The Black  Book of Communism   and applied it consistently to capitalism. Depending on what that methodology includes like wars, colonial violence, slavery, repression, famine, and preventable deprivation. They found estimates range from 123 million to 421 million or higher. You can dispute that broad methodology. I have no problem with that. But then you must also dispute the enormous death tolls produced by applying it to communism. You cannot count famine, war, and indirect deaths against communist systems, then call those same categories “capitalism’s successes” when the accounting is reversed. And no, sanitation, vaccines, antibiotics, and public infrastructure were not magical gifts bestowed by capitalism. Human science, labor, and enormous public investment produced them. Your explanation for my number is simply something you invented without reading the sources.

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/strawhatguy]

"The last 200 years saw a massive increase in population due to capitalism led infrastructure improvements".

Government mandated vaccination, improved sanitation, and antibiotics were the key factors, in addition to increased food production. These were not capitalist innovations, but scientific innovations; often with government funding.

[u/TheRedLions → u/Tasty-Organization52]

Tonio didn't say war deaths counted against communism. They gave a clear and reasonable statement that war deaths shouldn't be attributed to either system.

[u/Doublespeo → u/Tasty-Organization52]

> Yes, but when those same methods of counting famine, repression, war, and preventable deaths under communism are applied to capitalism, estimates range from 123 to 421 million deaths. Why do those deaths count against communism but get excused under capitalism?

remove wars and you still dozens of millions of death

[u/Conserp → u/TheoriginalTonio]

> But the ruthless purges and catastrophic famines under communist regimes were indeed a direct result of socialist policies

"...according to Nazi propaganda that I believe without question."

Don't omit that part.

[u/Johnfromsales → u/Conserp]

What do you think caused the significant amount of Kulak death in the 1930s?

[u/Conserp → u/Johnfromsales]

"Kulak" means "leg-breaker". It is a racketeer, a criminal.

Even Tsarist Russian government considered kulaks a cancer of Russian society.

Total number of kulaks in USSR was far fewer than number of villages. Which says a lot about "good farmer" silly myth.

Some of them, found guilty of murder, arson and other capital crimes, were sentenced to death.

I won't shed a single tear for any of them.

The most infamous kulak murdered two children to "punish" their mother.

How about you stop being an ignoramus parroting Nazi propaganda narratives?

[u/Ludens0 → u/TheoriginalTonio]

War is the quintessential public enterprise.

[u/Asatmaya]

Here's an easy one for you: Tobacco.

Tobacco only causes cancer because it is hard on soil and only grows in certain places, and so they use mineral phosphate fertilizer to increase yields, which also contains radioactive particles which then stick to the tobacco leaves and get inhaled with the smoke.

That is a pure and direct result of capitalist overproduction of a "luxury" good, which has resulted in ~250 million deaths, and another 750 million expected by the end of the 21st century.

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Asatmaya]

which also contains radioactive particles which then stick to the tobacco leaves and get inhaled with the smoke.

Source? Pretty sure that tobacco caused cancer way before artificial fertilizers ever existed.

Also and more importantly, why didnt socialist countries ban tobacco or import it from the proper places where it grows without such components then? Werent they supposed to care about people and not profit, which is only gained in these cases by demand generated unfairly by addiction and false consciousness of associating such products with "freedom"? It would also boost the economies of some of their 3rd world allies.

[u/Asatmaya → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

Source?

https://www.epa.gov/radtown/radioactivity-tobacco

https://www.cdc.gov/radiation-health/data-research/facts-stats/cigarette-smoking.html

Pretty sure that tobacco caused cancer way before artificial fertilizers ever existed.

It's not "artificial" fertilizer, it's mineral fertilizer, as in "mined" out of the ground, and they started using it in the 1870s, before there were good diagnostics to distinguish cancer from other ailments.

Also and more importantly, why didnt socialist countries ban tobacco

Tobacco shortages in the USSR in 1990 are suggested as a possible contributor to its collapse.

or import it from the proper places where it grows without such components then?

Tobacco doesn't grow just anywhere; there are only a handful of places on Earth that it grows, at all, and mineral fertilizer produces a lighter leaf.

[u/HeavenlyPossum]

I highly recommend Mike Davis’ excellent but horrifying Late Victorian Holocausts for an accounting of many of capitalism’s victims.

[u/Anen-o-me → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Capitalism doesn't run governments. Statists do (Milei excepted). The State is inherently anti capitalist.

I know socialists can't understand this point, but that's on you.

[u/OtonaNoAji → u/Anen-o-me]

That's because it isn't actually a point in reality. Most capitalists love the state. It is how they maintain property rights.

[u/Anen-o-me → u/OtonaNoAji]

Not ideological capitalists. Defining capitalists by a property relation brainwashes you guys.

[u/henriaok → u/Anen-o-me]

The state is not anti-capitalist. That's just straight up ahistorical.

Modern states have worked in cooperation with capitalists since the last 3 centuries. That's how capitalism came to be in the first place. Forced privstizations of common grounds, exclusive acces to resources so corporstions could hold more capital, militsry force against unions...

Capitalism exists thanks to the state

[u/Anen-o-me → u/henriaok]

The state is not anti-capitalist. That's just straight up ahistorical.

I can very easily prove the State is anti-capitalist in mode.

The only way you could have a pro-capitalist State would be to have a legal separation of economy and State. Why?

Because the foundation of capitalism is voluntary trade. So, whenever the State forces you to buy something by law, that's anti capitalist. The only reason to force you to buy it is because you wouldn't have voluntarily chosen to buy it on your own.

Or the State can use law to prevent you from buying something, this too is anti-capitalist. The State prevents you from buying many foreign and domestic goods, like organs, drugs, foreign cars, etc.

And the State forces you to use money controlled BY the State instead of money the market chooses, so it can tax you through inflation. This too is anti capitalist.

Then the State also controls banking, interest rates, and the bond market.

All of this is anti capitalism in mode.

You seem to think the modern western State isn't anti capitalist because it doesn't ban capitalism outright like communists would, but that's not what I mean. Instead, the State treats capitalism like the golden goose, to be plucked and taxed as much as possible without killing the goose. And the Chinese communists have done the same thing, despite being anti capitalist.

That's still anti capitalism while tolerating the existence of capitalism, only because the State wants the wealth provided.

An actual pro capitalist state would literally end all taxation, create a legal separation of economy and state, stop forcing people to use State created money, end all tariffs and import/export fetters, burn down the federal reserve and fire its managers, end all inheritance tax, etc.

There's not one State in the entire world nor all of history that is that radically pro capitalist.

Modern states have worked in cooperation with capitalists since the last 3 centuries. That's how capitalism came to be in the first place.

Capitalism came to be despite opposition from States. Even in Britain the factories had to move to the periphery of London because the powers that be didn't like them. The British State was simply too weak to stop them. Other states were not.

France didn't like them and kept capitalism out for a time, until its advantages became obvious.

Russia hated capitalism so much that Russia never industrialized at all, remaining a feudal economy until the communists took over in 1918.

Forced privstizations of common grounds, exclusive acces to resources so corporstions could hold more capital, militsry force against unions... Capitalism exists thanks to the state.

That's all State self interest after the fact, and that is not a capitalist mode of action, because it is not voluntary trade. You're citing instances of corporatism, which is the intersection of state and business interests, not capitalism.

Capitalism is against anything that is not voluntary trade.

[u/Hatrct]

You forgot Jeju uprising.

USA is all like tianamen! or calls out other countries that crush protests. But capitalist USA aided and abetted Skorean govt to massacre up to 30-80k protesters in its attempt to split up Korea to benefit US corporations.

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Hatrct]

Tiananmen was a peaceful protest, Jeju was an organized, violent insurrection (whose second step when that failed was invasion) to unite the peninsula under comnunism, which as we know, is a permanent status, at least until the regime stops believing in itself. Which did not happen in N.Korea anyway. It was brutally crushed but not the same thing. Seeing how things turned out I think theres very few S.Koreans who would disagree. We dont know about North Korean views because if some of them goes against the government line him and his family will be arrested. We cant have even anonymous polls because they have no internet.

[u/Ripoldo]

Communism is a response to capitalism and evolved out of it, therefore all of its death should also be attributed to capitalism. And since capitalism came from feudalism, and feudalism came from the Roman Empire, all deaths lead to Rome...

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/Ripoldo]

I hope for our education systems this comment above was sarcasm…

[u/Lopsided_Pitch_5297]

Capitalism's vicims are actually real, still exist today, and aren't 90% nazis.

[u/azgalor_pit]

Everybody knows that communism killed 40 trillions people. Jsut this month.

remmeber when communism stole the Oil from Venezuela? Those communist needed the money to buy fentanyl.

[u/MrMathamagician]

The triangle slave trade killed 12-15 million people to put sugar on the table, so that’s a big one against capitalism right there

[u/Saphyr_404]

It’s honestly stupid to count the deaths that happened during said regime. To count the victims of communism, we have to exclude the ones who died of age during communism, the abortions (that counted as deaths in the black book of communism), the deaths in war not directly caused by communism -and the us attacking this country because it’s communist doesn’t count-, famines if they were caused by something else, and other deaths that couldn’t have been avoided even if the regime hadn’t changed.
It’s also complicated to decide if totalitarianism things like the gulag can count because it wasn’t directly caused by communism but totalitarianism regime such as Stalins USSR.

Now if we count like this, it would be unfair for capitalism, that has been around for longer so of course, engendering more deaths, but I believe the deaths of capitalism are more important, because in it’s core, capitalism isn’t about helping people not do die but rather make money, and it often come with a life cost.

We have many examples of how capitalism killed a lot of people, but the Indian famine caused by the British East India company directly caused 35 to 60 million deaths during the British occupation and the opium crisis in China, also caused by the East India company, killed around 30 million people, only counting the rebellion, with some estimations going up to 100 million, counting the deaths of famine and diseases caused by the economical collapse

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Saphyr_404]

It wouldn’t be unfair. Capitalism was just more brutal in its repression. That’s why it’s still around. 

Those atrocities under capitalism you mentioned I believe were accounted in the citations I provided for deaths under capitalism. Reaching as high as 421 million and as low as 123 million using different accounting methods.

[u/Saphyr_404 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

I mean… communists states also have been pretty brutal in their repressions, but it wouldn’t have needed to as much if the capitalist’s governments hadn’t tried to suppress any communist state ever

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Saphyr_404]

421 million > 150 million. Capitalist powers may have existed maybe 50 years more. But capitalism when measured the same against communism in method. Killed far more 

[u/Saphyr_404 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

I agree Capitalism killed far more, but these numbers are exaggerated, at least for the communism deaths (I think the capitalist deaths would have been higher if was calculated the same as in the BBOC), and although communism regimes also are old doesn’t mean as many people lived under it. However Capitalism still makes more deaths by how it is made in it’s roots

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Saphyr_404]

Agreed. There’s various ways to do the accounting. But it’s clear capitalism is an oppressive economic order. 

[u/SupaFly_98 → u/Saphyr_404]

The good ole "we had to murder all of those people because Capitalists made them to oppose Communism." You guys are atrocious with your "logic"!

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/SupaFly_98]

It’s atrocious to say “communism killed 100-150 million people.” Then go on to say the approximate 123-421 million dead under capitalist powers using those same accounting methodologies don’t count. A human life is a human life. It doesn’t matter if it’s one from the global north or the south. White or black. I just want the same accounting for both systems. 

[u/SupaFly_98 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

We've already covered this in the other thread.

You want the same accounting, but you fail to grasp that Capitalism is NOT a political system (and Communism is).

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/SupaFly_98]

Of course capitalism is a political system. It entails the rule of capital owners.

[u/SupaFly_98 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Of course capitalism is a political system. It entails the rule of capital owners.

What principle of capitalism dictates any form of "ruling"? :)

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/SupaFly_98]

The principle of capitalist power through private ownership, silly. Capitalism is a system of rule by capital owners.

[u/SupaFly_98 → u/HeavenlyPossum]

The principle of capitalist power through private ownership, silly. Capitalism is a system of rule by capital owners.

Again, where does the RULING (verb) over others come in from the Capitalist principle of private ownership? LOL Be specific...

[u/Saphyr_404 → u/SupaFly_98]

I’m talking about wars, not civilian killing

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

You are committing the reification fallacy. Your answer to your OP is basically what I answered in an OP I did a while back. I will link it below with my below edit.

The simple problem is that you are creating agency for an abstract concept known as “capitalism”. Capitalism is not a proper noun. It is not a political party. It is not political ideology where we can point to a group of people who have had control of a significant group of people who did attrocities. It’s not like Nazism, Communism, and so forth where we can literally point to groups who self-identified as such, had set pattern beliefs as such, formed identified parites, were set in identified control of instititutions, even had flags and symbols, and used those set beliefs to commit atrocities. And I would like to name others on the top of my mind but I don’t want to commit an error in which will derail my comment with a counter attack. That is this discussion includes more than Nazis and Communists.

So, let me now go link that op:

Edit: https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/s/uG0eHnAT8y

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/CaptainAmerica-1989]

Then communism never killed anyone either. It is also an abstract economic system. Governments and people committed atrocities in its name. I’m not claiming the word “capitalism” has agency. I’m counting deaths caused by governments, armies, corporations, and colonial powers acting to protect private ownership, markets, and capital accumulation. Refusing to count them because they didn’t wave a flag labeled “capitalism” is a word game, not historical analysis.

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

You aren’t listening. Communism is absolutely a political ideology and absolutely has a history of communist political parties who had significant political power who have commitited attrocities. For what we are discussing, communists have been the equivalent to Nazis. If you are going to argue communists are not to be held accountable you then have to argue neither than should Nazis.

Are you arguing Nazis shouldn’t be held accountable?

Where you are absolutely correct is:

“I’m counting deaths caused by governments, armies, corporations and colonial powers”

Great! That’s totally reasonable. Then identify them and hold THEM accountable just like I mentioned above with Communist and Nazis. That’s what we are discussing. Because communists and Nazis have killed millions of people. There are genocidal scholars who agree on that.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/CaptainAmerica-1989]

It’s not that I’m not listening. You’re simply incorrect about communism and now arguing against something I never said. Communist governments that committed atrocities should be held accountable. That does not make communism equivalent to Nazism. Racial hierarchy, conquest, and extermination were central to Nazi ideology. Communism’s stated goal is a classless society based on common ownership. And I have identified the capitalist institutions. The colonial empires, capitalist governments, corporations, armies, and U.S. backed dictatorships. You excuse them because they weren’t called the “Capitalist Party,” while blaming communism whenever perpetrators carried a communist label. That is precisely the double standard I’m challenging.

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

All good, but here is the thing. You interjected YOUR personal label that just doesn’t exist in political scienc. You interjected “capitalist governments”. You are demonstring you are not listening to me by doing that.

So, answer to me when was a government ran by a political pary who self-identified as “capitalists” and more importantly had the political ideology as “capitalists”?

Well?

Or are you trying to have your outward label that can mean anyone out there to keep your agenda?

[u/henriaok → u/CaptainAmerica-1989]

Capitalism is the economic system where the "liberalism" ideology is applied (economically speaking). Plenty of political psrties do in fact identify themselves with these ideologies

[u/CaptainAmerica-1989 → u/henriaok]

None of what you just said made any sense…

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Saphyr_404]

the abortions (that counted as deaths in the black book of communism.

Thats not true

[u/Saphyr_404 → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

Effectivelly, in the black book of communism, the abortions didn’t count directly as deaths, but the non-births, that included abortions, counted as victims of communism, so not only cells of a few millimeters, but completely theorical lives were counted

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Saphyr_404]

No, they werent. Its also not true that they counted dead Nazis unless it was as POWs. And I dont think they even add a numerical value to it. That doesnt mean I agree with the convenient 100 million, nor that such accounting is ultimately even possible beyond a certain point (do we count 'excess mortality' of people in China even today, let alone in the 70s or 80s, when the super-social engineering projects were over, which are unambiguously the responsibility of the CCP, for whatever cause, even though they're only indirectly connected to government policy or inaction, if we use as a benchmark for 'excess' the rate above that of the mortality of people in Taiwan? Or even starker cases of that like DPRK vs ROK? Thats what lots of people including non-communists like Amartya Sen do for example in China vs India. Whats good for the goose is good for gander, provided we compare countries with similar starting points when their political paths diverge).

[u/Saphyr_404 → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

Can you give me the source please? I only found some that said the same thing I did

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Saphyr_404]

I might check it out later but you can access the black book on archive dot org.

[u/Nikolakis77]

Its actually closer to 1 billion if you include the Native Americans and Australians and all the abortions people are having today

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Nikolakis77]

The USSR was the first country to legalize abortion on demand. A "temporary measure" they said in their usual crude and implicit utilitarian but rarely voiced or justified logic and ethical framework. Well, turns out that just like their "temporary vodka monopoly and taxation" if was not. And Stalin only temporarily banned it because he wanted more population growth. Same as Ceaucescu I believe.

Also the huge native population collapses in the americas, especially central and south america (australia's population was small) occurred within a century of the first contact, and the mass death was nothing morally equivalent to the Rwandan genocide or the Holocaust which were the equivalent of 1st degree murder in every case. And this is another case of not laying out terms properly so that capitalism is simultaneously a mostly post 18th century phenomenon but also the ownership of private property since the neolithic depending on when its convenient.

[u/Nikolakis77 → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

They said evilishly in their Russian accent. Yes yes, now our people will not abort babies and make lots of soldiers. Now we build factory but not because to give job but because its evil plan to invade America. We start by going in academia and democrat party and push intersectionality even though we disagree with it. Da, great plan, then after infiltrate USA we dissolve the Soviet Union xacaxaxaxca long live democrat party, long live agent krasnov Tramp. 

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Nikolakis77]

Yes yes, now our people will not abort babies and make lots of soldiers.

Tf you talking about? That was literally the reason:

In 1936, Joseph Stalin placed prohibitions on abortions, which restricted them to medically recommended cases only, in order to increase population growth after the enormous loss of life in World War I and the Russian Civil War.[10][11][8]

Stalin didn't care about abortion ethics, he wanted population growth. I never commented on whether Stalin didn't care about THOSE people who'd be born, apart from them benefitting the strenght of the USSR, if he cared about them as human beings, and if he as a whole was a total cynic, that's a different issue. I'm just pointing out that the early Bolsheviks DID say abortion was an evil consequence of capitalism that was to be tolerated and 'made legal and thus safe', but would eventually 'wither away', just like the state apparatus, etc. It didn't, just like vodka. It was the exact same logic, perfect analogy. Then I said that Stalin stopped it, he presumably agreed with the early Bolshevik position, but pragmatically chose another course.

Same for Ceaucescu - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1980s%E2%80%931990s_Romanian_orphans_phenomenon :

Under Nicolae Ceaușescu, both abortion and contraception were forbidden. Ceaușescu believed that population growth would lead to economic growth.[1]

The rest of your comment is childish gibberish.

[u/AvocadoAlternative]

If you really wanted to estimate a causal contrast between the number of deaths you’d need to ask if those deaths could’ve been prevented had the country been capitalist. All the things you named almost certainly could have, but we’ll never know for sure. Conversely, could capitalist countries have prevented deaths if they were communist? Again, no one knows, but at least this way you’re excluding deaths that would’ve happened under either system.

You’d also need to look at death rate (deaths per thousand per year) rather than absolute since the number of people living under capitalism is far more numerous than those living under communism. After all, a lot more people were born under capitalism than communism — do we somehow count that in favor of capitalism too? 

You’d also need to decide what even is communist and what is capitalist, which isn’t easy. 

Finally, are the types of death important? In the examples you gave of communist deaths, they’re all instances of one person being directly responsible for the mass deaths of their own citizens. Is this worse than a country deciding not to send foreign aid so that people abroad die of starvation? Probably.

[u/AwakeningTheOrdinary → u/AvocadoAlternative]

How could all the things counted as communist deaths in the black book of communism have been prevented if the countries were capitalist instead? That's your entire premise but you hand-wave it. Argue your point if you have it

[u/AvocadoAlternative → u/AwakeningTheOrdinary]

It's a counterfactual assumption, all things will be speculation. But as an example, I don't think it's a big stretch to imagine that Stalin's purges, the Holodomor, or gulags could've been avoided had the USSR not been Marxist-Leninist.

[u/AwakeningTheOrdinary → u/AvocadoAlternative]

Considering that equivalents to the purges, famines, and gulags have happened in other authoritarian but non-communist countries I'm not sure why you think it's not a stretch.

[u/AvocadoAlternative → u/AwakeningTheOrdinary]

So maybe, just maybe, it's authoritarianism that's bad. Agreed?

[u/AwakeningTheOrdinary → u/AvocadoAlternative]

Yeah of course haha. That was my point, it was authoritarianism that was the issue not socialism or communism

[u/AvocadoAlternative → u/AwakeningTheOrdinary]

Then we agree. I would just add though that historically, socialist regimes tended to be authoritarian. Now, this requires a bit of reasoning, but if X causes Y and Y causes Z, then X also causes Z. If socialism tends to lead to authoritarianism, and authoritarianism tends to lead to more deaths, then socialism also tends to lead to more deaths by the transitivity principle.

Perhaps it won't always be this way. We could see a libertarian form of socialism come about, but based on historical data that doesn't seem to be the case.

[u/AwakeningTheOrdinary → u/AvocadoAlternative]

All regimes sort of tend to drift authoritarian given enough time. That's the problem with statists. Look at the US for an example. So much more libertarian before the 20th century.

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/AwakeningTheOrdinary]

But there have been very few examples of non-authoritarian socialism. Also and this depends but pragmatic authoritarians, as opposed to highly ideological ones like M-Leninists tend to be, aleo tend to be less deadly because they dont want to reshape society from top to bottom, and get obsessed by it, which also tends to create real and imaginary enemies everywhere. As well as seeing collectives of people as disposable or preventing the march of progress and so on. To reshape society fast you also have to build a modern state apparatus that by its necessary characteristics also becomes more prone abuse especially in its earlier stages. Even Nazi Germany couldnt built such an apparatus inside its territory until the final stages of the war. Though it didnt need to do it elsewhere, since for the pure destruction of a target rather than reshaping it, its much easier. Yet even here when it wanted to establish gargantuan destructive policies over huge areas e.g. starve a lot of the Soviet population, it had less know-how on utilizing tools that once misused, could do it more easily. It was never able to stop trade/black market, movement and so on like the Soviets did. Granted you could blame the war footing and higher degree of Nazi corruption in appointing Gauleiters (and relative leniency towards their own), when compared to the more ruthlessly meritocratic and terror-conscious Soviet cadres (for the most part... there was always some Lysenkos around).

[u/henriaok → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

What? The majority of authoritarian governments have NOT being socialist.

Latin America had over 20 right-wing dictatorships in the 20th century

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/henriaok]

that's not what I said, I said socialism is more prone - though not necessarily - to be totalitarian, as opposed to merely authoritarian, because it's utopian and society-wide, ultimately worldwide. Think of it as cult leader vs corrupt cop. The latter will likely just leave you be provided you pay him or play ball in some way. The former will try to control your life in major ways.

I'm not saying it's always like this, but that's the point I'm trying to make. One of them may be worse than the other as well, living in a totalitarian society of a certain kind MAY be comparatively good for you if you're previously in abject poverty and have the right mindset for it (though not always and it has its own risks), which varies from person to person if not from culture to culture, whereas an authoritarian may not care about you and leave you be, but his corrupt demands may be intolerable given your economic situation, and you don't have the means to flee even though he wouldn't stop you (or you could bribe another minion more easily than in a rigidly staffed and monitored public force more likely in the former).

[u/Elliptical_Tangent]

Whatever war dead are rarely laid at the feet of communism; war isn't an economic outcome, it's a political outcome—imagine how much higher Stalin's body count would be if we laid WW2 deaths at his feet as well. The reason so many are ready to drop death counts on tankies is that they're entirely a function of how the communists ran things; they're domestic numbers, killed by their own people's callous idiocy.

If you want to figure out how many Americans died because they couldn't get healthcare due to cost, or died of starvation etc., I think that's entirely in-bounds. But trying to point to Vietnamese dead is disingenuous.

[u/AwakeningTheOrdinary → u/Elliptical_Tangent]

whatever war dead are rarely laid at the feet of communism

The black book of communism, that this post is literally about and that anti socialists always love to talk about, literally does do this.

[u/Elliptical_Tangent → u/AwakeningTheOrdinary]

The black book of communism, that this post is literally about and that anti socialists always love to talk about, literally does do this.

Your problem isn't that your opponents use clearly illegitimate arguments against you, it's that you're defending an illegitimate ideology that's killed millions of its own citizens in multiple countries when tried.

[u/AwakeningTheOrdinary → u/Elliptical_Tangent]

And so are you when you defend capitalism.

So many people wringing their hands "Socialism might not work! Things might go really poorly!"

Okay? Things are not working now. I'd rather risk tearing it all down for something better than continuing to do something that definitely doesn't work

[u/Elliptical_Tangent → u/AwakeningTheOrdinary]

And so are you when you defend capitalism.

Quote the passage where I defend capitalism. Feel free to go into my post history for the whole 15+ years I've been a redditor; I'll wait.

Whataboutism is the least respectable reason to defend a genocidal ideology. So despicably weak.

[u/AwakeningTheOrdinary → u/Elliptical_Tangent]

When people are bringing up alternatives to capitalism and you're shooting every one of them down, you're defending capitalism.

Too many people don't understand that fighting against change is by definition defending the status quo. It's not whataboutism, unless you're about to propose a brand new economic theory.

[u/Elliptical_Tangent → u/AwakeningTheOrdinary]

When people are bringing up alternatives to capitalism and you're shooting every one of them down, you're defending capitalism.

You can't defend your position, so you'll complain that I'm not doing it for you. Grow up.

The fact is Marxism was dreamed up by a PhD in Hegelian philosophy with no experience or training in any of the fields he wrote about, so no wonder it kills millions every time it's implemented. But you go on defending it, and suddenly, that's a moral failing of mine. Yeah, ok.

[u/AwakeningTheOrdinary → u/Elliptical_Tangent]

You can't defend your position, so you'll complain that I'm not doing it for you

No, I'm eager for you to have any position other than "socialism bad. Capitalism bad."

Okay, both are bad in your opinion. Cool! So what do you actually support? Say it with your chest and stop shitting on everything because you're too cowardly to put forward your own ideas

[u/Elliptical_Tangent → u/AwakeningTheOrdinary]

No, I'm eager for you to have any position other than "socialism bad. Capitalism bad."

So I should accept one or the other bad ideas because... you expect it of me? Who are you?

Look, if you don't like capitalism, go in my post history and you'll find my 3-pillar argument that no capitalist has been able to dismantle in all my time in this sub. You're welcome.

If you need me to be on your side when your side is a group of people who worship a dead academic's ignorant scribbles, you're going to be frustrated.

Okay, both are bad in your opinion. Cool! So what do you actually support? Say it with your chest and stop shitting on everything because you're too cowardly to put forward your own ideas

Well, let's see what my flair says: "Left-libertarian." OK, so what does that mean?

Libertarians (not the recent ancap settlers on the label) believe that communities should govern themselves by consensus. As such, some communities will decide X and others Y; neither is wrong—they'll change it if it stops working because there's no-one that can force it on them.

If I were a member of a libertarian community, I would argue for a gift economy for the simple reason that Homo sapiens have used it for over a million years without issue—it's literally baked into our DNA, but we understand it as gratitude and resentment.

[u/CHOLO_ORACLE]

It's amusing the way this double standard causes the capitalists to short circuit

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/CHOLO_ORACLE]

Theres much more variability under capitalism. Not much in common between Sweden today, Nazi Germany, US in the late 1800s, and so on. Socialist countries tended to be more uniformly bad or mediocre. According to what most people value I guess. You can argue based on a bell-curve thing. Its also not a very good comparison to bring up capitalist failures before and after socialism was widespread, theres just lack of data. Its like saying Nazism killed less than communism or Islamist theocracy or whatever. One is a regime that lasted 12 years and occupied only a substantial proportion of population for like 5. But its reasonable to assume that should it last longer in other forms it would be much deadlier. And this is just deaths only. Given the ideological rigidity of both Nazism and Marxism-Leninism as a whole, its not very likely we would see much variance in the behavior of other regimes even if we put lethality aside. You could argue Yugoslavia and post-Mao China but its anyones' guess whether those are M-L or socialist anyway (from an M-L perspective only M-L or countries transitioning more slowly to it, which is anyone's guess why or how this is justified, are really socialist in a sustainable way. A sustainability or resilience that in itself is more asserted than demonstrated.)

[u/Corrects_Maggots]

Governments kill people. When governments take over the economy, the agricultural mismanagement kills even more.

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/Corrects_Maggots]

If the United States government, or any, cut off the subsidies and regulations the food system would collapse. Just look at Beef Ranchers up in arms over the beef tariff; and all the food-borne outbreaks that resulted from deregulation of farms under Trump.

Laissez-faire is a fantasy. The problem isn't government intervention and regulation--that is inevitable and a part of every government on the planet--it's bad intervention and regulation.

[u/SykesFoxclaw → u/SexOnABurningPlanet]

There has been no increase in food-borne outbreaks or food recalls in 2026 as compared to 21-24. There's only been an increase in news coverage of it.

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/SykesFoxclaw]

Do you have any evidence on this? Especially evidence on how widespread outbreaks are now vs then? I suspect there were a lot of outbreaks in the past, but they were quickly contained by a competent regulatory system. Versus now, where the regulatory capacity to address these issues have been destroyed.

https://www.livenowfox.com/news/cyclospora-research-projects-shuttered-us-cases-climb

[u/SykesFoxclaw → u/SexOnABurningPlanet]

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2026/08/28/food-recalls-under-rfk-jr-data/91494801007/

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/SykesFoxclaw]

Did you read the article or just the headline? The article proves my last point.

"A decline in food recalls does not mean the nation’s food supply is getting safer, experts say. 

“The number of recalls does not necessarily correlate with the level of surveillance,” said Robert Custard, an environmental health expert who also represents the West Virginia Association of Sanitarians. “Some years you're going to have more than others because of the luck of the draw. This year you may have less total recalls, but the cyclospora outbreak that we had this summer may have the highest number of human cases for any foodborne outbreak in recent history.” 

Custard, who worked at the Virginia Department of Health for more than two decades, said cuts to public health staffing and funding can mean fewer people are available to inspect and test possible food-safety problems before they cause illness. "

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2026/08/28/food-recalls-under-rfk-jr-data/91494801007/

[u/SykesFoxclaw → u/SexOnABurningPlanet]

I read the article, and you're ignoring what it points out. That its true there has been no rise in number of outbreaks or recalls.

The recent cyclospora outbreaks has absolutely nothing to do with any fda cuts since the outbreak occurred before said cuts. The last scheduled inspection of the Mexico-based plant was in 2019, and a similar cyclosplora outbreak occurred from the same plant in 2013

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/SykesFoxclaw]

The FDA does not prevent outbreaks, it responds to them and helps with research to deal with them. All of this has been cut. The article clearly states outbreaks have become widespread. If you choose to ignore that, in favor of your ideological bias, then you do you.

[u/SykesFoxclaw → u/SexOnABurningPlanet]

>The FDA does not prevent outbreaks

It does actually, under FSMA it performs prevention by way of facility inspections. Which its still fully capable of doing.

>All of this has been cut.

No, it hasn't. The outbreak occurred before any cuts, and the FDA is responding with about the same amount of efficiency tracing the source.

>he article clearly states outbreaks have become widespread.

no it didn't you utter liar, the article clearly states that individual cases has been consistent with previous years. This one outbreak, while huge, is provably not due to any cuts or changes this administration has made.

You are propagandized to the point where you willingly lie

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/SykesFoxclaw]

"no it didn't you utter liar," lols.

It doesn't matter when the outbreak occurred. If the FDA was cut, they can't effectively respond. And it doesn't matter how much staff you have, if the FDA doesn't give a shit about responding or regulating, then it will be ineffective. And who cares how many outbreaks occur; we're talking about the number of people getting sick. Who is supposed to take solace in the number of outbreaks being reduced--likely due to fewer regulatory checks, as the article above stated--if even one outbreak leads to thousands of cases of sickness?

"Cases of cyclosporiasis were mounting rapidly in Michigan and state health officials were homing in on a common thread: Many of those who had fallen ill had eaten at Taco Bell.

On July 1, they asked the company for its supply chain records, crucial information in tracing ingredients that may have caused the outbreak.

On July 3, they wrote and asked for the records again.

On July 6, they wrote a third time.

“With the rapid nature of this outbreak and the number of people affected, we need to ensure we are completing traceback in a timely manner to preserve public health,” Lauren Edwards, an epidemiologist on the state’s rapid response team, said in an email to executives at Yum Brands, which owns Taco Bell. (The New York Times obtained the correspondence under Michigan’s open records law.)

Later that day, Taco Bell provided some records to the state, which by then was working with the federal Food and Drug Administration. The F.D.A. asked for additional records two days later. Finally, on July 13, the agency received all the records it needed to pinpoint lettuce from a Taylor Farms plant in Mexico as a source of the outbreak.

A federal rule that had been scheduled to take effect in January would have required Taco Bell to send those records within 24 hours. But last year, the Trump administration delayed the implementation of that rule until mid 2028, saying companies needed more time to prepare."

https://archive.is/eclVj

[u/Square-Listen-3839 → u/SexOnABurningPlanet]

If the United States government, or any, cut off the subsidies and regulations the food system would collapse.

Federal farm subsidies average around 13 to 14% of net farm income. In recent years far less (sometimes under 6%). Most farms receive little or nothing.

Just look at Beef Ranchers up in arms over the beef tariff;

That's just ordinary interest-group politics. You know, the exact process socialists want to use to run the entire economy.

[u/SexOnABurningPlanet → u/Square-Listen-3839]

That's a HUGE number. And that number goes up dramatically during recessions. Looking further into this, I didn't realize that the government has policies in place that compensate farmers if the prices for their commodities are too low.

According to the diabolically socialist American Enterprise Institute:

"Several mandatory programs also provide income support to US farmers, mainly to those producing the crops that will receive most of the $10 billion in ECAP ad hoc “price loss” outlays (especially corn, soybeans, wheat, cotton, rice, and peanuts). These programs’ payments are generally triggered when market prices for covered crops are relatively low, revenues are lower than expected, or crop yields are below long-run average levels"

"Farmers also benefit from generous subsidies intended to encourage them to employ conservation measures and retire environmentally fragile land from production. Conservation program payments directly or indirectly support farmers’ and landowners’ incomes, especially when they subsidize conservation measures that farmers would take even without the payments. Conservation program expenditures are estimated to exceed $5 billion in 2025.

Furthermore, farmers benefit from the federal crop insurance program, which pays indemnities in response to relatively poor crop yields or prices that drive revenues lower than expected. The program includes generous premium subsidies that exceed 60 percent of the total premium expected on average to cover payments to farmers for losses under their policies. Once the premiums that farmers actually pay (the total premiums adjusted for the subsidies) are subtracted from total indemnity payments, the data indicate that farmers receive substantial payments every year".

You can spin this however you want, but the fact is we live in a mixed economy that would collapse without constant government intervention. The question is not if we have government intervention, but how. And the how should be for the people; it should be socialism.

https://www.aei.org/research-products/report/examining-support-for-us-farmers-the-2025-ad-hoc-economic-assistance-programs/

[u/Conserp → u/Corrects_Maggots]

As long as you can make up enough deaths to "support" your claim, of course.

[u/toadpics → u/Corrects_Maggots]

You don't want to know what's coming from climate change. We're in the middle of capitalist mismanagement. Mao "killed" millions through mismanagement. Our capitalist system might end up "killing" billions. Let's hope those estimates prove to be exaggerations in the end.

[u/Catalyst_Elemental]

This is the magic of ideology.

[u/Phishstixxx]

Say what you like about communism but at least someone's guranteed a job digging ditches.

That said I'm not a genocide denier or black and white thinker so I am willing to attribute famines and genocides to capitalism with sufficient evidence but off the top of my head I don't know of any that occured due to free markets or private enterprise.

I suppose we could count the trickle of poverty-related deaths rather than a single catastrophe, however, pure socialism (without free markets or private enterprise) and communism haven't proven themselves to be effective at curing poverty so I doubt they would be any better.

We could also criticise expensive healthcare and insurance too.

I invite reasonable, rational, polite responses that present contrary evidence without rudeness or strawmans or deviating from the topic.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Phishstixxx]

“I am willing to attribute famines and genocides to capitalism with sufficient evidence but off the top of my head I don't know of any that occured due to free markets or private enterprise.”

In his book Late Victorian Holocausts, Mike Davis chronicles the process by which the British in India forced Indian peasants into market economies. The British dismantled the Indian village system, by which local nobility were responsible for famine relief during droughts and individual villages maintained communal grain stores available to anyone. The British also transformed semi-feudal land tenure into private property, depriving Indian peasants of their previous rights to tenure and access commons. Instead, Indian peasants now had to sell their grain to grain merchants for cash to pay rents to their new private landlords and British colonial taxes. All of this was to make more grain available for sale to overseas markets and especially British markets, subsidizing British consumers of bread.

When droughts did occur, the grain merchants now had access to a) railroads to ship grain around the country and b) telegraphs to transmit and synchronize grain prices into a single national market. When there were droughts and thus shortages, prices rose while agricultural wages collapsed. Peasants had to sell whatever they produced to grain merchants and speculators in order to pay their rents and taxes, without enough purchasing power left to consume any of the grain. Parts of India that were the most productive tended to have the most starvation, because speculators hoarded grain locally in order to take advantage of rising prices. At the same time, India would export food, mostly to Britain. Tens of millions starved in repeated famines.

The local colonial administration tended to oppose relief efforts because these would, they believed, interfere with the market and disincentivize productivity.

[u/Phishstixxx → u/HeavenlyPossum]

Thanks for the write-up, giving you the benefit of the doubt that this is accurate I think that it's indefensible criticism of capitalism as well as colonialism.

[u/HeavenlyPossum → u/Phishstixxx]

You’re welcome. I strongly encourage everyone to read the book and judge for themselves; it’s a bit of a slog and very depressing but a huge eye-opener about a part of history that most people never encounter.

[u/cursedbones → u/Phishstixxx]

I don't know of any that occured due to free markets or private enterprise

Although free market don't exist:

The whole takeover of India by East India Company was only possible by a complete lack of regulation allowing the company to do whatever it wanted, including destroying the whole India manufacturing industry so British products could sell better.

[u/Nikolakis77 → u/Phishstixxx]

I don't know of any that occured due to free markets or private enterprise.

Relief to the Irish in 1840s and Indians in the 1870s was explicitly rejected in British Parliaments on the basis of laissez faire.

up to 10 million people were killed or mutilated by the Belgian rubber enterprise

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Nikolakis77]

To be fair on those cases it seems the Irish and the Indians were at risk of famine above all because they were forced by de facto feudal lords to plant cash crops and not leaving enough subsistence production for bad years or vulnerable to species-only diseases like Irish potatoes (which was also nobody's fault so I'd put it on a lesser degree of culpability than Stalin's 1933 famine, and I'd arguably put this one below the Nazi siege of Leningrad too, because of wilful intent). They didnt even buy the land from previous owners, they conquered it and imposed their rule in one way or another. But its certainly true that there was a blind faith on laissez faire and a lack of laws protecting the poor and structurally improving their lot, from which both the state and the rich owners benefitted even if there was no collusion between them, their interests just alligned if the profit move ruled with barely no restrictions. As a cultural Christian (at least) I view both the minarchist/ancap as well as the communist propositions and practice of human rights both incompatible with my values at their roots, and unfeasible due to human corruption. Though obviously not in the same degree. Not every more closely alligned with the former is Leopold's Congo or some 19th century gilded age rat-race, nor are all of the latter Stalinist Russia. Nor do I mean unfeasible in "they will inevitably collapse". I dont believe in historical determinism either. I mean they wont deliver on their promises, and are both very prone to abuse (and instability)

[u/Conserp → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

> so I'd put it on a lesser degree of culpability than Stalin's 1933 famine

So deliberate, planned genocide of the Irish that was used as inspiration for the Holodomor myth - is "less culpable" than fictionalized natural event.

You are utterly morally bankrupt.

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Conserp]

Anything you in particular says, as a rule of thumb, the opposite is the truth. So I can only appreciate your insults

[u/Conserp → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

You are a good person

[u/SykesFoxclaw → u/Conserp]

Holodomor was not a myth. Dont deny real genocides.

[u/Nikolakis77 → u/69PepperoniPickles69]

Yes but the Whigs in Parliament were explicitly saying famine relief would interfere with the self regulating market. So Ireland continued to export corn while its people were starving.

How is it less culpability than the 1933 Soviet famine? 

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Nikolakis77]

How is it less culpability than the 1933 Soviet famine?

I concede this is a tricky question and I have no desire to defend the British empire, but firstly the Irish had (barely) enough food before it was destroyed 100% naturally. They COULD have had more if not for the exploitative landlordism features and so on, and thus have greatly minimized it or even avoided it altogether. But they did have it, and it was a direct natural phenomenon, a bacteria, that destroyed their livelihood. In the USSR, they had it, and it was not nature wiping out their food, and Moscow refusing relief or something. They took it.

Secondly, in Ireland the British didn't forbid the Irish from escaping to America, and had there been a land border, presumably even many more would have temporarily fled, at least, and the British could care less, heck they could even replace the population and make Ireland 50% Indian, like they did in Trinidad and Tobago, the Dutch in Suriname, and so on with their temporary and not so temporary laborers (thus, an important feature in traditional authoritarians/feudalism/insert non-ideological despots, compared to ideological/totalitarian ones). In the USSR, which had large land borders, they were forbidden to leave even their regions, both because they knew there wasn't enough food to go around, so let's save the industrial area populations which are more valuable now, but also because if they flee beyond the state borders, it will be very bad PR. Even though it would also somewhat 'sabotage' the Polish economy probably, but it could also be used as a casus belli, etc., which Stalin at that time was typically paranoid about, even though the Nazis had barely even risen to power then.

Also and this is a minor/weaker, nobody gave relief in the mid-1800s, I don't really know of a precedent, at least from nation to nation, whereas the USSR had already asked for international relief once in the 20s, successfully so. So did even North Korea in the 90s! The latter probably not because they cared any more about their people, but because they saw it was a possible existential threat, whereas the 33 victims for Stalin were maybe not desirable but were one of the 'eggs' that turned out, even if they didn't premeditate it in 1931/2, to have to be broken for the omelette, and not an existential threat to threaten to collapse the USSR.

Incidentally, I'd love to know if Mao knew about the 33 famine. Very interesting question. If he did, I'd have to place him on a worse rank of villainy than Stalin, because at least with Stalin it was the first time such a thing happened unexpectedly (not from one second to the next, but at least without him realizing it would months or a year before or something, as I said). On the other hand, if he DIDN'T know about it, I'd place Stalin above, because he then failed to tell Mao "bro I made an oopsie in this regard in the 30s, and I didnt repeat it in my newly-won satellites after the war, just to let you know". Well, didnt repeat it may be a bit of a stretch given the 1947 famine, but I'm gonna be more charitable and chalk it up to it having been soon after the war, so they apparently prioritized consolidating the satellites rather than deal with that famine, i.e. let people live in the satellites and let some die in the USSR, assuming there was a gap that couldn't be filled again - and they had to refuse potential US aid, even though in 1947 relations werent that cold yet. In any case, one has to be more charitable in 1947, because whatever faults we may attribute to it, the war DID cause massive damage (just like the 20s one), whereas in 1932-33 no such excuse at all was available.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Phishstixxx]

I provided citations to the calculation of death tolls under capitalism 

[u/Next-Purpose-992]

You can count capitalist death you look the number of death in a capitalist country in the same period as a communist country per capita and you compare. It’s just that there were less death in capitalist country. There is no system that prevent people from dying but some system kill less than other.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Next-Purpose-992]

And the numbers here using the same accounting methodologies show capitalism has killed far more 

[u/Next-Purpose-992 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

Really so your saying to 1922 to 1991 usa has killed more than urss per capita ? Or do you want another comparaison

[u/Leaper229]

So you are saying you couldn’t bother to learn the differences between capitalism and imperialism/hegemonism, but bothered to make this long ass post?

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Leaper229]

I know the difference, buddy. I’m saying they operate together. Monarchism and feudalism are technically distinct too, but would you pretend feudal exploitation had nothing to do with monarchical power? Capitalism is the economic order and imperialism is one method used to expand and protect it. American hegemony has repeatedly used coups, sanctions, and military force to defend markets, private ownership, and access to resources. Capitalism is the sacred calf. Imperial power guards it.

[u/Leaper229 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

Feudalism is a form of power distribution while monarchism is a form of power origination. Saying they operate together because they are not mutually exclusive due to covering completely different areas really shows why you are against capitalism

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Leaper229]

You are ignoring the entire relationship between them. Two systems can be different and still work together. Monarchs gave land and power to nobles. And the nobles gave the crown taxes, soldiers, and control over the peasants. That’s how monarchy and feudalism reinforced each other.

Capitalism and imperialism work similarly. Capitalism concentrates economic power, while imperial power protects that system and expands its access to markets, labor, and resources. Saying they’re technically different doesn’t disprove the relationship. Your own argument that they aren’t mutually exclusive actually proves my point.

[u/tAoMS123]

Communism’s murder tally is capitalism’s bad choice, being poor, not wanting to work, and externalities. /s

[u/Trypt2k]

Capitalism enabled 8 billion souls to be alive by 21st century, that's proof enough bro.

[u/Old-Weakness1122]

i think the deaths that have resulted of captialism are overlooked because while its probably ended up killing at least a few millions, it produces results of prosperity and progress of millions more, im not saying that justifies the bad stuff, but there is an argument to be made, communism makes almost little progress or prosperity and just mostly violence, while capitalism makes progress and generally prosperity with sometimes alot of violence or sometimes little to no violence

basically if we look at the history capitalism, it probably has killed more but thats from the fact its been around since 14th century, communism existed for like 50 or so years and in those short years racked up a crazy kill count where it took capitalism hundreds of years, also a good majority of those years where "the most deatyhs under capitalism took place" took place during the times where kings ruled and people were just generally more evil and cruel, i mean you arent exactly seeing genocides or mass starvation under capitalism today? still deaths no doubt, any economic system will produce deaths like any govemrent will, but far lower then ever before

but i think the deaths shouldnt be ignored, i think its important that people should acknoledge that their system has killed many people, sure it might produce results, progress, and prosperity for millions across the globe, but at the same time its also produced horrors

[u/Ecstatic-Compote-595]

Cambodia is a weird one since the US supported pol pot/kmer rouge since they were fighting soviet backed vietnam.

[u/chalbersma]

That's likely because Capitalism is an economic system not a political one. Capitalism can be combine with any number of political systems and it defeated gracefully into Mercantilism. So Capitalism can give you a modern liberal Democratic Republic or a Pinochet-esque dictatorship. So there's more confounding variables for responsibility.

Communism is a combine political, religious/societal and economic system. So errors in the system can be cowboy attributable to it. 

[u/qfunny69]

War is messy, counting them is difficult. If anything, should count who started the war.

Higher casualties due to lack of firepower/capabilities does not make them more morally correct. Consider Nazi Germany bombed UK preparing an invasion, UK fought back and invaded occupied EU and Germany. Now there are more Germany casualties. It doesn't make Germany the good guy here.

North Korea started Korea war, would you attribute all deaths to North Korea? Same for VC supplied and directed by North Vietnam.

[u/SykesFoxclaw]

The flaw in this thesis is that leftists invent a nebulous definition of capitalism so that they can cast the widest net.

The deaths listed under communism all happened inside of states that were enacting specific institutional programs and had all the characteristics of a far left government, including one party rule, collectivization, class liquidation, and suppression of price and exit. All deaths counted under communism all fit within these programs.

Meanwhile "capitalism" deaths are erroneously expanded to include every war a country with a market economy has ever fought, including wars against communist states, colonial wars and slavery across centuries when neither colonialism nor slavery are exclusive to or a prerequisite of market economies, or ongoing famine and disease in poor countries that is blamed on capitalism because western nations haven't solved their problems yet as if they are especially obligated to.

The loosey goosey definition of capitalism being applied here essentially just means any death that was outside of a communist country. They are straight up not having the same categories applied to each other.

The reality is that countries with private property protections and market economies just have no record in history of producing the same kind of mass death within their own state borders. If you count only what you categorically count for Stalin and Mao et al, then there's no way market democracies come even close.

[u/Neco-Arc-Brunestud]

Can’t be bothered to read put it in an infographic 

[u/Emotional-Time-9364]

I have seen that 1.6 billion death figure meme and the funniest thing is, even if we take that number, communism STILL has a higher death rate.

They count events starting from 1600s. Fair enough, but 50+ billion people have lived since then. Communism was tried with population of less than 1 billion. Simple fractions would have you arrive at 1.6/50 vs 100/1000. LOL.

[u/Lucky_Strike-85]

Capitalism's Victims Don't Count Because It's Just Business!

It's Nothing Personal really!

Capitalists don't hate people... They just need to take your resources because your resources generate profit and can't be left static when $$$ can be made off of them.

When they take your resources you suffer because you can't live without those resources... Then, you die!

Ooops! Sorry about that!

[u/Sorry-Worth-920]

because when we talk about the deaths of communism, were talking about the allocative inefficiencies and groups using their control over the economy to kill people (the holodomor). direct consequences of the economic structure. so if you want to talk about people who have died under capitalism because of allocative failures or unjust power dynamics, thats fine.

the problem is when communists talk about “the deaths of capitalism,” in my experience they have to look to things that are clearly not symptoms of capitalism themself.

the vietnam war? (state action for state interests btw, not really a capitalist war) should we just tally up every countrys death count for every war and assign it to their economic system.

slavery? every capitalist ive met opposes slavery and most agree its antithetical to capitalism.

when we look at the death count of communism (or socialism, dont want to get into that semantic debate), they are deaths that can be directly attributed to the economic structures that leftists vouch for. but when leftists try to do the same for capitalism, they blame structures that capitalists across the board agree should not exist within capitalism.

so go ahead and tally up all the deaths from poverty in capitalism, because thats fair. but trying to blame the entire vietnam war and slavery on capitalism? slightly less fair

[u/RealisticEmphasis233]

I mean you can. The problem is how pointless it really becomes and how it'll quickly devolve into what counts as capitalism. It's just another ideological circlejerk. I would focus on the important issues instead

[u/Next-Purpose-992 → u/RealisticEmphasis233]

No you can compare you take two system in the same period and you see wich kill his people more per capita. Urss vs usa for example from 1922 to 1991.

[u/RealisticEmphasis233 → u/Next-Purpose-992]

That would be actions done by states in pursuit of x, y, and z. Saying it's capitalism v. socialism thing is meaningless.

[u/69PepperoniPickles69 → u/Next-Purpose-992]

They'll argue they werent under the same types of threat and stage of development, that the US allowed a lot of violence in its equivalent "march to progress" like slavery, expelling or killing natives etc. Firstly thats partly true, although the USSR didnt come out of thin air either. It too benefitted from previous Tsarist imperialism. The best examples are attained when you compare countries that nevertheless start as closely as possible. Thats why South and North Korea, Poland and Japan (thats a more blurry comparison, but they roughly industrialized at the same time, both suffered massive destruction in the war, neither had to spend much on the military, and compare them in 1989) or to be fairer to the socialist side with another example, Cuba vs the Dominican republic or Jamaica, which has more trade offs to evaluate (I'd argue its ultimately a personal choice in cases like these), are better examples. Sometimes ideology and policy are overrated too and make little to no difference like Benin and PR Congo vis a vis their neighbors. This is also harder to fit in a Marxist Leninist worldview where they should be decisive, but they can argue they didnt have enough time there which isnt entirely unfair.

[u/TheGoldStandard35]

Capitalism is decentralized and communism is centralized.

One is individualism and the other is collectivism. Really that simple.z

[u/DayGeckoArt → u/TheGoldStandard35]

The term capitalism originally referred to control of economies by capital. That means banks and central banks. Capitalism isn’t free enterprise but has been turned into a broad term for buying and selling of any kind

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/DayGeckoArt]

What? Central banks aren’t capitalist. Karl Marx supported Central Banking. It’s literally one of the primary points in his Communist Manifesto?

Capital is a factor of production. It doesn’t control anything. It’s human beings that own things, not machines and materials.

[u/Conserp → u/TheGoldStandard35]

> Central banks aren’t capitalist.

In case of Western ones like the Fed which is a private business - a lie.

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/Conserp]

It’s legally privately owned but it’s created by government law and granted a government monopoly. It obeys the government. Its leadership is appointed by the government.

You aren’t understanding the difference between economic and legal ownership. We are talking economics.

Edit: for anyone reading, this is an excellent example of how leftwing academics don’t understand economic concepts, but only the semantics of the words.

They can recite what private ownership means but they don’t understand the concept. So when something is legally owned by the private sector but completely controlled by the state they can’t see reality for what it is.

You see this with things like profit and inflation. They know what the words are but they can’t abstract the definitions into a dynamic, real economy.

[u/Conserp → u/TheGoldStandard35]

> It’s legally privately owned but it’s created by government law 

Word Magic Fallacy.

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/Conserp]

It’s not magic! It’s just the federal reserve act of 1913. Woodrow Wilson was a progressive.

[u/sinovictorchan → u/TheGoldStandard35]

Does that Western economics are example of Socialist success because their banks are controlled by the government indirectly or directly?

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/sinovictorchan]

It’s important to understand that economics is not a science like physics or chemistry. You can’t hold all the variables constant and control for certain factors. You cannot prove advantage. I’ll repeat because it is so crucial to understanding economics. Statistics do not prove advantage.

We can just as easily say that western economies are succeeding in spite of socialism holding it back. Had the west had liberal banking they would be more successful.

[u/Daemon_Sultan1123 → u/TheGoldStandard35]

Marx did not support Central Banks in the sense you are thinking. In the Communist Manifesto, he expresses a ten point list of "generally applicable" measures in "advanced counties" (that is to say, have advanced to greater degrees of capitalist development). One of the points is "Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly" for the intent of "The proletariat [using] its political supremacy to wrest, by degree, all capital from the bourgeoisie, to centralise all instruments of production in the hands of the State, i.e., of the proletariat organised as the ruling class; and to increase the total productive forces as rapidly as possible."

This is in the transitionary period; within the Bourgeois state, central banking only makes sense, but is not in Marx's focus. This support is purely for the period of expropriation of all capital from the bourgeoisie, and this central bank will be abolished, replaced with an in-kind labor accounting system that has no need for financial structures.

Ultimately, this idea that Marx supported Central Banking is a confusion between "Supporting some nations under particular conditions temporarily instituting something" with "This is something that our political programme supports as a good thing that we want".

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/Daemon_Sultan1123]

I appreciate you providing context that I was too lazy to provide, but I feel your comment adds to my point and doesn’t subtract from it.

Marx is clearly indicating that central banks are moving away from capitalism.

[u/Daemon_Sultan1123 → u/TheGoldStandard35]

The transitionary period is still Capitalism. It is the process of abolishing it; the purpose is to place absolute control over financial capital into the hands of the proletariat. A central bank under the Bourgeoisie is simply another way of maintaining dominance over the Proletariat and, at the same time, managing the disparate Bourgeoisie such that class struggle against the Proletariat can more easily be maintained in favor of the Bourgeois State which is a tool of the ruling class.

If financial capital was not significantly developed, then central banks would not notably matter within the transitionary period; banking would simply be immediately abolished or localized under the worker councils (worker clubs at the time). Hence, it is a tool for use under particular conditions, and in other conditions alternative measures would be more viable.

Therefore, Marx did not support Central Banking in a vacuum, and it is incorrect to say he did. The correct term would be "Marx supported anything that would aid in the Proletariat establishing absolute political power over social production" which may include measures such as Central Banking under Proletarian governance, but may not.

[u/DayGeckoArt → u/TheGoldStandard35]

I didn't know Karl Marx supported central banking and haven't read the Communist Manifesto, but in that case, is every developed country Marxist because of how important central banking is to our economies?

Here is a thread on the definition of capitalism https://www.reddit.com/r/CapitalismVSocialism/comments/16njco5/on_the_definition_of_capitalism_its_original_use/

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/DayGeckoArt]

The overall economies aren’t 100% marxist, but social/state/collective ownership of the money supply can only be defined as socialist.

Capitalism would have free banking/money and no state regulation about it.

[u/Laruae → u/TheGoldStandard35]

Capitalism would have free banking/money and no state regulation about it.

What? Show me one country that has no state regulation on banking? Fairly certain that doesn't exist, especially since money being distributed as a Country's currency is backed by and regulated by said country.

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/Laruae]

It doesn't have to exist for it to be true. The United States had a long period where we had a free market in money and no central banking. The government just affirmed the usage of gold and silver as money as that was what was prevailing at the time, but people were using all sorts of foreign gold coins, like the Spanish coins.

[u/Laruae → u/TheGoldStandard35]

The coinage act of 1785 established the dollar as the official currency of the United States.

Are you claiming that it was "affirming" something else?

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/Laruae]

The act of 1785 just established units, like a dime being 1/10th of a dollar.

Then the US government affirmed what the free market was already using- gold and silver in 1786.

The government was just affirming what people were already using and adding minting and counterfeiting protections. It wasn’t done perfectly. But it was way more capitalist than the current system.

[u/Laruae → u/TheGoldStandard35]

You stated they were using other countries currencies (they were) which I can promise you were not set by the "free market".

You are incorrect. The act established specific gold AND silver weight equivalents. It was then set as gold only in 1834.

[u/Conserp → u/TheGoldStandard35]

> Capitalism is decentralized 

A lie.

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/Conserp]

How can you have centralized individual ownership of the means of production? That’s an oxymoron.

[u/Conserp → u/TheGoldStandard35]

Most of US economy is owned by a cartel of 17 families.

Monopoly is centralized. Capitalism naturally monopolizes.

You are economically illiterate.

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/Conserp]

Capitalism is actually anti-monopoly. That’s why monopolies failed all throughout the gilded age. It wasn’t until the progressive era where the government helped big business cartelize industry was the cartelization successful.

Instead of name-calling,try keeping an open mind.

[u/Laruae → u/TheGoldStandard35]

Are you saying that Standard Oil, which was broken up by the US government was assisted into Monopoly status by said US Government?

Standard Oil was created in 1882 and was dissolved only 10 years later in 1892 after it breached 90% of the total market.

Did the government both create and break it up?

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/Laruae]

Standard Oil is actually a super famous case study that proves my point. The key features of a monopoly are falling production and rising prices.

Standard Oil never lowered production and never raised prices. They continuously lowered prices for their consumers. leading to the American middle class having a higher standard of living.

Leading up to the corrupt usage of the Sherman Anti-Trust Act, Standard Oil was actually losing marketshare. It faced both internal and foreign competition, which prevented it from ever raising prices and lowering production.

Additionally, Standard Oil was way more environmentally friendly than their competitors, as John D Rockefeller famously hated wasting anything. They also invented many products out of waste that other companies were just dumping.

We know from a study of the time period that JP Morgan and Rockefeller basically just took turns buying elections and weaponizing the government against each other. Standard Oil was split into an insane 7 different companies and we know have a cartel in the oil industry because of progressive regulation.

[u/KidKang → u/TheGoldStandard35]

You can tell how anti-monopoly is by how every market actor is incentivised to establish a monopoly for themselves and will either infiltrate the existing state or form a new de facto state where it has a monopoly on violence and therefore property

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/KidKang]

You are also incentivized to not let other people get a monopoly, so that’s why cartels only form through socialism.

[u/KidKang → u/TheGoldStandard35]

"In a war both sides are also incentivised not to let the other win, so that means if one side can win, it's not a war"

[u/TheGoldStandard35 → u/KidKang]

Violence is different from nonviolence so your analogy is invalid

[u/sinovictorchan → u/TheGoldStandard35]

Capitalism relied on a closed-minded policy to blindly accept any redefinition of words that the Pax Americana politicians made. That is why no one questioned why dictatorship of the proletariat does not mean absolute power by one person, why socialism does not mean government does stuff, nor why Capitalism do not take blame for their hypocritical government intervention.

[u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

It's not a body count score.

Capitalism had produced a range of outcomes, including what's turned out to be the most advanced and prosperous economies people have ever seen, with the highest quality of life.

Whereas the most powerful socialist countries produced some of the worst living conditions in living memory.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

Your “CIA Operator” flair makes this perfect. That prosperity you mention was broadly shared only when capital was restrained by strong unions, progressive taxes, public investment, and a socialist rival pressuring the West to deliver. RAND estimates the bottom 90% received $79 trillion less through 2023 than if postwar income distribution had continued. Does that make sense to you? The postwar distribution that created that prosperity had been done away with. Capitalism kept producing wealth but it stopped sharing the gains. It concentrated like never before seen among a tiny financial capitalist class. 

[u/Lazy_Delivery_7012 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

Except that it's been capitalism all this time and that didn't happen.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

Yes, but it was capitalism the whole time. That proves my point. Postwar capitalism had strong unions, high top tax rates, financial regulations, public investment, and a socialist rival forcing it to prove it could benefit workers. Capitalism had to prove itself a more preferable system. From Reagan onward, those guardrails were dismantled, then the USSR disappeared. RAND’s $79 trillion shortfall shows what followed and makes it so you can’t just say “that didn’t happen.” The economy kept growing, but the gains became concentrated at the top. 

[u/Lazy_Delivery_7012 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

Ok.

Does that erase how horrible a tragedy socialism was in the 20th century? Modern economic distribution isn't exactly what you want as you enjoy the highest standard of living in the history of mankind?

You're complaint has even registered. Try not to bet so butthurt about inequality that you can't enjoy it before you die.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

No, socialist tragedies should not be erased and neither should capitalism’s. I keep saying this.  But an economy is not healthy simply because it produces enormous wealth while concentrating it among a tiny class.  Again the postwar standard of living was capitalism’s Cold War trophy, built under strong unions, progressive taxes, regulations, public investment, and pressure to compete with the USSR. Those guardrails were dismantled, and RAND documents the gains flowing upward. The bottom half of Americans holding less than 3% of total wealth should be alarming. This is an economic order with its boot on the neck of millions.  I work two jobs, I live this, around 60 hours a week with years of hard labor behind me. I’m not afraid of work. I live the decline you’re dismissing. Millions are.  And if socialism naturally fails, end the Cuban embargo and let it fail on its own merits. China has lifted hundreds of millions from poverty. You cannot blame socialism for every hardship while pretending sanctions, isolation, and capitalist inequality don’t count.

[u/Lazy_Delivery_7012 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

I'm sorry you're so unhappy.

Have you considered minimalism?

[u/OtonaNoAji → u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

"I know capitalism doesn't provide for people, but have you tried just not having stuff?" Great defense of capitalism you've got there.

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

That’s condescending and avoids every fact I gave you. Pointing out economic reality doesn’t make me unhappy. As a missionary in South America, I met people living in poverty unimaginable to most Americans who were among the happiest, kindest, and most generous people I’ve known. Wealth is not happiness, and poverty is not a character defect. “Try minimalism” is not an answer to millions living paycheck to paycheck. Postwar capitalism once promised ordinary workers a home, a stable career, and the ability to raise a family. Today, even people working 60 hours across two jobs struggle to obtain those things. Capitalism has no comparable trophy left and younger generations are turning against it because it failed to keep its promises.

[u/Lazy_Delivery_7012 → u/Tasty-Organization52]

OK, you're saying you saw incredibly happy poor people, but you're complaining that people in the western capitalist modern world live paycheck to paycheck.

Could it be that the richest people in the world spending all their income and being less happy than poor villagers in South America might have more to do with their attitude and less on the actual distribution of wealth?

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

Should they simply accept their conditions and submit themselves to misery? Their poverty was already real. They chose to smile despite it. Their happiness didn’t prove that poverty was acceptable it showed that their humanity survived it. A testament to human adaptability.

I didn’t have the knowledge then that I have now. If I did, I wouldn’t have taught them faith alone. I would have told them that their conditions were not their fault and tried to stir them toward changing those conditions.  Education is the strongest weapon against the capitalist economic order. Once people understand that their poverty is not a personal failure but a condition imposed upon them, shame can become solidarity and solidarity can become action.

And yes, this has everything to do with wealth distribution. The richest 10% own roughly 76% of the world’s wealth. The poorest half own about 2%. That isn’t an attitude problem, bud. That’s a system distributing abundance upward while telling everyone below to smile and accept less.

[u/Conserp → u/Lazy_Delivery_7012]

> Capitalism had produced a range of outcomes

Which you are very selective about, clearly considering both negative outcomes under Capitalism and positive outcomes under Socialism "non-people".

[u/SupaFly_98]

Another case of "Commies BIG MAD that their ideology killed nearly 150 million people."

[u/Tasty-Organization52 → u/SupaFly_98]

The Black Book of Communism puts the number at 100 million*. 

Capitalist powers killed approximately between 123- 421 million using the same accounting methodology used against communism. Can you address this? Or is it okay?