I’m happy to see that the paper you link acknowledges in its opening sentence that “the human costs of communism in Eastern Europe were incalculably large”. Ignoring the 20 million murdered by the communist regime in Russia in statistics on economic performance that include per capita income measures seems questionable to me however.
This is cheap attempt at getting applause and deserves a downvote. Discussion is about economic efficiency of government control of economy, not about human rights under Communism, and these two are not obviously related as many Communist countries weren’t particularly genocidal (and Lenin/Stalin/Mao’s genocides existed in context of war), while many Capitalist countries were (~10M deaths due to African slave trade alone—that’s a highly capitalist activity, Nazi Germany was mostly a Capitalist economy, etc.) and it’s neither obvious that median Communist country was more genocidal than median Capitalist country, nor that economic growth and genocides are not directly related.
matthewnewport makes a good point which you seem to ignore. If you’re talking about a per capita increase in wealth, and part of that increase can be accounted for via 20 million people killed (not mirrored in the US) for a country with a population of maybe 180 million or so to start, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to say that their economic performance was the same.
I haven’t done the math though, so I have no opinion on whether there really is a significant difference there.
That was the point? Sorry, I missed it as I never thought anyone would make a suggestion that stupid.
Killing 20 million people—mostly in context of two world wars and civil war between them—cannot possibly increase standards of living of the rest. You basically look at massive destruction of human capital due to wars and revolutions and pretend it’s somehow net positive… This is Malthusianism taken to ridiculous levels. So dropping a few nukes here and there would help the economy?
In any case, even accepting an argument as retarded as that, it doesn’t apply to the vast majority of Communist countries.
In any case, even accepting an argument as retarded as that
There’s no need for language like that. Anyway, for countries where resource wealth (e.g. Russian oil and gas) is a big chunk of the economy, population can indeed have a big effect on per capita wealth (see Kuwait, Saudi Arabia). Likewise, if you have big wealth inequality, e.g. between peasant farmers and urbanites/factory workers, famines among poor farmers can easily raise per capita income.
Killing 20 million people—mostly in context of two world wars and civil war between them—cannot possibly increase standards of living of the rest. … This is Malthusianism taken to ridiculous levels.
Just an FYI: This position you’re arguing against is exactly what Gregory Clark) argues in “A Farewell to Alms [sic]”, minus the bit about destruction of capital. (See the links to reviews that summarize it.)
While I don’t agree with his thesis, it’s a serious attempt to show that massive die-offs (like through plagues) increased per-capita income. He shows records in England of the prices for capital (wealth-producing) goods like cattle going down as the population went down, thus making it easier for someone to make a living. This was, of course, before the 18th-century, and in that time the world actually did match Malthus’s theories because of the lack of technological breakthroughs necessary to sustain higher populations.
Name calling aside, you missed the point again. It’s not Malthusianism, it’s algebra.
per capita wealth equals wealth divided by population
By simple algebra, killing people without decreasing wealth increases per capita wealth, and thus a significant percentage of the population dying will artificially look like economic growth if you’re measuring growth per capita.
taw’s question-wrapped-in-barbed wire is how you keep wealth level despite killing people, since presumably those people were adding to the economy by both producing and consuming goods.
That is a good question, but I don’t see it in taw’s comment, even between the lines. taw seemed to think someone was implying that the economy would actually get better by killing poor people, thus the reference to Malthus.
I could easily contrive a scenario where one kills 20 million people without significantly decreasing wealth, and I noted that I don’t know whether this was such a case. Note CarlShulman’s observation below.
I’m happy to see that the paper you link acknowledges in its opening sentence that “the human costs of communism in Eastern Europe were incalculably large”. Ignoring the 20 million murdered by the communist regime in Russia in statistics on economic performance that include per capita income measures seems questionable to me however.
This is cheap attempt at getting applause and deserves a downvote. Discussion is about economic efficiency of government control of economy, not about human rights under Communism, and these two are not obviously related as many Communist countries weren’t particularly genocidal (and Lenin/Stalin/Mao’s genocides existed in context of war), while many Capitalist countries were (~10M deaths due to African slave trade alone—that’s a highly capitalist activity, Nazi Germany was mostly a Capitalist economy, etc.) and it’s neither obvious that median Communist country was more genocidal than median Capitalist country, nor that economic growth and genocides are not directly related.
matthewnewport makes a good point which you seem to ignore. If you’re talking about a per capita increase in wealth, and part of that increase can be accounted for via 20 million people killed (not mirrored in the US) for a country with a population of maybe 180 million or so to start, it doesn’t necessarily make sense to say that their economic performance was the same.
I haven’t done the math though, so I have no opinion on whether there really is a significant difference there.
That was the point? Sorry, I missed it as I never thought anyone would make a suggestion that stupid.
Killing 20 million people—mostly in context of two world wars and civil war between them—cannot possibly increase standards of living of the rest. You basically look at massive destruction of human capital due to wars and revolutions and pretend it’s somehow net positive… This is Malthusianism taken to ridiculous levels. So dropping a few nukes here and there would help the economy?
In any case, even accepting an argument as retarded as that, it doesn’t apply to the vast majority of Communist countries.
There’s no need for language like that. Anyway, for countries where resource wealth (e.g. Russian oil and gas) is a big chunk of the economy, population can indeed have a big effect on per capita wealth (see Kuwait, Saudi Arabia). Likewise, if you have big wealth inequality, e.g. between peasant farmers and urbanites/factory workers, famines among poor farmers can easily raise per capita income.
Just an FYI: This position you’re arguing against is exactly what Gregory Clark) argues in “A Farewell to Alms [sic]”, minus the bit about destruction of capital. (See the links to reviews that summarize it.)
While I don’t agree with his thesis, it’s a serious attempt to show that massive die-offs (like through plagues) increased per-capita income. He shows records in England of the prices for capital (wealth-producing) goods like cattle going down as the population went down, thus making it easier for someone to make a living. This was, of course, before the 18th-century, and in that time the world actually did match Malthus’s theories because of the lack of technological breakthroughs necessary to sustain higher populations.
Name calling aside, you missed the point again. It’s not Malthusianism, it’s algebra.
per capita wealth equals wealth divided by population
By simple algebra, killing people without decreasing wealth increases per capita wealth, and thus a significant percentage of the population dying will artificially look like economic growth if you’re measuring growth per capita.
taw’s question-wrapped-in-barbed wire is how you keep wealth level despite killing people, since presumably those people were adding to the economy by both producing and consuming goods.
That is a good question, but I don’t see it in taw’s comment, even between the lines. taw seemed to think someone was implying that the economy would actually get better by killing poor people, thus the reference to Malthus.
I could easily contrive a scenario where one kills 20 million people without significantly decreasing wealth, and I noted that I don’t know whether this was such a case. Note CarlShulman’s observation below.