Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10.2 9/18/84; site dciem.UUCP
Path: utzoo!dciem!mmt
From: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Newsgroups: net.politics.theory
Subject: Re: Re: Libertarians in Space
Message-ID: <1634@dciem.UUCP>
Date: Tue, 16-Jul-85 17:58:22 EDT
Article-I.D.: dciem.1634
Posted: Tue Jul 16 17:58:22 1985
Date-Received: Tue, 16-Jul-85 21:41:19 EDT
References: <170@pedsgd.UUCP> 
Reply-To: mmt@dciem.UUCP (Martin Taylor)
Organization: D.C.I.E.M., Toronto, Canada
Lines: 45
Summary: 


>>This goes for both industrialized and non-industrialized countries.
>>On balance (setting aside deliberate genocide, like Stalin's Ukraine
>>and Pol Pot's Kampuchea), I would guess that there is less chance of
>>starving in a Communist country than in an equivalently endowed free-
>>enterprise one, and far less chance still in a Socialist one.  Some
>>real statistics might be more useful than appeals to mental models of
>>idealized history, whether they be mine or anyone else's.
>
>On what basis do you set them aside?  Are we expected to buy Stalin's
>rhetoric (whatever it may have been) about the justice of such a move?
>Are we expected to allow that "starvation doesn't count when it's
>the result of centralized intent on the part of the nominal government"?
>Such situations do not occur where no force is initiated -- where people
>are free.  They seem suspiciously common among socialist regimes where
>"hoarding" (that is, saving food in case of famine) is ofttimes a crime
>against the state.
>
>Some time ago, I posted a list of nations that had been split into
>socialist and non-socialist parts.  The list included Viet-Nam (before
>the war ended) China, Korea, and Germany.  In each case, the non-socialist
>side had the higher per-person GNP.  If you have reliable malnutrition
>data for these countries, I'd love to see it.

On the last point, you will note that I distinguished Communist,
Socialist, and free-enterprise in the extract on which you comment;
yet you choose to elide Communist and Socialist.

It was clear in the article to which mine responded that the inefficiency
of Communism was the cause of starvation.  Genocide was not the issue.
I merely gave as my opinion that in normal circumstances Communist
countries were less prone to allow their least fortunate people to
starve than were free-enterprise countries, and that Socialist countries
(meaning much of Western Europe over the last 40 years, and countries
with similar governments) were still less prone to do so.  In case you
are interested, I have a book of photographs of the United States taken
by a Danish photographer (Amerikanske Billeder), which would show you
a USA very different from that which most of us know.  You might not
find it pleasant viewing if you think there is no malnutrition among
the poor (I don't say starvation).
-- 

Martin Taylor
{allegra,linus,ihnp4,floyd,ubc-vision}!utzoo!dciem!mmt
{uw-beaver,qucis,watmath}!utcsri!dciem!mmt