populism vs. Marxism (was RE: Frank Sinatra)

Brad De Long delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU
Mon May 18 13:00:16 PDT 1998



>Brad replies to Wojtek:
>>>criterion that matters in evaluating them is the 'whose thug?' -- for
>>>every national leader's closet hides plenty of skeletons. I do not think
>>>these figures are any more or less reprehensible than Rosevelets, Trumans,
>>>Nixons, or Reagans.
>>
>>Surely the magnitude of the body count matters?
>
>By the body count, how do FDR, Truman, Nixon, Reagan, etc. fare? Anybody
>ever counted?
>
>Yoshie

It depends on what you do with wars: whose "fault" is the death of roughly ten million Germans in World War II?

I think the place to draw the line is at setting whole cities on fire. Bombing railroads and districts with tank factories in them is not a war crime. Trying to set whole cities on fire is.

By that count Truman gets roughly 200,000 skeletons--say, one-fourth of a Suharto. Roosevelt gets half a Suharto. By my (rough) count Reagan gets perhaps a tenth of a Suharto, and Nixon and Johnson together make it up into the Suharto range.

Pinochet gets maybe a tenth of a Suharto. Ho Chi Minh is maybe a Suharto and a half.

Castro I don't know enough about, but I suspect he is in the tenth-Suharto range. Kim Il Sung is probably in the three Suharto range. Pol Pot is also in the three Suharto range--but he gets extra points for "enthusiasm" given Cambodia's small population base.

Lenin and Chiang Kai-Shek are in the roughly ten Suharo range.

The servants of the Showa Emperor make it up to the 10-20 Suharto range.

Mao, Stalin, and Hitler are in the 30-60 Suharto range.



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