Hogs saying that, or saying "communism is worse because it killed more people" are spewing fascist talking points designed to normalize fascism in comparison to the "genocidal death count of communism"

  • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
    ·
    3 years ago

    Specifically for the "more deaths always means more evil" type of thinking, compare WW2 hero Audie Murphy's kill count with that of the Zodiac killer or the Golden State killer -- it is higher than both combined.

    Therefore, by this reasoning, we must conclude that the war hero who fought off and killed literal hundreds of Nazis who were invading Europe to do genocide, is actually worse than serial killers who targeted and gruesomely killed young couples, which is obviously ludicrous and helps intuitively illustrate the issue with this reasoning. If they try to whinge and babble about special exceptions "because war" or whatever, they're granting the point that context is important and that morality is not just a math problem.

    • CheGueBeara [he/him]
      ·
      3 years ago

      That's true, though I also dispute the anticommunist calculations themselves that claim larger numbers.

      Capitalist propagandists counted (with embellishment, exaggeration, and sometimes complete horseshit) deaths in socialist countries. They did not and do not count the comparable deaths in capitalist ones, where they see the constant premature deaths as an inevitable fact of life, or of poverty with no clear cause.

      The great lib Amartya Sen once did a comparison of India and China, primarily their excess death rates, which averaged an over 4 million difference every year against India, cumulatively around 100 million deaths over the decades described.

      Who is aware of those deaths and thinks of them as a black eye on capitalism? Why are they not mentioned virtually every time India or capitalism in it are discussed? They have been actively ignored, much as Sen was, so that they can drift back into the background. Capitalism doesn't just kill more people than claimed by any bullshit exaggerative book about socialist countries, it insidiously masks them as a natural and inevitable status quo so thoroughly that even the socialists forget to point to them!

      Also, your note of Nazi reminded me of another fun fact: the anticommunist kill count lists often get so desperate that they include the deaths of invading Wehrmacht soldiers and people killed by SARS-CoV-2.

      • GnastyGnuts [he/him]
        ·
        3 years ago

        Mostly from Hunger and Public Action: Studies in Development Economics:

        "Because of its radical commitment to the elimination of poverty and to improving living conditions — a commitment in which Maoist as well as Marxist ideas and ideals played an important part — China did achieve many things that the Indian leadership failed to press for and pursue with any vigor. The elimination of widespread hunger, illiteracy, and ill health falls solidly in this category. When state action operates in the right direction, the results can be quite remarkable, as is illustrated by the social achievements of the pre-reform period."
—Amartya Sen

"We argue, in particular, that the accomplishments relating to education, healthcare, land reforms, and social change in the pre-reform period made significantly positive contributions to the achievements of the post-reform period. This is so not only in terms of their role in sustained high life expectancy and related achievements, but also in providing firm support for economic expansion based on market reforms."
—Amartya Sen

"The casual processes through which the reduction of undernourishment was achieved involved extensive state action including redistributive policies, nutritional support, and of course health care (since undernourishment is frequently caused by parasitic diseases and other illnesses)."
—Amartya Sen

"China’s achievements in the field of health during the pre-reform period include a dramatic reduction of infant and child mortality and a remarkable expansion of longevity."
—Amartya Sen

"India seems to manage to fill its cupboard with more skeletons every eight years than China put there in its years of shame." - Amartya Sen