[komali2]

What specific horrible evils do you mean? And how do you attribute them to, specifically, organizing an economy along communistic lines?

I ask because if we can take a country with a communist economy, or striving for one, and blame all its evils on communism itself, I have a few things I'd like to point out as being the horrors of capitalism:

1. Atlantic slave trade - millions dead (many on the ships), millions enslaved

2. Settler colonialism and indigenous genocide - British empire, all over the world

3. Congo Free State, Leopold II - 1 to 5 million dead via colonial extraction regime

4. British India famines - 3 million dead

5. Irish Famine - 1 million dead

6. Opium wars - directly caused by British using the military to defend market access. 100k dead, devastating to Qing China for a century

7. Indonesian anti-communist massacres - 500k-1mil alleged "communists" killed after the USA, UK, and Australian intelligence agencies propagandized against them

[Pay08]

> What specific horrible evils do you mean?

The 1956 student massacres in Hungary, where my grandma was almost killed. The Holodomor, the various "Russianization" campaigns, the Jewish Autonomous Oblast, The Great Leap Forward, etc.

[komali2]

It sounds like Communism, Capitalism, and Fascism are all very bad, then. Maybe we can try something else? Do you have any ideas?

[Pay08]

Just so I'm not misunderstanding you: are you saying that those are not as bad as your list?

[komali2]

I'm not particularly interested in comparing more or less bad at that scale, especially because then we need to start asking really gross questions like "is the great leap forward more worse than the Atlantic slave trade because it killed more people, or less worse because it only killed more people because the population of the affected nation was far larger?" which leads to bizarre and strange considerations like whether the life (and death) of a single Chinese peasant is worth more or less than that of a West African enslaved person.

It's enough for me to say, "that was bad and shouldn't be done again." I would resist anyone trying to do that again.

What do you think?

[buildsjets]

No gods, No masters.

[adamtaylor_13]

The specific evil in my mind was the Great Leap Forward, but there are dozens we could draw from history.

And I attribute them to communism because that's literally how history attributes them, though obviously pro-Communism thinkers would disagree.

[xandrius]

Dozens means over 24 or more. Could you also provide a non-exhaustive list of such ills to be compared against the ones mentioned above?

[rmb173rd]

This is important and rarely discussed. I'd add that there's a larger pattern tying these cases together, one that also speaks to some of the Encyclical's broader points: whether it's the Politburo of the USSR, the Court of Directors of the East India Company, or the Board of the United Fruit Company, historical atrocities in any age, society, or economic system almost always occur in the context of enormous power concentrated in few hands. It isn't capitalism or communism but the absence of accountability.