Cambodia Part 1

[Brad De Long]

>Re the Famine. Chou En Lai told a journalist that a major
>cause was that the local areas, wanting to claim they had
>met their targets, over-reported their harvests and sent in
>their grain tax on the claimed rather than the actual figures.
>Then problems snowballed (including especially transportation
>-- China after all still had not much of a railroad system,
>let alone a "modern" highway system.
>
>Of course Chou was a monster who lied for the fun of
>it (like the WSJ editors, perhaps, or Kissinger or Woodrow
>Wilson or Kennedy) -- but those arguing other causes ought
>to at least acknowledge Chou's claim.
>
>Carrol

Not the local *areas*, the local *party officials.* To remove agency 
from the party officials who over-reported their harvests--or from 
the ministers in the center who were not able to assess the harvest 
figures reported--is not a way to understanding.

Brad DeLong