The Capitalism Death Toll Project
One often hears of the ‘Communism death toll’, an enormous count of victims of Russia and China which were never Communist in the first place.
But how often do you hear of the Capitalism death toll? Never? I’ve searched and I’ve searched, but I can come across no reliable estimate of the total number of people killed directly by Capitalism.
So I decided to embark on a little, long-term project: to find the total number of people killed by capitalism directly. These sort of deaths include: starvation, violence for profit, slavery, refusal of healthcare, business health and safety negligence, pollution, basically any deaths that were brought about by a profit motive. While I can’t, of course, focus on every single death, I’ll rely on reliable estimates of specific events and causes of death.
In order to make this estimate reliable and useable in discussions or posts of your own, every number that goes into the estimate will be documented, with links to the source as well as screenshots of that source in case it is changed.
The point? To provide data for any one who needs it during a discussion, to provide an honest perspective of ‘Communist’ vs. Capitalist death tolls, and most importantly to honor the quiet victims of capitalism since our government does not see fit to honor them with a monument.
Oh, c’mon, capitalism never hurt anyone…
Au contraire! It most certainly has. Think of any wars with money being the driving force. Think of all the children and adults who starve to death when there is plenty of food in the world, yet no one feeds them because it would cost money. Think of the people who have died because they couldn’t afford good healthcare. Think of the homeless ex-suburbanites and Vietnam vets who die shivering on the streets. Keep thinking.
Want to contribute?
This of course will take a long time, and that’s why I’m asking for your help. You can help in all kinds of ways, like:
1. Spreading The Project: You may not be able to contribute much, but think of all the others who can! Try posting this link and encouraging others to help on sites like StumbleUpon, Current, Digg, Reddit, social sites, etc. You never know, you may find someone who can turn the project around. Also, you can post this small banner on your site and follow the code provided to link to this page.
2. Checking Sources: Here’s a way to contribute directly with minimal effort. All you have to do is check the various sources which will be posted in several stages (such as suggested, needs verification, added) and make sure they’re both reliable and that capitalism was the cause of death.
3. Source Finding: Quite a bit harder but the biggest help. Just taking a moment during your spare time to search for sources. Of course, ‘capitalism’ is never listed on the death certificate, so you will need to search well and look a little deeper into the stories. If you’re not sure that it counts as a death of capitalism, add it anyways, as it can be verified later.
What is a death of capitalism?
The only deaths that will be accepted to add to the total capitalism death toll are deaths which were a direct result of capitalism. Profit motive must be involved in the death, whether as a reason the death happened in the first place or was a cause in the death not being prevented.
Take, for example, sudden mass starvation in one country. Capitalism’s not the cause, right? Well, maybe it is. Market forces (and thus profit motive) could have destroyed the country’s imported food (if they’re that stupid), made it difficult for them to grow food, etc. Or: profit motivated farming may have destroyed the soil. Or: a neighboring country may be producing more than enough food, even paying their farmers not to produce (as often happens), yet does not aid the starving country because it would cost money. Or: profit-motivated war has destroyed the fields. Etc, etc.
Generally, if someone dies because they weren’t able to get a service or a good, it should have been available to the more wealthy in that country to count as a death of capitalism.
I will provide, and expect those submitting sources to, explain why capitalism was the cause of death.
But I’m not Communist…
You don’t need to be. Be you socialist, Communist, anarchist, or something else entirely, a massive dose of disgust for capitalism is necessary for sanity. Even if you’re capitalist yourself, regardless of what you are, what matters is the truth, which this project will seek to find out. The information is provided for you to use and think about, and no one is under any obligation to do anything more than what they like if they desire to contribute.
This page will continue to change, so if you’re interested, bookmark it. I’ll be adding sections for added, unverified, suggested, etc, sources, as well as a total count. It will take me some time to get started however, and I’ll continue to post updates as new posts every now and then. I’ll work on this regardless of whether or not anyone decides to contribute, so no pressure. ;)
Firstly, I would like to say that China and Russia can’t be called “Communism” as they have a clear, distinct system of classes- In fact, china is rampantly capitalist, willing to do anything for a buck- Dump chemicals, hire off the lower-class to near slave labor, you name it. It defies the very definition of communism, and is a communism only in name. A pile of dogshit called a bar of gold is still a pile of dogshit.
This may skew your results, but you could add these in under an asterisk, as they are not technically for pure profit.
I would count wars (Ever since world war 2) as highly for capitalistic gain. The war industry is laughably huge, multi billion or even trillion dollar contracts are made between washington and a few corporations. And this is just on OUR side of the ocean, this isn’t even including trade deals and reconstruction we make money off.
I also consider abortion to be largely an act of capitalism. It is motivated by money on all sides- On the sides of most women, who want to be unburdened by a new life, so they can more easily obtain an education for a high-paying job, or keep working at a high paying job, or maintain their money. The quantification of value on human life is extremely capitalistic. On the other side, abortion clinics don’t mind selling “freedom”.
I agree, Russia and China were never Communist. In fact, I’ve written about it before :)
I agree about the wars, also, though I’ll be wanting to prove that there was a profit motive every time.
And again, I agree about capitalism helping abortion. ;) Having a child seriously handicaps young single women financially, or even just women in general.
Having a child at a young age has nothing to do with any Governmental system. The lack of personal and moral RESPONSIBILITY is the only driving factor of young women and foolish men.
Have you seen this Noam Chomsky article where he responds to the charges made in The Black Book of Communism, where the “death toll” numbers originated?
Some deaths could be rather ambiguous.
For example, famine in Africa. While on the one hand it could be said to be motivated by capitalists in that farmers wanted the governments of developed nations to buy their produce to give as aid, the act of giving aid itself is not a capitalist act. And yet aid is a major reason why things have only gotten worse, as local agricultural industries are decimated because they can’t compete with the free food handed out.
And on yet another hand, the reason they need to compete is that the economy is based on a market (although I’m starting to wonder if there has every been an instance where a large scale society didn’t operate based on a market). But then even without competition and in a communist society, the availability of free food from abroad may motivate less people to feel the need in agriculture, and hence still stifling local agricultural production and ending up the same way, anyways.
And so on and so on. A “Capitalist Death Toll” could be as futile an endeavor as a “Communist Death Toll”. ^_^;;
Futile, yes. Will I try to do it anyways? Double yes.
I’m not sure I understand the point of this project. It looks to me like you’re just taking any evil you can link, however tenuously, to a “profit motive” and labeling it capitalism. Not everything done for a profit motive is capitalism. You say that Russia and China were never communist (and I’ll agree they never came close to Marx’s ideal), but on the other hand, none of the so-called capitalist nations have lived up to Adam Smith’s ideal, either. How do you justify being strict with the definition of communism while simultaneously being loose with the definition of capitalism?
Good point Eric. However, I’m not being remotely strict with the definition of Communism–the SU and China didn’t even meet *one* of the requirements for Communism. Capitalism, on the other hand, generally fits the requirements, albeit not as free markets.
By profit motive I mean for money, of course. ‘Profit’ can of course be extended to non-monetary profit but it generally is not understood as such and would be disregarded.
As I posted, profit motive–capitalism and money itself–must have a *direct*, proven link to the deaths. Feel free to dispute whether or not specific death counts have capitalist causes, I would appreciate it to keep the estimate more accurate. :)
Any death since the 19th century can easily be counted in the Capitalist death toll, since there has never been communism achieved.
Have you read Naomi Klein’s “Shock Doctrine” yet? This book might be helpful since it covers a bunch of wars (including the war Iraq) / coups /murders, etc. The book demonstrates how they were motivated by laissez faire capitalist Milton Friedman’s economics (Chicago school of economics), and the United States’ ongoing efforts to spread it across the globe.
That was probably the best book I read this year.
I’ve heard of it and have (and am still) tried to get a copy of it. I’ll definitely use that as a source. :)
If I commit an evil deed, does it matter if I did it to obtain some thing I desire, or if I did it to get money which I then use to buy the thing I desire? Is my deed evil because I made a profit, or is it because I was willing to disregard the well-being of my fellow human beings?
That’s why it’s deaths of capitalism, not profit. ;)
If something is happening that would not have happened without a Capitalist system, it’s a death of capitalism. Failure to feed millions who would otherwise be fed, for example. Or wars caused because of markets. It’s a fine line, yes.
And if lives are saved that would not have been saved without a Capitalist system, would you then credit capitalism for those lives?
Because if you look at a list of countries ordered by infant mortality rates, and then a list of countries ordered by The Heritage Foundation’s index of economic freedom, the two lists are basically the reverse of each other.
So it seems that the more that “profit motive” is suppressed by the government, the more dead babies we get.
So let me get this straight: capitalist markets, which often leave families without healthcare, are responsible for more infants surviving birth?
That’s making an awfully wide leap of faith off of two chats, Sean. Maybe we could be honest and realize what is actually saving those lives is more people being able to afford healthcare and better technology being available, not necessarily the healthcare itself being available. I’m sure you’ve heard of medical tourism: if profit motive saves lives, why is it that so many Americans are forced to go to, say, Cuba for healthcare?
I believe Sean’s point was that economic freedom and private ownership foster medical innovations and an effective health care system.
Health insurance is an entirely different matter. Very few hospitals in this country can legally turn away a pregnant woman in labor because she’s unable pay. See the Emergency Medical Treatment and Active Labor Act of 1986.
Absolutely correct. Many personal endeavors are not for profit and that is never taken into account. Having the FREEDOM to persue them is a huge driving force. Why does China steal our technology to advance their nation and it’s profits because their people are trapped in tyranny and that stifles imagination.
Socialized medicine has been far from successful. Cuba gives top treatment to Americans with dollars and cameras, but health care for the typical Cuban citizen is much worse. Canada sends patients to the United States for treatment because their tax-supported emergency rooms are swamped, and efforts to “rescue” Britain’s NHS have been a political talking point in Britain for the past decade.
Cuba isn’t a great example of socialized medicine, but I agree: the point is, however, that free market healthcare is not doing enough if its patients are seeking healthcare from other companies.
Government corruption has hindered the free market to expand and make successful changes to inclued more Americans in the healthcare system. This company lobbys for legislation to hinder other company’s from putting pressure to better serve their customers. That’s why many Insurance company’s are not allowed to cross state lines unless you have a Politician bought and paid for to make special rules for that company or restrict the other company’s competition.
That isn’t a sign of failing free market health care (though I certainly agree that our system is far from ideal) but of the huge economic disparity between the United States and Cuba. To a Cuban hospital administrator, an American patient will pay far more than the typical native patient, so the foreigner will get top notch service to encourage more American business. To the American patient, the Cuban hospital is willing to perform the same procedure for much less than an American hospital that has much larger bills to pay.
Why are there poor? Because there are rich who have the money instead. Why are there rich? Because that’s how capitalism works.
I’m sorry, but that’s a gross oversimplification. Some people are poor because of apathy, handicap, or social inequality. These are not faults inherent to capitalism. Some people are rich because of greed, luck, genius, or hard work. These too are not faults of capitalism.
Measuring idealized views of communism against rough and dirty practical implementations of capitalism is not a fair comparison. There are certainly problems with American capitalism, but they are not insurmountable and they are not inherent faults in our economy.
“That’s making an awfully wide leap of faith off of two charts, Sean.”
No leap of faith required. I am making no claim as to the mechanism by which this occurs – whether it is more ability to afford health care or better health care being available. I am merely noting a strong statistical correlation between infant mortality and centrally controlled economies based on hundreds of data points. I will also note that the same correlation exists with overall lifespan – even after factoring out infant mortality.
There will always be outlier data points that fall well off the general trend line (Cuba is certainly an example of such in this context) but the statistical evidence strongly supports the conclusion that political environments of greater economic control generally produce more dead babies and shorter adult lifespans.
Will your methodology in computing a “Capitalist Death Toll” account for this?
If it does not, then it will not produce any useful truth.
To see why this is the case, consider this example:
Two countries start off with one hundred people each. The political system of country A is so bad for human life that all 100 people die quite quickly. The political system of country B is so good for human life that the population grows exponentially.
After centuries have passed, we might well be able to attribute many millions of deaths to the political system of country B, but still only 100 deaths to the political system of country A.
If your methodology would point to country A as having the superior political system, I submit that this would indicate a significant problem in the way you were doing your counting.
The infant mortality rate in Cuba is reported by the Cuban government, and there may be significant differences in how premature births and high-risk births are counted. Such babies may be aborted or counted as a fetal death in Cuba.
The United States has among the most intensive emergency intervention in the world to keep low birth weight and premature babies alive. All these infants are counted as live births, so a very large percentage of infant mortality in the United States (30 to 40% each year) occurs before the child is even a day old.
Don’t forget to add the following to your list:
17 Million killed by Capitalist Britain in India,
18 Million slaves killed by Capitalist & Rightist Europeans during the Atlantic Slave trade,
5-10 Million Native Americans Killed by Capitalist & Expansionist Europeans during the invasion of the Americas,
8 Million Killed by King Leopold with the help of Capitalist Enterprise in the Congo,
15 Million slaughtered in the Capitalist reordering of WWII,
55 Million killed in the Nationalist Imperialist invasion of Europe by Hitler & the resulting WWII,
3 Million killed by the Capitalist U.S. led U.N. “police action” in Korea to stop the North from repatriating their country,
3.5 Million killed by Capitalist U.S. in Vietnam,
1 Million killed in the 9 years (mostly) secret U.S. bombing of Cambodia & Laos (prior to Pol Pot),
1 Million slaughtered in Indonesia by proxy Capitalist dictator Suharto (helped by ‘death lists’ sent by the CIA & MI6),
1 Million slaughtered by U.S. installed Fascist dictators throughout Latin America (including 200k in Guatemala, 100k in El Salvador),
1.3 Million killed in U.S./U.K. led U.N. Iraqi sanctions (UNICEF estimating 500k child deaths),
1 Million killed in current U.S./U.K. invasion of Iraq,
…and the rest.
Greatings
Have you come to any conclusions on ths project? I was searching the internet for something of the kind.
One source you may know already is Mike Davis, historian, i believe he has a book called “Late Victorian Holocausts”
I may turn this into a research project at a later date, but for now it’s abandoned on my front – simply because I’m still learning HOW to research. D’oh.
I stumbled across this recently, in the vain attempt to find answer that you also experienced. I understand this is an old post and that the blog (as a whole) has seemed to drop off in the past few months but still wish to express intrigue.
I think that this is an important point that is of concern to many Communist followers who understand it’s uses; there are many, propaganda-fuelled, estimates of deaths by Communism but the contrary toll of Capitalist murder is lacking.
I was wondering whether this project progressed at all, you said that contributions would help but won’t stop you finding an answer, are you still going? If not, is there a reason for which? I am willing to dedicate time to finding an answer but would find it hard to do this alone and am even willing to set up websites, forums, etc. as to defeat the plague of deceipt by capitalist societies.
I do think, however, that any attempt to carry out such a dedicated piece of research would be in vain if the results weren’t of a very high integrity. Many would argue that Hitler killed people, but he was never a Capitalist even though Nazism is right-wing politics. Any findings should be rigorousely worked and not at all inflated just for the sake of big numbers, the relation to Capitalism should be stringent and explicit. Even though a Capitalistic statistic might not be as true as yours, at least they would not be able to lay a finger on your number in an argument, whereas you could.
Deaths caused by Communism are highly debatable, whether it be Maoism, Stalinism or simply Marxism, it’s all Communism to the Capitalists; in making a figure you would not care about what the opposing number is until actually arguing it. Despite inflated statistics against the Red, you should maintain unbiased values to avoid more defeat by Capitalist propaganda.
If you are still on this project, I would be interested to hear your thoughts.
- Jorawar
Wow, I’m in Marxist heaven! jeez am I glad to find this. Finally, an escape from those biased, propaganda-filled debaters who labels the pre-mature socialist states as communism.
History is written by the victor, (since the US won the cold war, I think its safe to say the US writes the history) so, how would you know the truth? learn from the view of the vanquished!
Ok, I’m going to stop this charade and contribute 2 small but notable points:
Ngo Dinh Diem, killed around 50,000-75,000 south vietnamese
200,000 Palestinians killed by capitalist-supported Israel
World war 2: 43 000 000 deaths
Nazi German holocoust: 10 000 000 deaths (Anti-COmmunism, not really Capitalism)
Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan (1996-2001):2 000 000
Uganda: 350 000 deaths
South Korea: 220 000 people (100 000 of them under The Bodo League Massacre, when political prisoners that liked communism where executed)
South Korean apartheid regime: 500 000 deaths
Fascist Italy: 400 000
US-backed Chilean Augusto Pinochet dictatorship: 75 000 deaths
US-backed Cuban regime (1952-1959): 25 000 deaths
It’s millions of others, but this is those that I remember now. That’s millions now too.
It’s also 15 000 000 in the World War I. It have ABSOLUTELY hurt someone! Also 1 000 000 for free ELECTED capitalists!
I’m really glad to see this! I wanna break the neck of people that like Cap and not Com!
Vioxx killed over 300,000 worldwide and thousands of Americans.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2010-07-27/merck-paid-3-468-death-claims-to-resolve-vioxx-suits.html
Ford Motor company realized it was cheaper to burn customers to death than replace millions of Pinto gas tanks.
Also check out the Crown Victoria
http://www.perryhaas.com/crownvictoria/crownvictoria.html
and Mustangs
http://www.safetyforum.com/fordmustang/
and F-100 fuel tanks
http://www.productliabilitylawyer.com/gasTank.cfm
and the “firebomb” cruise control used on 17 million vehicles.
http://www.safetyforum.com/fordcruisecontrol/
Sorry for my bad english, but here ar the figures in swedish (maybe you can understand it anyway?):
Olika samhällssystem, och vad de krävt i dödsoffer under 1900-talet
(En tolerans upp/ned på cirka 10-15 procent är att rekommendera för siffrorna nedan, pga att exakta källor inte existerar på detta område)
Totala antalet födda under 1900-talet = 10000 miljoner.
Totala antalet döda under 1900-talet = 5200 miljoner.
Totala antalet människor som levat under 1900-talet = 11800 miljoner.
10000 miljoner födda plus 1750-1800 miljoner födda under 1800-talet blir c:a 11800 miljoner.*)
Olika samhällsformationer och samhällssystem och antalet offer de orsakat:
Tag med en tolerans upp/ned på 10 procent eftersom siffrorna inte är exakta av naturliga skäl.
Feodalism = 50 miljoner.
Nazism/fascism = 75 miljoner.
Kommunism = 150 miljoner.
Kapitalism/kolonialism = 1500 miljoner.
Summa strukturellt dödade = 1775 miljoner.
Biologiska orsaker såsom pester, virus, bakterier = 500 miljoner.
Summa överdödlighet under 1900-talet = 2200-2300 miljoner människor.
Sincerely
Jan Laul
Sweden
I have been thinking of comparing the number of deaths caused by communism vs. capitalism. My thoughts.
1. You should adjust the deaths for population differences over time. This is just like taking the cost of something at two different years, and then adjusting for inflation over that time. Communism did not have a state until Russia in 1917. Capitalism had been around much longer, when the population was much smaller. In other words, there were fewer people to kill or die by capitalism’s policies. If either system caused the starvation of half the population in some geographic area in say 1850, comparing it to starvation caused by the other system in say 1940 would be misleading. To make a fair comparison, you should assume the number of deaths in 1850 to be half of the population of the same geographic area in 1940.
Deaths should be classified in categories. My categories are: deaths by direct murder, deaths as the result of policies of the system, and deaths that could have been prevented by the authorities in power, but did not happen due to their philosophy. An example of the last category could be the British in India, when they controlled the entire country, from a famine. The British authorities had the food but according to one British official, philanthropy was immoral. I am not kidding. The British actually believed that saving starving people was morally wrong. They had the same position during the Irish Potato famine of the 1800′s.
Thank you.
I will try to write more later.
Tim
this link shows a outline of those killed by capitalism
http://maoistrebelnews.wordpress.com/2012/03/16/1-6-billion-killed-by-capitalism/#respond