> No economic system other than capitalism has come close to so much suffering and death.
See "The Black Book of Communism". https://www.amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repressio...
See "The Black Book of Communism". https://www.amazon.com/Black-Book-Communism-Crimes-Repressio...
Regardless, capitalism’s death toll far exceeds 100 million, it achieves that much in a few years. The carnage is truly difficult to imagine, especially in the comfort such carnage buys for the imperialist countries.
Do you have a reliable source for this fantastical claim?
Millions die every year due to poverty, through lack of clean water, lack of food, disease, etc. Wars are also used to prevent the poor countries from rebelling, which kills people too. In many cases the two go together, like the starving of Yemen. The attacks against Iraq or Libya or Syria are also good examples. It only takes a few years to get to 100 million if you add all of that up.
It doesn’t look very good historically either. The slave trade was essential to the initial accumulation of capital. In settler colonies like the US or Australia or South Africa or Israel indigenous people have been displaced and killed. WW1 started over competition for colonies in the global south. Later on the invasions of Korea or Vietnam, etc.
In the meantime, you might want to look at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cambodian_genocide
See also:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_economic_reform
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xiaogang,_Anhui
> In December 1978, eighteen of the local farmers, led by Yen Jingchang, met in the largest house in the village. They agreed to break the law at the time by signing a secret agreement to divide the land, a local People's Commune, into family plots. Each plot was to be worked by an individual family who would turn over some of what they grew to the government and the collective whilst at the same time agreeing that they could keep the surplus for themselves. The villagers also agreed that should one of them be caught and sentenced to death that the other villagers would raise their children until they were eighteen years old. At the time, the villagers were worried that another famine might strike the village after a particularly bad harvest and more people might die of hunger.
> After this secret capitalist reform, Xiaogang village produced a harvest that was larger than the previous five years combined. Per capita income in the village increase from 22 yuan to 400 yuan with grain output increasing to 90,000 kg in 1979. This attracted significant attention from surrounding villages and before long the government in Beijing had found out. The villagers were fortunate in that at the time China had just changed leadership after Mao Zedong had died. The new leadership under Deng Xiaoping was looking for ways to reform China's economy and the discovery of Xiaogang's innovation was held up as a model to other villages across the country. This led to the abandonment of collectivised farming across China and a large increase in agricultural production. The secret signing of the contract in Xiaogang is widely regarded as the beginning of the period of rapid economic growth and industrialisation that mainland China has experienced in the thirty years since.
It's well past time to face the facts: Capitalism raises standards of living. Socialism impoverishes.
> Poor countries are kept poor in order to exploit cheap resources and labour, which enrich a few in the rich countries.
Complete nonsense. Poor countries with liberal economies grow fastest and see the most dramatic drops in absolute poverty. No one benefits more from free trade than poor countries.
> Millions die every year due to poverty, through lack of clean water, lack of food, disease, etc.
And they die at a higher rate under socialism than capitalism.
> In many cases the two go together, like the starving of Yemen. The attacks against Iraq or Libya or Syria are also good examples. It only takes a few years to get to 100 million if you add all of that up.
What does this have to do with capitalism? Capitalism means
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_economy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Free_market
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_liberalization
> The slave trade was essential to the initial accumulation of capital.
Slavery isn't capitalist. And it more aptly describes the conditions of those who live under socialist regimes.
> Later on the invasions of Korea or Vietnam, etc.
Are you referring to the Communist invasions launched by North Korea and North Vietnam against their southern counterparts?
Are you claiming that the famines in the USSR and the gulags, for example, didn't happen? How about Pol Pot's massacres?
I'm curious as to your explanation for why communist countries built walls to keep people in, and the US builds walls to keep people out? Can you point out famines and gulags in the US?
I toured East Berlin in 1969. I went through the wall. East Berlin looked like a drab prison camp compared to West Berlin. You can believe whatever you like, but I've seen it with my own eyes.
I think the Berliners were a little too eager to tear down that wall, though I totally understand why. Should have left more of it up to inform later revisionists.
Besides, even if the stats are exaggerated by factor of 10, communism still winds up being terrible.
Another interesting thing is aerial photos of Korea. The South is lit brightly, while the North looks like a stain of black paint.