• Keeponstalin@lemmy.world
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    3 days ago

    Are we including the effects of Global Capitalism? On top of mortality from global poverty, it’s hard to tally all the deaths from capitalist Imperialism, Colonialism, and Neo-colonialism.

    If one starts from the assumption that extreme poverty is the natural state of humanity, then it may appear as good news that only a fraction of the global population lives in extreme poverty today. However, if extreme poverty is a sign of severe social dislocation, relatively rare under normal conditions, then it should concern us that - despite many instances of progress since the middle of the 20th century - such dislocation remains so prevalent under contemporary capitalism. Depending on the subsistence basket one uses to measure poverty, as of 2008, between 200 million and 1.21 billion people live in extreme poverty (Moatsos, 2017, Moatsos, 2021; see also our discussion in Appendix VI).18 While direct comparisons with the wage data are difficult because of the variety of baskets used, this suggests that under contemporary capitalism hundreds of millions of people currently live in conditions comparable to Europe during the Black Death (Figure 4, Figure 5), the catastrophes induced by the American genocides (Figure 7) and the slave trade (Figure 9), or famine-ravaged British India (Figure 11). To the extent there has been progress against extreme poverty in recent decades, it has generally been slow and shallow.

    • ZILtoid1991@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      That cat is Ultra-Hitler. He is 100 times more evil than regular Hitler.

      You thought the total death toll of the Holocaust was bad? That evil kitty kills 10 million people each day. No dictator can even come to the fraction of his power.

  • WaxedWookie@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    Rupert Murdoch.

    That monster’s contribution to climate denial borders on apocalyptic - throw in extras like eroding democracy, stoking racial hatred, and contributions to class warfare like fighting off affordable access to to healthcare make him a tough one to beat.

  • bad_news@lemmy.billiam.net
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    2 months ago

    I assume this is referring to China. Ask anyone in China about their generous social benefits, which are even more paltry than in the US, and you’ll see how “left” the Chinese “Communist” Party really is

    • SplashJackson@lemmy.ca
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      2 months ago

      I don’t plan on visiting China anytime soon, but you seem knowledgeable in the subject; can you link me some sources? Thanks

    • InverseParallax@lemmy.world
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      2 months ago

      Mao killed more.

      Fortunately, he only killed Chinese people, and they don’t mind, so we’re all good.

      • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        2 months ago

        Like personally? I often feel like attributing famines solely to one person is a bit messed up, although there are cases like Bengal where specific government individuals were enthusiastic .

        The party later distanced themselves from him somewhat, so presumably they thought his ideas could be improved on but I had thought a lot of china and USSR famines rested on really dumb ideas about industrial agriculture that were popular in many places + officials hiding bad numbers + desperate need to show immediate superiority of alledgedly better numbers + upheavals of massive civil was and ww2.

          • naevaTheRat@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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            2 months ago

            Realistically I’ll have to look into this before trusting a random comment and I probably wont because it’s half the world away from me and he’s dead anyway.

            I am sure there is some subtly in personal culpability though because between Mao and peasants killing birds was a whole bureaucracy that evidentally thought it was worth doing (and idk how much is slavish obedience/fear).

            Temujin personally killed a lot of people. Like personally ordered the deaths of hundreds of thousands of people and his overall campaign was ~10% of human population at the time an estimated 40 million, which seems to be comparable to famine figures even if we personally blame both of them. Dude was a certified maniac and I think that especially given the overall lower population at the time and deliberate murderous intentions stands as histories greatest monster and most murderous person.

    • technocrit@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      2 months ago

      Authoritarian left… What is this?

      It’s an oxymoron. Authoritarianism is right-wing regardless of how the “authority” brands itself.

      • Lux@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        Left and right are generally agreed to be on the economic spectrum. Authoritarianism is not on this spectrum.

        • Ashelyn@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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          2 months ago

          And thus the political compass came to be, deciding that one axis on a sliding scale wasn’t enough to capture the nuances of political ideologies, but two axes was plenty!

      • ReCursing@lemmings.world
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        2 months ago

        The right claim that authoritarianism is a left-wing thing. I had an argument with someone who claimed that anarchocommunists could not possibly exist. You’re bnoth wrong, authoritarianism is an orthogonal axis

  • Moral_Army@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    In all of human history? Well, before the invention of money, I don’t know. But after the invention of money? Other humans.