>>There have been famines in Cuba and in North Korea. Famines are actually a
>>normal phenomenon of history in many human societies, depending also on
>>climate.
>>
>>Chris Burford
>
>Not in the twentieth century they aren't.
>
>Go read Amartya Sen's "Poverty and Famines : An Essay on Entitlement and
>Deprivation." Then come back and talk...
This appears to be still the problem of logic. There is a dispute about what is the received orthodox serious academic opinion about the loss of life in the late fifties early sixties in China.
It should be possible to summarise the essential point that is being made about Amartya Sen's essay on Poverty and Famine, without requiring another subscriber to read it in detail before having the right to contribute to the debate.
"No investigation, no right to speak" OK. "No right to speak unless detailed academic study has been done", not OK.
My understanding is that Sen effectively argued that famine occurs in a socio-political context, and has made a progressive critical contribution directed against laissez faire capitalism by these studies.
Of course.
Of course it is a weakness of a socialist state that 10 years after a revolution it is not able to manage resources and reserves to avoid substantial deaths from major natural disasters. It is also true that Mao and others were associated with major left errors which disrupted the rural economy through the Great Leap Forward. But it is also true that the climate of China is regularly irregular.
It is ahistorical if Socialist China in its early formation is judged by 21st century standards of social management of economies.
There is also the issue of sins of commission and sins of ommission.
Hitler knew the meaning of the Wannsee decisions about Jews in occupied territory. Mao had no intention through the Great Leap Forward to cause deaths through hunger.
Chris Burford
London