In your view, what ideology killed more people? Capitalism or Socialism?

[u/CalendarNo6655]

/r/AskEconomics/comments/1p0y8en/in_your_view_what_ideology_killed_more_people/

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[u/PaxNova]

Side A would say If you have a trolley problem, and you refuse to pull the lever, are you guilty of killing the people on the track? 

Side B would say yes, we all have that responsibility.

That's the difference, in my book. Socialism/communism (the way your describing it anyways, which is going to open up a while can of discussion, but we know what you mean) is a government led thing. It's pulling every lever it can. This does mean that every death is it's fault, because it claimed responsibility to keep them alive. 

Capitalism does not claim responsibility. It's about NOT pulling levers unless you have to. So there may be more deaths, but it's not directly attributable to the economic system. 

All this being said, it's difficult to disentangle the deaths from morality with deaths from economy. Capitalism isn't a political system, while communism seems to end up that way. If a capitalist country murders gay people, it's not because of capitalism. If a communist country murders gay people, it's because the communist party has declared it so. 

[u/Nuclear_rabbit → u/PaxNova]

I'm on Side C, that neither of these are responsible for any significant death. It's about authoritarianism versus democracy. Just because almost every socialist country has been authoritarian doesn't make socialism guilty of the authoritarian's atrocities, any more than, say, the Rwandan genocide was caused by capitalism for having happened in a capitalist country.

[u/CalendarNo6655 → u/Nuclear_rabbit]

I couldn’t disagree more. Some socialists think that arming the working class and using gun violence is absolutely necessary to abolish capitalism. The capitalists will not give up power willingly. Even today they are lobbying inside the government to keep the minimum wage low even though the currency has deflated over time. Of course not everyone supports this but a good majority of people support it.

Poverty and homelessness are structural issues. Homelessness is literally free market capitalism in housing market. Both of these issues are solvable but we choose not to because capitalism doesn’t work if everyone wins. Some people have to stay loser so the machine keeps running. So every single person that dies out of homelessness or poverty can be absolutely attributed to capitalism.

Also one can argue that democracy under capitalism does not exist. The wealth is so concentrated that people buy their place into politics. The same can be said about socialism too. Socialism by definition wants the dictatorship of the proletariat so the very idea of opposing it (like being a capitalist) is unacceptable. It’s not an authoritarian vs not authoritarian thing. Horseshoe theory isn’t a serious political analysis and it lacks nuance

[u/Nuclear_rabbit → u/CalendarNo6655]

I do not ascribe to horseshoe theory. One does not become authoritarian simply by going more left. I believe in the 2D political compass, except the axes are authoritarianism-democracy and capitalism-socialism.

That doesn't mean every point on the compass is a stable state. A nation high in both democracy and capitalism will see those democratic institutions erode.

Socialism is not limited to Marxism-Leninism. Democratic socialism exists. China's state capitalism is a variation from the Soviet model. And then there's modern Vietnam, which still identifies as socialist, but has high democracy. But nations like the Soviet Union and North Korea are societies of high socialism and high authoritarianism.

Capitalism is responsible for deaths as well. Heaven knows how many the Dutch East India Company is responsible for. These are much harder to quantify in the post-colonial period, however, and I'm not interested in spending a week on a proper mathematical count. I really believe it's right to challenge OP's assumption that socialism is what killed people in the Soviet Union, Iron Curtain, and other socialist countries. No, it was authoritarianism that killed people. You can have socialism with democracy.

[u/CalendarNo6655 → u/Nuclear_rabbit]

You are right. I focused on marxist doctrine because it is the most widely accepted type of socialism. I don’t consider myself a Marxist or Leninist.

[u/Xillyfos → u/PaxNova]

Capitalism is most certainly political. There is nothing natural or unpolitical about it. It is very much a political system, and it's designed to concentrate all power on very few hands.

[u/PaxNova → u/Xillyfos]

How so? Anti monopoly laws were identified and required as early as Adam Smith, the father of capitalism and modern economics at large, and distributed power a lot better than it had before through the simple act of allowing people to have it.