Comment by direwolf20

1 month ago

Capitalism has caused more economic growth than any other system, and without a high death toll.

Oxygen producing anaerobic bacteria gave us the atmosphere we breath but at the same time caused some of the largest, if not largest extinctions events on earth.

When talking about capitalism it seems a great many people in the US and HN have a difficult time using nuance and are unable to separate the good parts of capitalism from the parts that will kill us in the long run. Infinite growth cannot exist in a finite world. If we keep demanding capitalism grow unbound it will literally consume us and our biosphere.

Capitalism is the only economic system that has the privilege of being evaluated outside of the context of the society in which it exists. When socialism is criticized the political system is always, justly, included; so the purges of Stalin and the homophobia of Guevara are all taken into account. Apply the same thinking to capitalism and you have to count a lot more deaths and injustices: the Irish and Bengali famines, world war 1, climate change, etc.

  • Add the East India Company's rule in India to the list, 40 million deaths on a conservative estimation.

Are you including the wars and operations that we supported in the shadows to shore up that capitalism?