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Fast forward a century. A world war erupted — thanks, in large part, as historians agree, to a global depression. But what caused the Great Depression? Capitalism — the speculative frenzy and inequality of the rip-roaring 1920s. Capitalism poured the fuel of fascism all over the world, in nations like Germany and Italy, who were heavily indebted by that point, and it only took a handful of demagogues to set the world alight. How many people died in World War II? 25 million — just soldiers. 50 million — including civilians. 80 million — including famine, war crimes, and disease. We’re getting into some spectacular numbers, aren’t we? Let’s take the middle one, just for conservatism’s sake. We’re already at about 70 million.
After the great war, immediately, came a new one. The Cold War. But the Cold War wasn’t just the intrigue of spies, as we think of it today. It was real and lethal war — war by America, for a single purpose — to preserve and expand the frontiers of capitalism. No capitalism, no Cold War. Let’s start, then, with the Viet Nam war. How many died? Another 2.5 million, roughly. Before that, though we don’t discuss it much today, was the Chinese civil war, in which America and Soviet Russia fought by proxy. How many died? About 8 million. Just those two hard wars of the Cold War — and there were many more — add another ten million to our tally, making it 80 million.
In between World War II and the Cold War though, lies a period of history many of us have forgotten. The end of colonial empire. This, too, was capitalism — empires were built to obtain cheap labour and raw materials for mercantile capitalism. It wasn’t the kind of globalized, “free-market” capitalism we practice today — but it was very much self-interested, profit-maximizing, shareholder-capitalized companies engaged in commerce, just under different rules about who could trade what, where, how, and when.
How many people died in the course of colonial mercantile empire? We’ll never know — it’s astronomical. How big? In the Congo alone, 10 million died as a legacy of King Leopold of Belgium’s brutal rule. In India, conservatively, a million people died, as the nation fractured when colonialism ended — and a noted Indian parliamentarian has estimated 35 million died under colonial rule, through famines alone. And yet in many places, those wounds haven’t healed. Congo, still exploited for its natural resources by, wait for it, capitalism — rubber, diamonds, metals, some of which are probably in your smartphone — had another war, in the 21st century, which killed 5 million.
https://eand.co/if-communism-killed-millions-how-many-did-capitalism-kill-2b24ab1c0df7
After the great war, immediately, came a new one. The Cold War. But the Cold War wasn’t just the intrigue of spies, as we think of it today. It was real and lethal war — war by America, for a single purpose — to preserve and expand the frontiers of capitalism. No capitalism, no Cold War. Let’s start, then, with the Viet Nam war. How many died? Another 2.5 million, roughly. Before that, though we don’t discuss it much today, was the Chinese civil war, in which America and Soviet Russia fought by proxy. How many died? About 8 million. Just those two hard wars of the Cold War — and there were many more — add another ten million to our tally, making it 80 million.
In between World War II and the Cold War though, lies a period of history many of us have forgotten. The end of colonial empire. This, too, was capitalism — empires were built to obtain cheap labour and raw materials for mercantile capitalism. It wasn’t the kind of globalized, “free-market” capitalism we practice today — but it was very much self-interested, profit-maximizing, shareholder-capitalized companies engaged in commerce, just under different rules about who could trade what, where, how, and when.
How many people died in the course of colonial mercantile empire? We’ll never know — it’s astronomical. How big? In the Congo alone, 10 million died as a legacy of King Leopold of Belgium’s brutal rule. In India, conservatively, a million people died, as the nation fractured when colonialism ended — and a noted Indian parliamentarian has estimated 35 million died under colonial rule, through famines alone. And yet in many places, those wounds haven’t healed. Congo, still exploited for its natural resources by, wait for it, capitalism — rubber, diamonds, metals, some of which are probably in your smartphone — had another war, in the 21st century, which killed 5 million.
https://eand.co/if-communism-killed-millions-how-many-did-capitalism-kill-2b24ab1c0df7
