The Human Cost of Socialism vs. Capitalism
If you add it up, socialism killed over 100 million people in the 20th century. Capitalism, to my knowledge hasn't killed anyone. Sure, some people like to include slavery and colonialism in that, but that's not capitalism.
Capitalism, whilst far from perfect, is the system where people can freely trade what they have to sell for equal value. Now, that doesn't have to be money either. Exchange of goods is like that. I have something you want, you have something I want. Here's a mutually agreed trade.
Colonialism, wars, etc. that's mostly just theft.
But let's look at socialism since it's inception – and that's not long ago. Published in three volumes between 1867 and 1894, Karl Marx postulated in Das Kapital that the motivating force of capitalism is the exploitation of labour and that surplus value is the result of unpaid work. Since it pitted people against each other, much like Hitler did with the Jewish population in Germany, it was seductive and chaos resulted fairly rapidly.
In 1917, the Russian revolution overthrew Tsar Nicholas II. He and his whole family, including children were executed. Whilst Lenin was the instigator of this bloody revolution which killed an estimated 500,000 people during the so-called “Red Terror”, it was Josef Stalin who took the killing to a whole other level. It is estimated he killed between 8 and 61 million people, though the number is hotly debated. A more likely figure put out by his biographer Simon Jonathan Sebag, buts this figure close to 20 million.
Again in the early Soviet era, forced changes in agriculture caused the deaths of over 5 million Ukrainians. Several targeted policies such as the genocide of the Cossacks, the forced deportation of ethnic minorities or “soviet hostile” elements caused at least an additional 6 million deaths overall, far outstripping the Nazi genocide.
The Chinese Communist Party came to power in 1948. Over the necxt few years, the regime is thought to have caused the deaths of over 77 million people, between the executions, purges and famines – one of the bloodiest episodes of the 20th century.
Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge ruled from 1975 to 1979 in Cambodia. after the end of the Vietnam war. He managed to murder between 1.8 and 2.5 million Cambodian citizens – a full 25% of the population.
Other smaller mass killings occurred in Bulgaria (100,000), East Germany (100,000), Romania (300,000), North Korea (400,000), and, of course Afghanistan where the Soviet invasion is thought to have killed 1.2 million civilians. I'm counting this one, because it was an ideological war which should have ended in the invasion of Pakistan and access to the Indian Ocean.
As a final point, it is important to note that capitalism is not without its losers. Financial crashes have a real impact on real people and certainly in the last one, it was quite distasteful (so say the least) watching the banks walk away unscathed whilst ordinary people paid (and are still paying) the price of that failure. But don't forget where that came from . In the UK, both Tony Blair, Gordon Brown and, in the US, Bill Clinton, made it possible for banks to break the so-called glass ceiling and engage in anti-capitalist kleptocratic behaviour with the complicity of the ruling parties of the day. Both the Labour Party in the UK and the Democrats in the US cannot deny responsibility for that.
But to compare capitalism with the wanton genocide, murder and abject destitution associated with communism and socialism is really pushing it. Socialism kills – basically because it doesn't work and in order to come to power and stay there it needs to be repressive. It is not progressive but authoritarian – even in its mildest forms.
It is time to stand up to the Radical Left and show that Capitalism and Democracy actually make people richer – more well-off. In the West we are ALL better off than the previous generations and that is set to continue. It is time to call out those who think hounding people into suicide is somehow progressive. It is time to take the debate to a higher level and refuse to stay silent.
It is time to speak up.
Respectfully.