marxism on wgn-fm

Justin Schwartz jkschw at hotmail.com
Sun Feb 18 19:06:02 PST 2001



>
>Too bad you didn't stay to hear somebody say that he did not understand why
>we are still studying Marxism because it has been the cause of 100 Million
>deaths.

OK, and we are studying capitalism because it the cause of how many hundreds of millions of deaths? I mean, Sergio, historical Marxism has a bloody hands, no one can deny it. But it's not like capital doesn't done into the world, covered with filthm dripping blood from every pore, like hideous pagan idol, drinking nectar from the skulls of the slain. (Marx's great images, describing British colonialism in India.)

Mike Davis has a new book on out Late Victorian Holocausts, in which he credibly chalks up around 60 million deaths to capitalism's credit in what we now call the third world in the late 19th century _alone_, leaving out the 15 million in WWI amd the 50 million in WWII, and the odd ten or twelve million attributable to imperialism in Indochian and Korea, etc.

I mean, at a certain point, the numbers game gets ridiculous. The body count of Stalinsim was unspeakable, and condemns it foreover. But Stalinism is gone. The body count of capitalism is higher and, since capitalism is still here, growing. If Stalinism was unacceptable because of its victims, why is capitalism acceptable despite its dead? That is a rhetorical question.

--jks

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