Before capitalism, violence used to solve more problems than any other means.
Slavery also lifted people out of poverty. Because, you know, the slaves weren't considered 'people'.
I'm not suggesting it does. There might well be a system that works more favourably, but I don't know what that would look like and I have never heard anyone suggest anything that isn't some flavour of Communism hiding behind the extremely arrogant position of "but it's never been tried! It would work if we did it my way!".
Many philosophers in normative social theory would argue that we have to treat their proposed societies as hypotheses. Consider the analogy to Fermat's Last Theorem - although for hundreds of years we tried to crack its proof, many proofs ended disastrously, but some of them actually opened up whole new areas of mathematics despite not reaching their goal. As such, they also served as learning experiences.
I think the same can be said for normative social theory.
Communism's historic death toll is far from encouraging either.
> as is the disdain for "It would work if we did it my way!"
That "my way" invariably boils down to "oh, people just wouldn't be corrupt if I'm in charge." That's the recurring utopian vision. Then when it doesn't exactly go to plan, you get forced labour, internment, and executions.
> The whole concept of "working if we do it my way" is the history of all mathematics
Completely irrelevant.
I do not dispute death tolls, but I do dispute the idea that you should argue using this point in favour of capitalism, which has similar consequences out of issues such as structural poverty and imperialism.
>"oh, people just wouldn't be corrupt if I'm in charge."
No serious academic Communist/Marxist/Socialist claims this. The fact you think that's what the claim is shows that you get more information about arguments for Communism from Internet memes and fora than you do from people who work with the topic.
>Completely irrelevant.
No it's not. Your point was that "it'll work my way" is fallacious logic. My retort was that this same logic is used in all normative social theory and indeed many other areas of human endeavour too.
Ah, yes. Quite so.
Tell me, must a "serious" academic Communist also be a True Scotsman?
A few fun facts:
At the height of the Genocide Ukrainians were dying at a rate of 25,000 per day.
Nearly 1 in 4 rural Ukrainians died as a direct result.
The Soviets dumped 1.7 million tons of grain on Western markets during the Genocide amounting to nearly 1/5 of a ton of grain was exported for each person who died of starvation.
Over 3,000,000 children born between 1932-1933 died of starvation.
I would rather just start shooting right now than risk a single day under communism in any form. Right. Now.
In current days Venezuelans are re-living the horror. The hell they are living there, it is beyond comprehension.