Socialism and hunger: a quick reminder

[braces_for_impact]

Nice how the word socialism was conflated to mean doctrinaire communism. Not the same.

A fallacy of equivocation.

My thoughts exactly. Socialism needs to be defined for these purposes. Conflating this with Bernie's style of socialism for example, is not a fair comparison. Additionally, noting that I haven't yet looked at the link, has there been a causation established or is this another case of bad correlation?

 

[ksen]

if ya gotta ask . . .

 

[Derec]

Nice how the word socialism was conflated to mean doctrinaire communism. Not the same.
A fallacy of equivocation.

Socialism is an economic system characterized by means of production being primarily publicly (i.e. government in some sense) owned and controlled.
The "conflation" you decry exists because it was doctrinaire communist governments like USSR (and satellites) and China (and satellites) who actually implemented socialism as a purported steppingstone to theoretical communism.

My thoughts exactly. Socialism needs to be defined for these purposes. Conflating this with Bernie's style of socialism for example, is not a fair comparison.

That's because "Bernie's style of socialism" is not socialism. It's capitalism lite.

 

[laughing dog]

Assigning the cause of the Ukrainian famine of the 1932-34 on the form of economic system ignores the actual history. Stalin exacerbated the effects of the famine in order to punish the Ukranians for seeking independence. The severity of the effects are due to totalitarianism not socialism.

 

[untermensche]

We could look at capitalist Mexico, or capitalist Haiti, or capitalist Guatemala, or capitalist Indonesia, or even the capitalist US and find a lot of continual unending hunger.

Daily misery exists for millions trapped in these capitalist hellholes.

 

[KeepTalking]

That's because "Bernie's style of socialism" is not socialism. It's capitalism lite.

Which is a huge failing of the OP and the blog to which it links, which states "The American students growing interested in “socialism” today are too young to remember what the world actually looked like the last time socialism held sway."

Those students aren't growing interested in the Socialism exhibited by the countries described as Socialist on the list provided, but rather the Democratic Socialist style of Socialism espoused by Bernie, and practiced by many European countries.

 

[Trausti]

The OP is hyperbole and some of the examples (e.g., Ukraine) are disingenuous. Perhaps the better "quick reminder" is the relationship between socialism and food shortage. The mass death during the Great Leap Forward, when private plots were confiscated and all agricultural land collectivized, shows the real danger of removing production from private hands. That famine was entirely man made due to socialist policies; not the result of crop failure or punitive measures against a disfavored population. A further example is the Soviet Union, which ran this experiment for us. About ~3% of agricultural land was held as private plots, the remaining 97% collective farms. Yet, the production of the minuscule private plots greatly outperformed the collective farms. Moreover, even after the Virgin Lands Campaign, the Soviet Union still needed to import Western grain. The only country left practicing socialist agriculture, I think, is North Korea, which has to import food from China. Its collective agriculture can only support one fat guy.

 

[ronburgundy]

I counted 30 famines in that list. 6 or 20% are listed as "socialist". I wonder what the other 80% were.

Rounding out the top 10:

Rwanda: Overpopulation.

Somalia: Ecological collapse.

Bangladesh: Weather.

Nigeria: I don't know.

Yes, alternative factors can account for every one of those famines, regardless of economic system, so there is no relationship.

 

[BH]

We could look at capitalist Mexico, or capitalist Haiti, or capitalist Guatemala, or capitalist Indonesia, or even the capitalist US and find a lot of continual unending hunger.

Daily misery exists for millions trapped in these capitalist hellholes.

Some of those in the list were caused by ravages of war. Even though it was nieteenth century the Confederate States of America was having famine or near famine conditions towards the end of the war in some places.

 

[ronburgundy]

In addition to the many glaring problems already pointed out with the OP, if you look at the countries that appear multiple times, it is quite revealing.
Somalia is on the list twice, and their famine when they were not under Socialism was 7 times worse than the one under Socialism.

Ethiopia had 3 famines without Socialism prior to the one under Socialism, which wasn't much worse than their 2 recent non-Socialist famines.

China's worst famine was under Socialism and the most recent one, but it had 4 prior famines not under socialism with each subsequent one being worse, showing it was tied to year and not type of system.

Of the 8 countries that had multiple famines on the list, only the Soviet Union had mulitple famines under Socialism, whereas 6 countries had multiple famines under non-Socialism (the last 1 had a single famine under each system).

 

[Loren Pechtel]

Vietnam invaded to put an end to the horrors of Cambodia. You have cause and effect backwards.

http://worldinfo.org/2012/01/famine-in-cambodia/

Constant war, helped by the United States, was the main cause of the cambodian famine.

Out of this social and economic unrest emerged the Khmer Rouge Regime (the Communist Party of Kampuchea), which ruled Cambodia from 1975-1979. It strove to create an agriculture-based proletariat class, collectivizing family farms and forcing city dwellers into the country. Thousands of families were displaced and made to live in makeshift villages, where they farmed virgin soil. The goals of this reform were food self-sufficiency, the reconstruction of the production of the vital rice crop, and greater equality of food distribution. However, despite the employment of slave labor in farming and irrigation, flooding was so great that rice yields were insufficient to feed Cambodia’s population.

Crap. Take a bunch of city dwellers that don't know how to farm and put them on the land in a collectivized system (which really hurts productivity anyway) and what do you expect but starvation?

 

[ksen]

I didn't realize socialism also causes floods.

 

[Jimmy Higgins]

North Korea is "socialist"?

Meanwhile, according to that list, in the last 30 years, there have been 4 famines and only one (North Korea) was in a "socialist" nation.

 

[Angry Floof]

I didn't realize socialism also causes floods.

Between socialism and homosexuality, I fear the world may not survive the resulting natural disasters.

 

[untermensche]

The Socialism within the US system is the only thing that makes it livable.

Anti-capitalist policies are the only way to create a Middle Class.

 

[Nice Squirrel]

"I didn't realize socialism also causes floods."

And God saw that the wicked socialism of man was great in the earth, and that every imagination of the thoughts of his heart was only evil atheism.

6 And it repented the Lord that he had made capitalist man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart.

7 And the Lord said, I will destroy socialist douchebags whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them.

 

[Trausti]

The Socialism within the US system is the only thing that makes it livable.

Anti-capitalist policies are the only way to create a Middle Class.

Yeah, that's how China did it after Mao's death.

 

[untermensche]

The Socialism within the US system is the only thing that makes it livable.

Anti-capitalist policies are the only way to create a Middle Class.

Yeah, that's how China did it after Mao's death.

Yes.

Through trade unions and other unions.

Through anti-capitalist policies.

 

[lpetrich]

The Socialism within the US system is the only thing that makes it livable.

Anti-capitalist policies are the only way to create a Middle Class.

Actually, it's taming capitalism, keeping it from being very destructive.

Yeah, that's how China did it after Mao's death.

Yes.

Through trade unions and other unions.

Through anti-capitalist policies.

Those aren't anti-capitalist but a way of keeping capitalism tamed.

But that's not good enough for capitalism apologists. From the looks of it, nothing will ever be good enough for them unless governments are totally committed to protecting their heroes at no cost to their heroes and with no interference with any of their heroes' actions no matter how much trouble their heroes cause.

 

[untermensche]

Those aren't anti-capitalist but a way of keeping capitalism tamed.

That's not what the capitalists in the US said as they violently attacked unions over and over. Many times with the police.

Right now we are experiencing another US lull in unions because the government has looked away as unions have been illegally prevented or broken up in the last 35 years.

But people eventually figure out that they have no power without working together, like within a union and unions seem to come back from the dead again and again.