>>> Brad De Long <delong at econ.Berkeley.EDU> 05/19 11:16 AM >>>
>Brad-
>
>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.
>
>
>Charles - Are you getting some of your figures from William F. Buckley, Jr.
>and the CIA history service ?
>
>
Brad DeLong- Why do you ask? Do you think that the estimate of the number of unarmed people living in territories that Chiang Kai-Shek's army and police controlled killed by his regime is too high?
>>>Charles - Maybe. but I'm wondering more about low bourgeois figures and high communist figures in general, and high figures among colonialist victims and low figures among colonializer victimizers. The general impression I get from your casual survey is that communists are worse than bourgeoisie and other races are worse than whites. Sounds like racist, bourgeois lying, not by you, but your sources.
Specifically, how are you counting up Lenin, Stalin, Mao and Ho Che Minh ? If you have Lenin, why do you leave out the bourgeois leaders of European "democracy" for WWI ?
But as I mention in other posts I have a problem with "infamous man" ("great man") approaches to historical theory, as well. I would echo other posts interrogating your method of affixing blame for specific deaths. For example, in general , I affix some of the blame for all deaths in revolutionary and counterrevolutionary wars to exploiting rulers and counter-revolutionary leaders. I don't do a body count on Lincoln for Confederate deaths. I put the whole thing on "Jefferson Davis and the gang."
Charles Brown