this post was submitted on 30 Dec 2024
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Late Stage Capitalism

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[–] gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de 1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Also gotta remember about the Irish Potato Famine where the English just literally stood by and said "well yeah that's just how it is" due to "free market" reasons. (In fact, they made everything worse by demanding that Ireland continue to export wheat)

The Irish Potato Famine killed approximately 1 million people due to "free market above all" ideology.

[–] Rooty@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

Reducing widespread human rights abuses in the Soviet Union to "one famine" shows a heady mixture of deliberate ignorance with hubris that only a western university educated leftist can posess.

[–] ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world 0 points 1 year ago (1 children)

The sad thing is, famines weren't that widespread after a while, unless your standard of "famine" is "not eating beef steaks in a country where beef aren't that common".

[–] finitebanjo@lemmy.world -1 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

Mao and Stalin are both often cited as killing more of their own citizens than Hitler managed to do.

For Stalin is was a result of the 1930-1933 changes in policy to heavily prioritize heavy industry over food. Honestly hard to blame him, going from a war to a bloody revolution then overthrown for militaristic autocracy probably complicated a lot of things with no time between to normalize.

For Mao is was the result of making all private agriculture a offense worthy of capital punishment and instead made a grain quota for peasants to fill and send to the central government for distribution, then heavily investing in steel production and urbanization. Peasants didn't fill the quotas because the surpluses just didn't exist, if the central government just took what they wanted then in those cases the farmers just starved reducing next year's yield. Mao's came much later so he had no excuse.

So, yeah, they didn't get to eat meat every day. Or bread. Or even cereals.

[–] Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

Ye the world was a peaceful place before capitalism, there were no wars, no slaves and no ...

checks history books

Oh no

Oh no no no no

[–] SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago (2 children)

Scale. It's about scale and centralization. Sure there were slaves but capitalism made more than ever in human history. Sure there were wars but capitalism made them bigger and further away from the rich nations committing them's population.

It's about scale. It's like comparing a single thief to a crime syndicate of organized thieves and saying "well there has always been thieving"

Yes. But never with so much damage.

[–] Realitaetsverlust@lemmy.zip -1 points 1 year ago

Sure there were slaves but capitalism made more than ever in human history but capitalism made them bigger and further away from the rich nations committing them’s population

Wouldn't completely agree here. There has simply been a massive technological advancement if we compare, for example, the "norse raids" with "european raids". Europeans could transport more and travel further. Also, there have been way more people alive if we compare those timeframes. Global population has grown steadily.

Don't get me wrong, capitalism certainly had a certain impact, but pretending like capitalism is the sole source is dishonest at best and stupid at worst. There have always been powerhungry people. Capitalism just gave everyone a chance to be power hungry instead of just the select few that were born into places of power.

Something I'd also like you to keep in mind that every communist regime that wasn't 50 people on a deserted island has resulted in a disaster for the population and surrounding countries. The soviet union has waged more than 15 offensive wars, for example georgia, poland, finland, iran, czech etc., which is almost as much as the US which has existed for like 250 years at this point. So pretending that communism is completely free of the things you criticize capitalism for is pretty dumb tbh.

[–] ByeBrie@lemmings.world -1 points 1 year ago (1 children)

So you know nothing about the extent of pre-industrial slavery? Because it dwarfs the tiny bit they bought over to the Americas.

[–] SmilingSolaris@lemmy.world 1 points 1 year ago

Anything to excuse the white man ey wizard?