There certainly are instances of massive crop failure, but for the vast majority of human history when individual families had crop failures the community would assist. We are far less connected to each other and less willing to help than we had been for most of our history. It used to be that if you were starving and you were caught eating food from somebody else's field... that was just normal. It wasn't theft, and if you were somebody who didn't help a stranger at your door you were a giant piece of shit. There's a reason why "Leader of the pantheon comes to your door dressed as an old man and punishes you if you don't help him" is such a common trope, and why head-gods so often have as part of their domain an aspect of hospitality. Plenty of stories survived of Odin doing this, it was a central tenant of Jesus message, it was explicitly Zeus's domaine in classical Greece to test people in case they weren't being good hosts to travelers and the downtrodden. So yes, it could be a death sentence, but unless it was a country wide event you would survive with help from your neighbors.

As for suicide rates, the biggest factor for suicide is social isolation. Ethnic groups with multi-family households commit suicide at far lower rates than others, and the greatest suicide rate is rural Montana. IMO, that's a far better explanation for why pre-industrial societies have far less suicide. Far greater connectedness, stronger communities, and the sense of purpose that comes with it. I think that QoL driving suicide rates is more or less untestable, since it's not a very specific metric, and it can be explained by other factors much better.

As this relates back to sweatshop workers and suicide, when you take somebody and put them in a much worse condition relative to farming, and isolate them from their family, that's a recipe for massive suicide and shitty QoL.

This post was edited by NetflixAdaptationWidow on Jul 16 2021 11:05am

Those are just two bullet points in the bigger argument that nor capitalism nor communism lead to anything good if you play those games by their rules.

In my personal opinion, capitalism almost has it right. Take capitalism, add regulation for all markets related to basic necessities and finance those markets publicly, and you're already miles ahead of where any capitalist of communist nation has ever gone.

Anyway, this is a shit thread and should just be closed.



There wasn't any joke.

This post was edited by Leevee on Jul 16 2021 11:06am

I'd think life under a dictator would be shitty regardless of economic sanctions

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/nov/27/fidel-castro-dictator-legacy-abuses
Authorities jailed hundreds of prisoners of conscience solely for peacefully exercising their right to freedom of expression, association and assembly in a campaign of “ruthless suppression”, she said. “The state of freedom of expression in Cuba, where activists continue to face arrest and harassment for speaking out against the government, is Fidel Castro’s darkest legacy.”

Human Rights Watch said thousands were jailed in abysmal prisons, thousands more were harassed and intimidated and that entire generations were denied political freedoms, a system based on abuses which felt increasingly anachronistic.

“As other countries in the region turned away from authoritarian rule, only Fidel Castro’s Cuba continued to repress virtually all civil and political rights,” said José Miguel Vivanco, the group’s Americas director. “Castro’s draconian rule and the harsh punishments he meted out to dissidents kept his repressive system rooted firmly in place for decades.”

The critiques articulated what some admirers of the late “maximum leader” ignored or only elliptically acknowledged: he was a dictator. He hounded critics, scorned elections and ran a police state – facts which impressive statistics about literacy, infant mortality and life expectancy cannot erase.

The constant threat of imperial western powers actively working to create political conflicts within communist states is certainly a factor.

Capitalism requires exploitation to function and it will go out of its way to protect itself. The US invaded the Dominican Republic in 1965 because the CIA gave LBJ reports that there was a potential for it to become a new communist power. The US is not only working to undermine communist states but also actively working to prevent them from forming.

Jailing political opponents and activists is not a communist trend. It’s a universal trend. Refer to current day Russia, Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, the United States, Israel, China, Greece, Ukraine.

The dictators the US installed around the world to oppose communism did the same things.

I was thinking about welfare in the sense of "welfare checks", rather than as the more general term which includes stuff like food stamps or grain doles. Those have of course been around forever.
Anyway, Levee was specifically talking about a sense of entitlement to comprehensive healthcare coverage, which indeed is a modern sentiment.

Healthcare itself is a modern sentiment, so... duh?

The United States literally black-bagged protesters using unidentifiable federal agents on the orders of the president, and authorities specifically targeted journalists who were covering the events.

The United State's prisons have been called out numerous times for crimes against humanity for their conditions.


So yes, I agree that any kind of authoritarian system is bad, and will give bad results. And we're dangerously close to that here in the states.

Food was the largest expense for the average person for almost the entirety of civilized history and the most limiting resource pre-commerce. Food cost more than rent in Europe up until the late 1800s

Health insurance is new, obviously.
So is the idea that sick poor people deserve to die.
Like Jesus said, “You’re uninsured. I cannot restore your eyesight”

This post was edited by Doggyfood on Jul 16 2021 11:21am

Healthcare in the sense of "hospitals, surgeries and pills" is a modern concept. Medical treatment is not.