Boudy counts, was: populism vs. Marxism, in turn was: Frank Sinatra

[Brad De Long]

>the body count argument is generally bogus.  Compare the "body count" of
>supposedly totalitarian Gomulka and Castro to Pinochet, Suharto, and the
>various thugs of Guatemala.  The real distinction is the attitude of the
>regime toward American investment.  As for Stalin, were the Gulags and
>wars against the Kulaks qualitatively worse than slavery or the Indian
>wars?

I don't have a dog in this fight. I have friends whose ancestors wound up
in the GULAG. I have friends whose ancestors were gassed by the Nazis. I
have ancestors (admittedly only one or two out of 512 in that generation)
who survived the Middle Passage). And I have other ancestors who owned
slaves (including some who owned slaves in *Maine*, which is... unusual).

Some of us hope for a governmental system that gives us better choices than
one between I. V. Stalin and J. C. Calhoun. That some things are *very* bad
does not make other bad things good...

Brad DeLong