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The following discussion is an archived debate of the proposed deletion of the article below. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was delete. Mark Arsten ( talk) 20:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply

Mass killings under capitalist regimes

AfDs for this article:
Mass killings under capitalist regimes (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log • Stats)
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And under its previous name:

AfDs for this article:
Mass killings under Capitalist regimes (  | talk | history | protect | delete | links | watch | logs | views) – ( View log) (moved at start of process of second AfD to "Mass Killings")
(Find sources:  Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL)

This articles appears to be a recreation of a deleted article discussed at Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Mass killings under Capitalist regimes. The article re-creator AnieHall ( talk · contribs) states at Talk:Mass killings under Communist regimes shortly after re-creating this article that the notion of "Mass killings under Communist regimes" is absurd but concludes that since it exists then so too should this article [1]. Therefore it seems apparent that this article may be a POINTy creation in response to the article Mass killings under Communist regimes. It appears to be a synthesis of the articles Late Victorian Holocausts, Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus and Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme. In fact there is no such thing as a Capitalist regime in the first place, since Capitalism isn't even a system of government. Therefore this article should be deleted as a synthesised POV-fork. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Nug ( talk • contribs) 21:12, 22 September 2012

  • In defence of this article, I'll begin with repeating this: "this page should not be speedily deleted because it cites the scholarly sources Le Livre Noir du Capitalism, Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus, the Late Victorian Holocausts, and The Actuality of Imperialism, all of which contend that the nature of capitalism leads to numerous deaths via war, famine, anti-communist movements, etc. Two of the works cited are in direct reaction to the book The Black Book of Communism, which is the source used for the Mass killings under Communist regimes article, which provides the figure of deaths under communism. The very publication of The Black Book of Communism and the "death toll of communism" has brought on the attempt by modern marxian theorists to chronical the deaths under the thumb of capitalism."
Yes, this article draws from the listed sources at this point and time, and if given time to mature, will include more sources. The works cited are works that are in reaction to books like the black book of communism and notions like subjects such as [[mass killings under Communist regimes." and,
in response to you point that "Capitalism isn't even a system of government", I'd like to note that i specifically left the "c" in capitalism lower-case. That just because a regime may gall itself "the Harper government" or "the republican party" or the "democratic party" and so on, does not mean that these parties which rule states and form regimes do not have a capitalist agenda, which is obvious. Perhaps the Bolsheviks weren't communist by the above reasoning.
At any rate, I took effort in the article under debate to emphasise that at least three of the sources were directly responding to the work The Black Book of Communism and the debate surrounding the number of deaths caused by Communism, and that the debate sparked the effort to tally the mass deaths under capitalist regimes. AnieHall ( talk) 21:34, 22 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep. The sources seem reasonable and the article is cautiously written. Someone has gone through and labeled every single source as 'unreliable', which I don't think is tenable. The article says "Noam Chomsky says...", and used a book by Chomsky to support that claim. Surely Chomsky's own writings are reliable sources about what he says? Pburka ( talk) 23:02, 22 September 2012 (UTC) reply
This is a topic outside of Noam Chomsky's area of expertise, so at best it is just his POV and the article remains a coat-rack of POVs synthesised into an article. -- Nug ( talk) 23:26, 22 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Chomsky's statement is amazingly deceptive with regard to the methodology of the Black Book of Communism and economic conditions in India, a socialist Cold War ally of the USSR. Moreover, to attribute all differences between China and India to "capitalism" is not logically defensible. Chomsky may be a reliable source for Chomsky, but the quote seems to be giving undue weight to a fringe opinion; it's sad that Chomsky's quote may be the most reliable source used in the article. At least the 1.6 billion estimate from a blog was removed.... TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 23:44, 22 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. For all of the above reasons, and AnieHall's own admission that it is not a legitimate article. There are articles about the Second World War, colonialism, imperialism, "anti-democratic wars", and so on. But they have nothing to do with capitalism, and there are no "capitalist regimes". TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 23:44, 22 September 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Actually, I admitted that one on "Communist regimes" shouldn't be an article, and then I went on to accept its existence as a Wikipedia article. I did not admit that one on "capitalist regimes" should not. To say that colonialism and imperialism and WWII have nothing to do with capitalism is inaccurate. Did the US invade Vietnam because they weren't defending capitalism and attempting to thwart communism (an obvious example, but I doubt that anyone wants to read a terse synopsis of the 20th century)? Capitalism is a system, and a government implements (or removes) policy to facilitate such a system, hence capitalist regime. AnieHall ( talk) 03:57, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
      • So, in other words, you truly choose to believe (or pretend to believe) that no communist would ever harm a fly. WWII was started by socialist countries hostile to capitalism. Leading industrialists like Henry Ford were overwhelmingly opposed to colonialism. The Soviets and Communist Chinese engaged in imperialism from Korea to Tibet to Afghanistan. North Vietnam invaded South Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia. Viet Cong atrocities alone accounted for a third of civilian deaths during the peak war years, as communists attacked schools, disemboweled village chiefs, and cut off their victims' genitalia before sewing it inside their mouths. The communists killed at least 600,000 South Vietnamese after the war, along with 150,000 Laotians and 2.5 million Cambodians. The U.S. never invaded Vietnam, and its role there was never "imperialistic". Even if you had an understanding of history that was remotely valid, your original research would still be insufficient to suggest a necessary link between economic freedom and mass killings by governments. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 08:28, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Mhmm. Did I state that imperialism was exclusive to capitalism? no. Have I nominated the mass killings under Communist regimes page for deletion? No. Have I denied that the Soviets along with various other communist governments committed crimes? No. Have the sources used tried to deny that crimes occurred under communist regimes? No. What they have attempted to do was bring the claims of works like the Black Book of Communism into perspective by creating works that chronical and examine the harms caused by capitalism. What I have attempted to do is illustrate the crimes of capitalism under a similar existing page construction, which has had not much time to develop. AnieHall ( talk) 22:05, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • @ TheTimesAreAChanging. You correctly mentioned North Vietnam invasion of South Vietnam and Cambodia, however, you prefer to forget that invasion of South Vietnam was caused by mass killings of Communists by Saigon regime. You also prefer to ignore that Vietnamese invasion of Cambodia helped to stop the worst genocide in history (committed by the regime that was implicitly supported by the US).-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 19:05, 24 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • That's a very creative interpretation of why North Vietnam attacked: To "liberate" South Vietnam and stop the "mass killings"! The North Vietnamese killed several hundred thousand people in their brutal purges and camps in the fifties and sixties, and nearly one million people fled to the South to escape the horror and repression, but no matter: Hanoi wanted to protect the rights of persecuted South Vietnamese Buddhists....except for the fact that they repressed Buddhists much more severely. The North Vietnamese attempted to overrun Cambodia at the request of the Khmer Rouge in 1970 (Dmitry Mosyakov, "The Khmer Rouge and the Vietnamese Communists: A History of Their Relations as Told in the Soviet Archives," in Susan E. Cook, ed., Genocide in Cambodia and Rwanda) and were one of the few countries to maintain diplomatic relations with the KR regime until 1977. The Vietnamese did stop the worst genocide in history--to their credit, although their motive was self-defense--but it should never be forgotten (as authors like Craig Etcheson in After the Killing Fields have documented) that they (and their puppets in the PRK) killed tens of thousands of innocents during the occupation. I wonder why so many radical academics supported the Khmer Rouge at the time, and a few (like Grover Furr) continue to deny the genocide to this day, if it was always so obvious that everything bad in Cambodia was America's fault? Why does Furr take the time to argue both that Pol Pot only killed a couple hundred thousand people at most, and that--however many people he killed--Pol Pot was really a right-wing, fascist reactionary? TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 09:30, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I would say, your post is a very creative interpretation of my words. I never said that the goal of North Vietnam was to stop mass killings, my point was that it was the Saigon regime who started mass repressions against Viet Min Communists, and that triggered the civil war. It is also hard to deny that Ngô Đình Diệm's regime was among the worst authoritarian regimes in history, and it committed mass murders and other crimes, so we can speak at least about the clash between two Asiatic barbaric regimes (Northern and Southern ones).
    Regarding Cambodia, stopping mass genocide at cost of killing of ten thousands of innocents is not too terrible price.
    Re USA, I did not mean that their role in genocide was important (or significant). My point was that they implicitly (although not actively) supported KR against Vietnam, and therefore they bear some moral responsibility for those events (although, again, I would object against the attempts to exaggerate their role in this story).-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 12:48, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • The civil war was the result of North Vietnam's fanatical expansionism and commitment to spread communism across Southeast Asia. And it is very easy to deny that Diem was one of the worst dictators in history; that looks to me like unquantifiable hyperbole. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 13:02, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • kind of off topic. but, I think the key is "among the worst", which would not be easy to deny. Anyhow. the point isn't what our personal interpretations of history are, it's about the cited works' interpretation. Just because you disagree that Diem was the leader of one of the worst authoritarian regimes in modern history does not mean that countless scholars and published works wouldn't disagree. unless you have a source that says he was "not so bad if you ignore the murders and the torturing", then you could add that source to dispute the hypothetical section that lists all the dead. But to begin with, Vietnam has not been explicitly stated on this page (that may not exist for much longer) - though it is mentioned in, at least,Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme, so potentially it could eventually be added if someone has something reasonable to put together and the page still exists, and then at that point in time you can add the source explaining that Diem was a fine ol'chap and those dead people deserved what they got so they don't really count. Vietnam is just an obvious point-to example for capitalist aggression, which yes, I'm sure there is some published work out there that vilifies the north and glorifies south Vietnam/US, which is kind of the point of this article... presenting views from the opposite side of the spectrum to the mass killings under communist regimes page (that, surprise, has a section on Vietnam), which we are not discussing here. So, I guess what I'm saying is that there are different approaches to history and it's nice to have as much information from all sides available so that readers can interpret for themselves, and also that maybe we can pick apart the history of murders in Vietnam in detail at a later point in time if this article isn't deleted (or on the pages that are more specific to this topic). AnieHall ( talk) 06:22, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Although Diem was a pretty bad leader, I highly doubt you'd find many reliable sources that describes him as "among the worst authoritarian regimes in history". For all of Diem's misdeeds, that is quite over the top. Diem's regime is estimated to have executed 10,000 people whereas North Vietnam killed at least 172,000 people in land reform alone. Also regarding this: "Regarding Cambodia, stopping mass genocide at cost of killing of ten thousands of innocents is not too terrible price." Sure it would be hard to argue that the invasion itself created a beneficial situation for Cambodia but that does not justify their mass murder or their deliberate starvation afterwards. It's just swapping a tyranny for an albeit far lesser tyranny, so I would not give much credit regarding the Vietnamese conduct or intentions. Anyway this is off topic. Stumink ( talk) 20:56, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. For all of the above reasons, and it is impossible to find credible estimates for this. All sources used are fringe and all estimates are from fringe sources as well. Stumink ( talk) 03:03, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
    • Kurz (not well known in the USA, but is well recognised in Germany and much of Europe) and Chomsky (who in North America has been well received for his political and economic criticisms, and is invited to lecture at universities across the globe) and Davis (whose book This book won the World History Association (WHA) Book Prize in 2002. It was also featured in the LA Times Best Books of 2001 List) are not fringe sources, and Luxemburg (whose theory is pointed to in a sourced article) is not a fringe or inconsequential marxian theorist. I haven't found anything to suggest that the authors (numerous) or the editor (perrault) of le livre noir du capitalisme are not credible. AnieHall ( talk) 03:57, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I also have noticed that some of those who have voted for deletion are contributors to the mass killings under Communist regimes page, which makes me suspect that they may have a personal bias in favour of the existence of an article listing the deaths under communism and not capitalism, and perhaps have an axe to grind. Conflict of interest? or irrelevant? AnieHall ( talk) 04:11, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
If true, that would not be a conflict of interest by any standard. Your remark appears to be another admission that the article is indefensible except as a way of making a point regarding a different article. However, I would like you to justify your statement. I've been here for four years and I have only edited the talk page of "mass killings under communist regimes" a few days ago, and that was to raise awareness about this article. I'm not a contributor! Stumink is only a "contributor" in the sense that he requested more information about communist atrocities in Africa on the talk page. We're the only ones who have voted for deletion. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 08:12, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes, well now. The Mass killings under Communist regimes page requires consensus to edit it, so one cannot contribute to it directly, but must go through the talk page to make a case for desired changes. AnieHall ( talk) 23:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Firstly, I do not understand why the people working on the MKuCR article cannot vote for/against deletion of this article. In my opinion, that has no relation to WP:COI. Secondly, I expect the users voting for deletion of this particular article to be, at least, consistent. The same arguments you guys use to justify deletion of this particular article are equally applicable to MKuCR article. If we use the Black Book of Communism as a source, why Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus or Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme cannot be used? If we decide that these two books are controversial, why the content from the (equally controversial) Black Book of Communism is being used in the opening sentence of the MKuCR article?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 19:30, 24 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes, excellent points, PS. AnieHall ( talk) 04:12, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
We don't (at least the last time I checked) use the Black Book of Communism as a source, except as a primary source for what it says. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 09:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Arthur, you are not right. The Mass killings under Communist regimes article starts with the words:
"Mass killings occurred under some Communist regimes during the twentieth century with an estimated death toll numbering between 85 and 100 million. [1]"
The reference 1 is the reference to the Black Book of Communism (more precisely, to the highly controversial introduction written by Courtois). In other words, not only this source is being used as a secondary one, it is being used as a source reflecting a mainstream viewpoint, and it is being used to support the major thesis of the article.
Interestingly, many users supporting deletion of this article simultaneously supported usage of the BB in the MKuCR article as a major secondary source. This is a typical example of double standards.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 11:07, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Requested changes on the talk page there. The article being under general sanctions, I'm not going to make the change myself without reading the 22 archives to see if there is a prior consensus. It doesn't qualify as a minor edit or reverting vandalism or a WP:BLP violation. — Arthur Rubin (talk) 15:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply


  • Delete This stuff seems too polemical, contrary to WP:SOAP. If I were to write it, I would attribute many such deaths to the influence of science rather than political-economics. Social Darwinism was very influential in the first half of the 20th century and informed the attitudes to race, class and nation which resulted in much death. There's plenty of sources which discuss such ideas, (e.g. Darwinism, War and History) and so it's not difficult to find something to support the spin that one favours. We should prefer a more disinterested, insightful and historical approach such as is found in Guns, Germs, and Steel. Warden ( talk) 10:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Social Darwinism isn't science, but a political ideology. IRWolfie- ( talk) 22:37, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete. This article is a recreated after deletion (please see previous AfD), and nothing changed. This article was created based on a flawed idea unsupported by any serious scientific sources. "Capitalism" simply means market economy, unlike ideologies like Communism or Fascism which justified killings in the name of Idea. Even Marx criticized capitalism from a purely economic perspective, as a system where rich can rob the poor. My very best wishes ( talk) 21:40, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
    • The market economy/capitalism is also an idea. Going back to one of the most obvious examples, the Vietnam war occurred precisely because the US government wanted to smash any potential economy that was not similar to its own; not because they were concerned about what kind of electoral system might arise. Also, please explain to me what is "scientific" about the sources for the mass killings under Communist regimes page that differs from the sources I have thus far accumulated. AnieHall ( talk) 21:57, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
      • This article could be called Mass killings under market economy. No, market economy is not a political ideology. Communism, nationalism and liberalism are. We should not discuss other articles here. My very best wishes ( talk) 22:30, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
        • Yes, I'm aware of the distinction between economy and [[ideology], and I am aware of their close interdependence. I also believe, above, you stated that capitalism means market economy, so why not call it "Mass killings under capitalism", minus the regime. Most of the sources (at this point in time) use the term capitalism, as opposed to "market economy".
re: "scientific" sources, since my sources are deemed unscientific, I am having a hard time determining what a scientific source is, since I have been referencing the mass killings under Communist regimes page as a rough template for what kind of sources can be used to construct this article, since the mass killings under Communist regimes page survived deletion nomination, and this page, it appears, may not. So perhaps you could explicitly explain what is not "scientific" about the sources, and then I could determine what I misinterpreted when viewing the mass killings under Communist regimes page that we are not discussing. AnieHall ( talk) 22:55, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • me again, yes, sorry for the trouble, again and again. On glancing at the first few lines of the political ideology page, one reads the following: "An ideology is a collection of ideas. Typically, each ideology contains certain ideas on what it considers to be the best form of government (e.g. democracy, autocracy, etc.), and the best economic system (e.g. capitalism, socialism, etc.)." So... what I'm getting at with this quoted section is, is that it appears to mention economic systems as being a part of a political ideology. It also explicitly mentions capitalism. but perhaps its sources are not scientific. and yes, i realise that we are not to quote Wikipedia, but I thought I would mention it since you highlighted the page, and since I doubt referencing my first year political science print-text would be of much use to those online, and since I'm not discussing adding this to the page, although I could add a blurb on what the definitions of ideology and economy and their interconnection if that would make the article less disagreeable, since there seems to be a peculiar consensus here that the capitalist form of economy has nothing to do with ideology, policy and government. AnieHall ( talk) 23:31, 23 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I'm not trying to make connections, what I am doing is adding what has been presented in published works, and what has been discussed by the cited authors. To emphasise that these are not my connections, I have added foot notes to basically every sentence/paragraph in the entire article. And yes, my initial reaction was that the page mass killings under Communist regimes did not seem like a legitimate article, but it was explained to me that that article went through this review process here and was deemed worthy enough to continue on existing, which enlightened me to the kinds of articles possible on Wikipedia, and then led me to recognise a gap, in my opinion, that ought to be filled, and so i endeavoured to fill that gap. To me, not having this article while having the other is like having a article for frostbite and then not having one for burns. Hence, the effort. AnieHall ( talk) 05:36, 24 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete recreation of an already deleted article deleted through the standard process; we should be running a DRV of the original article, not allowing people to game the system by recreating the article. Buckshot06 (talk) 01:13, 24 September 2012 (UTC) reply
    • An admin has already indicated that this is not a recreation of the deleted article, as it is substantially different. Deleting an article in the past doesn't mean that the topic is permanently banninated. Pburka ( talk) 01:21, 24 September 2012 (UTC) reply
      • May be this is not a copy-paste of the previous version, but the overall logic and even sources are essentially or exactly the same, as far as I remember from previous AfD (although I could forget something because it was long time ago). One could ask admin to post the previous version somewhere in userspace if anyone wants to compare. My very best wishes ( talk) 04:49, 24 September 2012 (UTC) reply
        • First, I wasn't "gaming" the system. I, sadly, don't have the first clue as to how one "games" the system, as I'm rather new to the system. Mostly I made an account to fix minor grammatical errors or to begin articles on books/authors that were absent, until this. Second, I haven't even seen the other article by the same name, and I would like to. The links provided above don't end up at an article, although the the discussion is available. Maybe the article itself is available for viewing, but my wikipedia navigating skills are at a low enough level that I haven't yet figured it out. AnieHall ( talk) 04:25, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete per Buckshot06. Estlandia (Miacek) (dialogue) 12:06, 24 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Comment. Whereas I do see serious problems with this article (which seems to be a negative calque of its twin, Mass killings under Communist regimes), many arguments of the proponents of deletion are equally applicable to the MKuCR article. Thus, many crimes ascribed to Communism by some authors have almost zero relation to Communism. Creation of this article is a strong indication that something is fundamentally wrong with the Mass killings under Communist regimes article. In my opinion, both articles must be seriously re-written, or split onto several logically interconnected parts, and that is the only way to resolve the issue.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 19:01, 24 September 2012 (UTC) reply
The pants are not seamed properly so therefore the shirt is defective? We're discussing one article here, not two. Am I wrong? !!!!
  • Delete. I agree with @Paul Siebert insomuch as this appears to be a twin to Mass killings under Communist regimes. The issue is that a large number of communist regimes employed terror as an ongoing and accepted means of population control and opposition eradication, whereas mass killings, for example, by a fascist, yet capitalist, regime, belong to the "fascist" regime (speaking to motivation, purpose, results), i.e., Mass killings under fascist regimes; there is no capitalist impetus to kill off anyone to improve profits. While ostensibly appearing to fill in a gap of the "opposite" missing, the fundamentals here don't support any raison d'être. VєсrumЬа ► TALK 18:57, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
My point was that both twins must be seriously modified. Regarding terror, you perfectly know that majority of 100 million victims of Communism mentioned by Courtois were not the victims of terror, but the victims of famine and disease, which were the result of social transformations. However, capitalism also lead to profound social and economic transformations, which lead to mass deaths, so, as soon as Courtois' approach is being used to calculate the amount of victims of Communism, I do not see why the same approach cannot be used in this article. -- Paul Siebert ( talk) 19:40, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
That's nonsense Paul, a form of capitalism has been practiced since at least the time of Ancient Rome so I'm not sure what "profound social and economic transformations" your are talking about. -- Nug ( talk) 20:04, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
That is nonsense only for those who have limited knowledge of history. Whereas some seeds of capitalism existed in Europe since ancient times, it started to dominate only in XVII-XVIII century, and its encounter with traditional societies (in Ireland, India, Africa, America) lead to sharp and profound social transformations, comparable to that in Communist states. Just compare the events described in Steinbeck's " The Grapes of Wrath" with concurrent Soviet collectivisation. And, please, remember, that by that moment western capitalism had become much more vegetarian than it was on the apex of capitalist expansion.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 00:58, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Lovely WP:OR on social transformation. Hmmm... was there forcible government confiscation of food grain, seed grain, and the food off of the shelves of families in Steinbeck's world, leaving starvation as the only option? Hmmm... perhaps not. VєсrumЬа ► TALK 01:18, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Forcible confiscation of food grain was not the only option to starve people to death. It could be taxation beyond any reasonable limits (as in Ireland), or "speculative withdrawal and panic purchase of rice stocks encouraged by administrative chaos" (as in Bengal). Of course, the causes were different, but the results (death of 25% of Irish population, or death of 2 million out of 60 million Bengal population) was equally impressive. And both those events had direct relation to capitalism.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 01:32, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Forms of communism (obviously not Marxism specifically, as that didn't exist until Marx, but one could argue it still hasn't, but that would be off topic) have also been practiced prior to the 20th c. I'm not sure what your point is, nug. the point of this article is to group all the mass killings (from at least the 20th c) that have occurred under capitalism's different forms. Also, like capitalism, not all communist states have been identical, and yet mass killings under communist regimes is an acceptable umbrella category, whereas a similar article for capitalism appears to be unacceptable; seems inconsistent to me. Also, I have to agree with Paul's above statement. If you are unclear as to the "profound social and economic transformations" of capitalism, one only has to open any history or political science text textbook to find a plethora of examples (of course, I have only stuck to the ones found in the cited sources, as they explicitly state that there is a relationship between the economic system and the deaths). i.e. the great depression, lack of access to health care, anti-communist movements (McCarthyism, Vietnam war, korean war, bombing strikes on civilians in Cuba, etc), lack of access to housing (i.e. freezing to death, not unheard of in northern capitalist states (ie canada, russia)), the french revolution, numerous other revolutions, the collapse of the soviet union was not without deaths, and modern russia has not been significantly improved. Anyways, my point is, is that if a person thinks about it, the examples of social and economic transformations are endless under any economic systems. This is not to say that all transformations result in numerous deaths, some even reduce deaths (preferably), but that is not the subject of this article or the article that inspired this one. AnieHall ( talk) 00:03, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Courtois. Off topic. Enough said. VєсrumЬа ► TALK 23:20, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Actually, Courtois is not off topic, as his work inspired Kurz, Chomsky, and Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme, and his work is mentioned specifically in the article that is being disputed. AnieHall ( talk) 00:05, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
"Social transformation" yes, a useful term for mass deportation, requisitioning all grain, grain seed, and foodstuff in the family cupboard. Yes, all those deaths certainly did transform society. Again, wrong article. VєсrumЬа ► TALK 23:28, 25 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Yes, the term "social transformation" is a useful one. This term is widely used, for example, by Benjamin Valentino on his "Final solutions", chapter 4, where he discusses mass killings under some Communist regimes. Therefore, I don't see any problem with that term.
BTW, the same term can be applied to eradication of native American population, Atlantic slave trade, or destruction of traditional Indian economy, that lead to large scale famine in Bengal.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 00:49, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Since in surveying the last century of carnage Valentino has created a category for communist mass killing and not capitalist mass killing, and since you quote Valentino as well-known scholar in the topic area, we appear to have solved the issue of notability of both articles. Bravo! VєсrumЬа ► TALK 01:28, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Nonsense. The fact that Valentino does not use some term does not mean such a term does not exists.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 01:36, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I've just checked the cites from Chomsky and Coatsworth, and I don't see where they make the connection between mass killing and "capitalist regimes". I've tagged those cites as having failed verification. -- Nug ( talk) 09:13, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Sorry, but the idea to blow it up and start over is an absurd: that is what exactly has been done on 3 September 2012. The article is less then 1 month old, so the most reasonable solution would be to gradually improve the article, get rid of synthesis, remove unreliable sources, add more reliable sources, in other words, to follow the standard procedure described in our content policy.
Meanwhile, I noticed that at least one very reliable source exists in the article that supports the claim that in XIX century capitalist system caused death of at least 60 million peoples. The famine that caused those deaths was not the natural consequence of weather but ‘brilliantly organized’ by the Victorian ruling class (Critical Public Health,Vol. 12, No. 1, 2002). Therefore, the main thesis of the article (that capitalism, at some stage of its development, is a deadly system) is fully supported, and whereas we can argue about minor synthesis problems, the article, by and large, has a right to exist.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 20:26, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Capitalism isn't a system of government. If you found a source that links mass killings with the "Victorian ruling class" then go start an article Mass killings under monarchies. -- Nug ( talk) 20:31, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Communism is not a system of government either. Like Capitalism, it is an economical system.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 20:38, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • indeed. in a capitalist state, it is not necessary to call a political party the "capitalist party", as all parties are fundamentally capitalist, some (or most) with varying degrees of socialist policies. And if you say that if a state that has a socialist policy (say, free education up to grade 12) that they are not fully capitalist, then one could argue the same for every communist/socialist state that has ever existed (ie. ussr and the NEP). Also, the title of Late Victorian Holocausts may be misleading, as it indicates the era named for queen Victoria. the interest in India was economic, not due to monarchy, and the monarchy already had limited powers by that point in time. Davis clearly makes the case that the deaths were a result of capitalist policies. To go further, today Canada is a constitutional monarchy, the Queen is technically head of state (or her representative who is appointed by the pm, the governor general). The head of state technically can oppose legislation and has the final say, but because the gg is appointed and is symbolic of the monarchy s/he usually does not oppose anything and simply signs and carries out ceremonies and that sort of trivial business. If the gg ever did oppose anything proposed by the elected parliament, likely the monarchy would be done away with and the royal family would no longer get to go on free vacations to Canada at the taxpayers’ expense. Point being, monarchy has increasingly less and less power in the UK and abroad since the civil wars (prior to the work in question)… so what I’m getting at is the point made about monarchy isn’t a very good one.
On another note, sorry for the lousy formatting and so on, I'm admittedly not a seasoned wikipedia article creator/formatter, but I believe that those are issues that given time could be alleviated, especially with the assistance of those with more experience. Unfortunately (for me), currently, much of my time is dedicated to attempting to defend the article here, rather than working on it, and life off of the computer, of course. I haven't had time, as of yet, to read the sources recently added by another contributor that have been tagged as irrelevant, so I can't say if I agree or disagree with that. I would argue that Le Livre Noir du Capitalisme and Schwarzbuch Kapitalismus are at least as reliable as The Black Book of Communism (which is cited on wikipedia under the antithetical article) if not more reliable. So if I have erred in selecting those two works as sources, it is because I was looking to a highly scrutinized article for what kinds of sources are considered acceptable. AnieHall ( talk) 22:22, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
AnieHall, don't pat yourself on the back too much. We both know that those were your only two sources because the rest were instantly removed as outrageously unreliable (The Maoist Rebel News claiming 1.6 billion deaths, self-published blogs, ect). TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 22:29, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Sorry for patting myself on the back. Yes, "Maoist Rebel News", admittedly not a fabulous source (Hence it not being re-added once)(although in defence to the news source (not that I am proposing using it, just sayin', it would be difficult to get corporate sponsorship like mainstream news suppliers if your goal is the transition of the modern market economy into one that would end the existence of big business and so on). At that point in time, the page was perhaps a week old, and I was mostly trying to accumulate all information specific to the topic under discussion. It would have been wiser to have done it on a Word document, or figured out how to work on a page on the user page. And again, the figure was much larger as it was not exclusive to the 20th C. Anyways. I'm going to go ahead and note that you have mentioned this several times, and that since the source and figure are not present on the page and I have made no mention of including it since, you are not being constructive by any definition that I can conceive of, unless your point is that I am now tainted with poor sourciness for the remainder of my cyber-life. Please place a scarlet letter on my user page and burn me at the cyber stake so that your ad hominem attack can be immortalised in space, and you can spare yourself the trouble of repeating it again every 3 or 4 days. At which point in time, perhaps you can then begin to focus on the sources that are on the page. AnieHall ( talk) 22:54, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • "Several times"? This was the first time MRN was ever brought up on this page! And you're the only one who has resorted to ad hominems, by insinuating conflicts of interest. I brought it up because you were preying on the ignorance of editors who may not be aware of how much (even) worse the article was before it was nominated for deletion. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 23:11, 26 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Yes, You mention it above here under Pburka's comment, and then again, and under the talk page for mass killings under capitalism and under the talk page for mass killings under communism, so that is 4 times (either MRN or the 1.6 b. figure) off the top of my head. And I do not see how I was "preying on ignorance", I think I was apologising for being a beginner at Wikipedia article creating and formatting? Also, I did not explicitly name anyone with regards to the communist regimes page, I simply asked if being involved in the "mass killings under communist regimes" page could potentially be a conflict of interest (ie, contributors may be biased on the issue), or if that were irrelevant. After further comments, I struck through the comments I made. I would have deleted them completely, but then it would make the further discussion not make sense, and I have a feeling that deleting dialogue here is usually not acceptable? but if it is, feel free to delete the comments i crossed out. SO what I'm saying is, I retracted my comments that were not ad hominem to begin with, as they were not directed specifically at anyone. although I suppose that someone could go read through the talk page to find out if they were really interested, which seems unlikely to me. Anyhow, I imagine that the crossing out makes it obvious to other readers that I was admitting that that statement was either wrong or at least irrelevant. Also, I think it is generally obvious that articles are usually worse in the past, and then get better as time goes on (even if the better state is still not wonderful like the m.k.u.com.r article), as they have more time to develop and be organised/written better, unless vandalism is occurring or something of that sort. So, no I wasn't trying to pull the wool over anyone’s eyes. Also, I believe it is the current article that is being debated, not the version of it from prior to the deletion nominations and debate, making this entire thread of discussion irrelevant. AnieHall ( talk) 03:34, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Note: This debate has been included in the list of History-related deletion discussions. • Gene93k ( talk) 02:03, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Libertarians would point out that the US has been getting progressively less capitalist since the twenties. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 05:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
AnieHall, I'm sure MVBW wasn't serious. TheTimesAreAChanging ( talk) 05:33, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
This article reminds me the front page of Soviet newspaper Pravda ("The Truth"). What I gave you ( the graph) is a typical example of data that would be used in Pravda as a proof of The Parasitism and Decay of Capitalism. Let's not do it here. My very best wishes ( talk) 14:22, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
That the number of prisoners in the US is excessive is a well known fact. By the way, the fact that capital punishment is still massively practiced in the US, along with China and Iran, is also a fact. In connection to that, I do no fully understand the point you want to make.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 16:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • DELETE Is stupid a good reason? Basically this article reads as "We have no idea, so we will just pull a bunch of numbers out of thin air and acribe them to capitalism because we don't like capitalism." Capitalism is not even a governmental form which means that there is not even a definition for a capitalistic regime. Capitalism is a system of economic theory associated usually with Democratic governments, thus a Capitalist Regime is an oxymoron. I must say I really love the implications for such an article "If you don't agree to a free economy where you are freely allowed to trade your goods and services in a free manner without governmental intrusion we will kill you." I think it would be a first for a government to kill its subjects for refusing to live in a free economy! Arzel ( talk) 14:29, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Wrong. A simple example of mass killing under capitalism is described in the "Victorian Holocaust" (which is definitely a reliable mainstream source): food was being massively exported from Ireland or India despite large scale famine there, and this export occurred according to the mechanisms immanent to market economy (similarly to the export of grain from starving USSR during the Great Soviet Famine, which was a result of planned socialist economy). In other words, "Victorian Holocaust" provide clear example of mass killings that were a direct result of free market economy, and they were its essential part.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 16:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Awesome, a book by a hard core marxist which basically confirms my initial statement. It would have been far more interesting if Davis had not come to a "Capitalism is Evil" conclusion. Regardless, the issue to which is describe is not even true capitalism, is either state dictated crony capitalism or pure statism. I'll say it again. Capitalism is not a governmental form, but an economic theory for trade. By the very definition you cannot have a ruler of capitalism, because once you have a ruling class over a free trade the trade is no longer truly free. Arzel ( talk) 17:30, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
The "book by a hard core marxist" got many positive reviews and is considered as a reliable mainstream source. In addition, the facts from this book are confirmed by other, non-marxist sources.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 18:41, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Bullshit. Its facts may be true, but their interpretation has definitely been found lacking by much more authoritative sources on famine, such as Econ Nobel winner Amartya Sen. See his review of that book. I've taken the liberty of expanding that "plot-only" advertorial article for the book with some elements from Sen's review. Tijfo098 ( talk) 19:36, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
The Sen's review says:
"The insightful writer Tariq Ali has described this challenging monograph as a veritable Black Book of liberal capitalism. That it certainly is, but it is more than that. "
Yes, Sen points at the fact that not only capitalism should be blamed in mass killings, however, who argues with that?-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 04:38, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
So here we go: Mass killings by market economy. P.S. No, the Holodomor and other Soviet famines were not result of Soviet planned economy, but that belongs to another discussion. My very best wishes ( talk) 16:55, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Capitalism and market economy are very close concepts inseparable from each other. Regarding Soviet or Chinese famines, please, read more on that.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 17:09, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I fail to understand why a Marxian view of history is not legitimate. Does that mean that anyone who favours the ideas of subsequent and past philosophers and economists is also considered to have illegitimate ideas? Because basically that excludes... everyone? Quick, everybody, go back in time and don't read the works of Marx (especially Marx), Kant, Hegel, Burke, Plato, Aristotle, Hobbes, Hume, Locke, Lenin, Woolfe, Keynes, Mill, Rand, Bentham, Smith, etc etc etc, as they might give you an "ian" or "ist" view of the world, and subsequently all thoughts from your mind will be considered unreliable by azrel. Where is your source that states that a source from a marxist perspective is not trustworthy. If anything, your admission only draws attention to your personal bias. AnieHall ( talk) 21:52, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • I think you are conflating reliable with objective. Certainly the socialistic works of Marx et al are reliable, it is just that they are in no way objective about capitalism. Those that have a strong anithesis to capitalism are simply not reliable for any objective view about capitalism since most of their works has been to demonize capitalism. Now is this article supposed to be an opinion about what anti-capitalist think are mass killings under capitalism...or...a factual article with actual cited examples of such mass killings? Because your choice of sourcing favours the first. Arzel ( talk) 13:45, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I think all these cases are very different. My personal suggestion would be to rename and expand Mass killings under Communist regimes to more general subject of Political repression by Communist states (not a propaganda, but a notable subject supported by huge number of RS), to rename and expand Zoological conspiracy theories (Arab-Israeli conflict) to more general and neutral subject of Zoological conspiracies (maybe word "conspiracy" could be replaced by something else), while Immigration and crime looks to me as a legitimate subject, just like Poverty and crime, as long as this is something described in sociological studies. My very best wishes ( talk) 16:46, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
The idea to rename MKuCR to Political repression by Communist states (or Political repression under Communist regimes) sounds quite reasonable. That would allow us to get rid of ridiculous numbers of 100+ million killed by Communists (because lion's share of population losses were not the victims of political repressions). Simultaneously, such renaming would allow us to look at the Mass Killings under Capitalist Regimes at different angle. Good proposal, MVBW.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 16:53, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Yes, renaming/restructuring seems like a reasonable suggestion to me. At the moment, as is, the name of the current article makes sense in correlation with its antithesis, and the general direction both pages have taken. AnieHall ( talk) 22:01, 27 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete- I'm not sure capitalist regimes even exist, as the idea of capitalism is an economic system separated from the state. It makes little sense to ascribe the crimes of nations to their economic system in this case, and the article shows no real correlation. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Ducknish ( talk • contribs)
  • Keep. There have been many mass killings under capitalist regimes. I'm not convinced that The Black Book of Capitalism (tagged as an unreliable source by somebody) is an unreliable source. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 01:04, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep . I think it should be kept and expanded.It is clear that there have been many mass killings under capitalists regimes and many continue to be little known in the world today. Seems like a fine article at the moment and sourced. Zrdragon12 ( talk) 02:17, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Keep - albeit this article certainly needs substantial rewriting. I see absolutely no reason why WP:SOAP applies in this case but not for the equivalent Communism article, and although many argue above that capitalism is not a political system but merely an economic one, this is not for them to decide - if there is sufficient academic backing for this conception of capitalism in relation to politics, then that is what should matter. However, I would be happiest with a renaming of both this and the equivalent communist article in line with Paul Siebert's suggestion above. "Political repression by capitalist/communist states" is a much less tendentious title than "mass killings"; frankly this game of seeing who has a bigger pile of megadeaths is quite sickening. This serves far more the aims of propaganda than of a fully encyclopaedic account of political repression, political murder being only a part of this wider context. Additionally, if this didn't satisfy, another pair of articles could be created - this time "Famines under communism" and "Famines under capitalism". The question of intentionality would not have to be answered in a tendentious article title, and therefore the text could reflect the actual state of academic debate on the matter. HauntologicalPhenomenon ( talk) 03:41, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
    • some good points, I think. even attributing an article to famines under capitalism/communism could, in many cases, be disputed (well, some are obvious, ie the case in india were food was being exported when there was need at home), but many famines are due to environmental factors (floods, lack of biodiversity, overpopulation (Malthus)), and could be disputed quite easily. Although the way the government plans ahead and handles scarcity can alter the severity of famine... a possible topic, but also would be controversial.
I also don't understand why some like to pretend that the economic system of a state has nothing to do with its politics; absurd. In most cases, economics is the main business of government, minus issues like gay marriage and abortion and other religious or legal matters, and even a number of those are often related to economics. AnieHall ( talk) 03:58, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Well, this is the beauty of a title like "Famines under capitalism". Unlike "killings", there is not nearly as much implication of an active role, and as such that can be examined in the article. As it is, current thinking is that famines are almost always a matter of distribution rather than absolute shortage (per Amartya Sen etc), is it not? HauntologicalPhenomenon ( talk) 04:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
That is a reasonable arguments, however, what I cannot understand is the following. The similar situation with famines under Communism, which are currently are being described as "killings" in the Mass Killings Under Communist Regimes article, causes no concern of the WP community: the article had been frozen in its present form, and it currently says (using a highly controversial Courtois' introduction the the Black Book of Communism) that people who died as a result of Soviet or Chinese famines were "killed". In my opinion, your criticism is an example of double standards.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 16:34, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Delete as extraordinarily weakly sourced with non-RS sources, and including material not remotely connected to the ostensible topic. Note further that the "book" cited is specifically a group of essays chosen for ideological purposes, and not for historiographic purposes. I would like any closing admin to note the number of !votes made by editors with few edits on Wikipedia, and those which simply say "there are many killings by capitalists" etc. as not being on point for the purposes of an AfD discussion. Cheers. Collect ( talk) 04:00, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
As a new editor who is doing his best to make a decent contribution, I'd like to make a plea for you and others to go easy on this kind of rank-pulling. I would say you had a point were there a lot of anonymous contributions in a similar vein, but as it is I don't exactly see what the matter is. HauntologicalPhenomenon ( talk) 04:10, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
In addition to other problems (see comments above and below), this is also WP:POV fork to White terror. My very best wishes ( talk) 16:57, 28 September 2012 (UTC) reply
According to Adam Jones, author of the scholarly works Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction (second and first editions), New Directions in Genocide Research, Evoking Genocide: Scholars and Activists Describe the Works That Shaped Their Lives, co-author of Genocides by the Oppressed: Subaltern Genocide in Theory and Practice, editor of Genocide and executive director of the NGO Gendercide Watch, "

Classical and modern states alike have coalesced and expanded through acts of imperialism and colonization. The growing emphasis on these processes in genocide studies, led by the European/Australasian school gathered in Dirk Moses's Empire, Colony, Genocidecollection, has supplemented the previous focus on the atrocities of fascism and comunism. The new agenda, for the first time, directs systematic attention to a third major genocidal "-ism" - colonialism - and to the imperial holocausts that Western and other countries unleashed on indigenous populations during the great waves of Western colonization (sixteenth to twentieth centuries). Most of this colonial expansion was capitalist or proto-capitalist in nature, certainly with regard to the most destructive institutions imposed on native peoples. Indeed, it was the gold and silver of the Spanish American mines, sustained by genocidal slave labor and circulated throughout Europe by indebted Spanish rulers, that helped to kick-start modern capitalism. These tendencies remain prominent today, in a post-colonial period in which capitalism reigns supreme as a system of economic organization and exploitation. Jones, Adam(2011). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, Second Edition. New York: Routledge. p. 65. (emphasis mine)

-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 04:32, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Well start an article called Mass killings under colonial regimes. -- Nug ( talk) 07:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Alas, Indonesia and the Latin American countries are formally independent nations, rather than colonies. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 09:33, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
( edit conflict) Indeed. Sen describes the Indian famine(s) as "imperialist famine" not "capitalist famine". There's of course a minority of Marxist and similar writers who will confuse the two, but that's a fringe view. Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were quite capitalist too. The influence of capitalism on the Holocaust is discussed too by various authors [3] [4] but no serious (non-propagandist) author refers to the Holocaust as being caused by "capitalists". The category is simply too broad to be meaningful in such discourse. Tijfo098 ( talk) 10:00, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Since no one has actually brought up the Holocaust as an example of capitalist mass killings or added it to the article so far (though this is a minority view, as you acknowledge), you are setting up a fallacious straw man to attack, and you are successfully doing that. As regards the various atrocities and killings by European imperialism and the mainstream views of imperialism as part of the world history of capitalism, see page 65 of Jones, Adam (2011). Genocide: A Comprehensive Introduction, Second Edition. New York: Routledge, on p. 65: "Most of this colonial expansion was capitalist or proto-capitalist in nature, certainly with regard to the most destructive institutions imposed on the native peoples." Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 10:23, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Since bold text is so chic on Wikipedia, I can also emphasize the stuff that actually matters in that page: "The new agenda, for the first time, directs systematic attention to a third major genocidal "-ism" - colonialism - and to the imperial holocausts that Western and other countries unleashed on indigenous populations during the great waves of Western colonization (sixteenth to twentieth centuries)." You and the other activist editors are using colonialism as a classic WP:COATRACK to rail against capitalism in general using a scant few fringe sources that don't make the distinction. Bye, bye. Tijfo098 ( talk) 10:27, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Very chic, actually, but everything pertaining to a topic in a secondary source matters, even if you don't put it in bold. Don't forget to add "emphasis mine" at the end of a quote when you choose to do that. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 10:35, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
And my analogy with Nazism is not a straw man at all. You can find Marxist writers who blame the Holocaust at least partially on (German) capitalism [5]: " He clearly sees the connection between the Holocaust and German capitalism as an example of the same type of interpenetration of interests [...]" And another, more direct one: [6] "The extermination of the Jews is presented and interpreted as an extreme form of capitalist exploitation. Weiss subsumes the death of six million Jews to a universal Marxist critique of capitalism." Tijfo098 ( talk) 11:39, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Peter Weiss is a dramatist. He is not a scholar in any actual field, and you're just quoting an interpretation of his fiction by a different author, rather than something that would be considered reliable on the topic we're discussing. I'm honestly not sure about the actual point you'd like to reach in that sort of way. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 16:27, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Relevance clarified. Tijfo098 ( talk) 16:35, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Capitalism and genocide (or better Marxist theories connecting capitalism with genocide) might be good title for an article discussing the various opinions on the relationship (or lack thereof [7]) between the two. But this aritcle trying to list "mass killings" under capitalism when almost every instance is more readily assigned to a more proximate cause by more reliable sources it just a giant violation of NPOV. Tijfo098 ( talk) 10:13, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Strong Delete The idea is perfectly defensible - we already have "Mass Killings Under Communist Regimes" But, the article is poorly documented/organized/trustworthy. The job probably can be done, but this isn't it.
Oh, yes. And drop the references to a Capitalist regime encouraging a massacre. By that logic the US encouraged Stalin to commit the Holomodor. Aaaronsmith ( talk) 07:02, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
  • Why do you feel that it is poorly documented/organized/trustworthy? I have examined many of the sources, which seem to be perfectly legitimate. I don't think anyone disputes that Adam Jones is a legitimate genocide scholar. Somebody did, I think, suggest that many other writers are left-wing -- if so, we might as well go ahead and organize a purge of the encyclopedia to remove any secondary source that somebody from "the left" has written with regards to capitalism or socialism in the fields of history, political science, sociology, or cultural studies. Or we could let this sit for a bit so that some of us are able to develop and expand it further - because the article we're looking at right now hasn't been around long and can be made to be as good as so many other fine Wikipedia offerings. Zloyvolsheb ( talk) 11:38, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
@Aaaronsmith. Firstly, Holodomor was not a massacre, but famine, whose primary cause was food requisition. Food requisition occurred (according to Stalinist standards) via forceful confiscation. Under capitalism, such measures are umpossible, and market tool are used instead. Thus, according to Sen (cited by O'Grada) the cause of Bengal famine was as follows:
"The famine was due in large part to ‘speculative withdrawal and panic purchase of rice stocks . . . encouraged by administrative chaos’." (O'Grada. Economic History Review, 61, S1 (2008), pp. 5–37)
In other words capitalism achieves the same results as communism using quite different tools, but in both cases the tools are immanent to each of two types of regime.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 17:17, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
Please, this is not the place to debate the article on Holodomor or the mass killings under communism article. I actually agree with you that the lead of the latter article is not neutral enough because a sufficient number of sources don't consider all Socialist-country famines to be directed at killing some specific section of the population, but simply ascribe them to theory-driven ineptitude. And Sen does say that in 19th century the economics of famine were not well understood in capitalist societies either, with no emergency relief programs in place, etc. But he doesn't call them killings by capitalism either. The only authors who do that are a few Marxists. Please stop using this page as a soapbox for the problems in other articles. Tijfo098 ( talk) 18:46, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I am ready to re-consider my opinion about this article if we simultaneously remove the statements that famines under Communist regimes were mass killings (and leave this info just as the opinion of some authors). However, I do not understand why this article caused so nervous reaction, whereas absolutely non-neutral statements in the MKuCR article seem to be tolerated by WP community. Again, I agree that this article should be seriously modified (and, probably, renamed), however, the MKuCR article needs in even greater work. If you are ready to join this work we may probably come to some consensus about this article too.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 20:29, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I don't know who's tolerating it, but I made my opinion clear on the talk page there, I think. Unfortunately if I were to WP:BOLDly improve that article, I'd get instantly blocked because of the inane sanction regime in place there: I need the consensus of 4 editors to make any substantive change. On Wikipedia that's practically impossible to obtain on most articles. So essentially that article is frozen by fiat. It speaks to the failure of dispute resolution in Wikipedia. Tijfo098 ( talk) 20:39, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
In the paper Paul has cited, O'Grada writes, "In the following account, it will be argued that food was indeed in short supply in Bengal in 1943; that this was not due to excessive hoarding on the part of traders or producers; and that the incidence of the famine by occupational group is consistent with a poor harvest." Srnec ( talk) 19:01, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
The same was true for Soviet or Chinese famine, so I am not sure I understand your argument.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 20:20, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
I just thought it was important to make clear that the paper you quoted is arguing against that quotation, since Sen's thesis is that there was no shortage. (If I had any argument in mind it was only that neither Sen's thesis nor O'Grada's has much to do with government's (mis)using "market tools". Since I didn't want to actually have to make the argument, I didn't.) Srnec ( talk) 20:28, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
In actuality, O'Grada makes similar conclusion for both Chinese ("communist") and Bengal ("capitalist/colonial") famines: according to him, in both cases he argued that the responsibility of the two regimes was not as significant as people usually think. In other words, if O'Grada's opinion deserves a mention in this article, it should be mentioned in MKuCR article also.-- Paul Siebert ( talk) 20:36, 29 September 2012 (UTC) reply
The above discussion is preserved as an archive of the debate. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as the article's talk page or in a deletion review). No further edits should be made to this page.
  1. ^ Courtois (1999) "Introduction" p. X: USSR: 20 million deaths; China: 65 million deaths; Vietnam: 1 million deaths; North Korea: 2 million deaths; Cambodia: 2 million deaths; Eastern Europe: 1 million deaths; Latin America: 150,000 deaths; Africa: 1.7 million deaths; Afghanistan: 1.5 million deaths; the international Communist movement and Communist parties not in power: about 10,000 deaths.
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