I haven’t studied how many citizens the Soviet Union murdered between 1970 and 1982, either. I did study the Soviet Union just enough to be able to say with confidence that if Russia specialists actually wrote about the Soviet Union engaging in mass murder of its citizens through the 1970s I would have run into some of that writing by now. I haven’t.
“We don’t know why Rummel changed his figure because his link explaining it doesn’t work.”
How about googling?
In this, Rummel explains that he changed the number so drastically due to the massive number of deaths in colonial Congo (10 millions or more?! ), which were not included in other sources and numbers. He changed his approach and the 50 million number is a guesstimate based on this.
I can’t judge his sources or capacity to estimate, but there is the explanation you have been looking for.
(FYI: Apparently he lost access to his old blog and didn’t update all his links.)
Democratic peace theory is on a sound logical and empirical foundation.
The notion that he inflates some figures does nothing to discount the fact that it is a virtual impossibilty that any of the following higher order democracies will ever engage in conflict:
### FREE 1.0 Andorra Australia Austria Bahamas Barbados Belgium Canada Cape Verde Chile Costa Rica Cyprus Czech Republic Denmark Dominica Estonia Finland France Germany Hungary Iceland Ireland Kiribati Liechtenstein Lithuania Luxembourg Malta Marshall Islands Micronesia Nauru Netherlands New Zealand Norway Palau Poland Portugal Saint Kitts and Nevis Saint Lucia San Marino Slovakia Slovenia Spain Sweden Switzerland Tuvalu United Kingdom United States Uruguay |
|---|
Of course if anyone would like to provide a hypothetical scenario in which 2 or more of these nations would go to war, then have at it.
I am always open to a good laugh.
Yeah, just like the housing bubble would NEVER burst. How do you neocons manage to be wrong 100% of the time??? Shouldn’t you get it right by accident sometimes?
Clayton -
The chief thing I see in these countries isn’t that they are “democratic” (many of them have political systems that barely resemble each other. Constitutional monarchy versus weak executive versus strong executive, the electoral college versus first past the post versus mixed member proportional representation, federal systems versus centralized systems…), but that they are wealthy. You also omitted the biggest democracy in the world from your list: India. It doesn’t look like it’s conflict with Pakistan has changed even under the democratic periods of that country. Furthermore, I can name plenty of nondemocratic countries I can scarcely see going to war with each other either (Kazakhstan and Mongolia, China and Thailand, Venezuela and Cuba, Angola and Zimbabwe, Egypt and the Central African Republic).
Also, why is Greece, the cradle of democracy, omitted? Could it be because Germany, which would have been right next to it, might be leading military intervention into Greece in response to the democratic referendum on whether the Greek people wanted to accept European bailout money?
Thank you for providing the link. It is priceless for my argument.
He read one book. On Congo. And it was enough to force an enormously radical revision for the whole of colonized world. It is not that he found 50 million deaths in Congo. Instead, because he had since read a book on Congo, he now also thinks differently about Mozambique, Chad, Laos… and feels more people must had been killed there than he had figured earlier.
So he could have equally picked up a book on Zambia, Cambodia or Djibouti and learned something about the nature of colonial regimes in that way and it would have made him think differently about Congo and all the rest.
His problem is clearly that he had been unread. When he finally did a thing as radical as to pick up a book and educate himself a little on the stuff he had already writen about himself it was enough to totally destroy his previously given estimate.
The specific book he read was published after he wrote Death by Government, however the death estimate given was not new information. As he makes it clear this information had always been avaliable, only he had been ignorant of it. He provides a list of texts he could have learned of this before writing a book on it:
In spite of all these sources, he had of the 870,000 total deaths attributed to colonialism only a tiny fraction — 25,000 — attributed to colonialism in Congo. Despite the fact that Belgian misrule in Congo is common knowledge to have been particularly attrocious (I have heard of this on more than one ocassion though I know virtually nothing about Africa) Rummel had not known about it because it has been “virtually ignored in books on genocide” (apparently he only reads those).
That is funny seeing that one half of them are engaging in conflict in Afghanistan.
Democratic peace theory is that democracies don’t go to wear with each other. Of course, when you point out historical examples of such (Athens, India, the UK, France), they shift the goalposts and No True Scotsman you until all they’re left with is “modern Western multiculturalist democracies have not engaged in major conflict with each other since the end of World War II and the development of globalization and nuclear weapons when they were under the hegemony of the US and the USSR who had a policy of mutually assured destruction towards each other”.
+1 Praetyre!
Democratic peace theory is that democracies don’t go to wear with each other. Of course, when you point out historical examples of such (Athens, India, the UK, France), they shift the goalposts and No True Scotsman you until all they’re left with is “modern Western multiculturalist democracies have not engaged in major conflict with each other since the end of World War II and the development of globalization and nuclear weapons when they were under the hegemony of the US and the USSR who had a policy of mutually assured destruction towards each other”.–Praetyre
You do not have the perogative to change my standard of ‘representative government’ anymore than statists have to change your standard of what consitutes a capitalist society.
If I advocate a system of governance as contributing to geopolitical peace, please allow me the perogative of identifying which states meet those standards. Hoppe and other anarcho-capitalists judge this theory as failed by always ‘shifting the goalposts’ in their favor.
Democratic Peace Theory is a new phenomena, as a result I challenged anyone to cite a hypothetical scenario in which any of the nations in the list would engage in war in the next 25 years – provided they are still free.
I still haven’t gotten a response to this challenge except some diversions and misrepresentations.
Why am I not surprised?
@ Marko
Friggin duh ?!
Democratic peace theory is based on the fact that higher order liberal democracies do not wage war AGAINST EACH OTHER.
The chief thing I see in these countries isn’t that they are “democratic” (many of them have political systems that barely resemble each other. Constitutional monarchy versus weak executive versus strong executive, the electoral college versus first past the post versus mixed member proportional representation, federal systems versus centralized systems…), but that they are wealthy. – Praetyre
What you fail to see is that wealth (and peace) is dependent on freedom guaranteed by liberal democracy. You can’t have sustainable and substantive wealth in the absence of freedom.
I think we are pretty much in agreement on that.
You also omitted the biggest democracy in the world from your list: India. It doesn’t look like it’s conflict with Pakistan has changed even under the democratic periods of that country.–Praetyre
Nobody in the Democratic Peace camp cites India as a higher order liberal democracy. Again please allow me to determine what constitutes a higher order democracy and I will continue to allow you the perogative of what constitutes a private-property society.
Furthermore, I can name plenty of nondemocratic countries I can scarcely see going to war with each other either (Kazakhstan and Mongolia, China and Thailand, Venezuela and Cuba, Angola and Zimbabwe, Egypt and the Central African Republic). – Praetyre
Ridiculous strawman.
Yes, but in every single nation-state conflict – autocracy in no small measure had a large stake in the fighting !
The American Civil War involved the chattel slave holding oligarchic South. Athens and Sparta involved the slave holding Athens that denied women even the most basic rights.
Every single nation-state conflict in human history has involved an autocratic element in one or more of the combatants, bar none.
Of course, within anarchic society there is also conflict, on a smaller scale because anarchic society is fragile and short-lived, but pervasive nonetheless.
Also, why is Greece, the cradle of democracy, omitted? --Praetyre
Because they practiced chattel slavery and denied women even the most basic of individual rights. Again, please allow me to determine what constitutes a higher order democracy and I will continue to allow you the perogative of what constitutes a private-property society.
Could it be because Germany, which would have been right next to it, might be leading military intervention into Greece in response to the democratic referendum on whether the Greek people wanted to accept European bailout money?-- Praetyre
Greece is not a higher order democracy (see Freedom House). However, it is ludicrious to suggest that the possibility of war exists between Germany and Greece.
It is disturbing that ideological blindness and hatred prevent virtually all anarcho-capitalists from recognizing and appreciating the efficacy of democratic peace theory.
Read what you wrote. You made an incorrect statement, own up to it. If you meant to say something other than what you wrote that is your problem.
You have not even begun to elucidate exactly how “liberal democracy” guarantees freedom. Apparently all you can do is simply repeat this bare assertion. But you backpedaled from that very bare assertion in the “Negative Rights Restrict Liberty” thread, now didn’t you? So tell me, what does “liberal democracy” actually do in your opinion, and how does it do it?
How about you be so kind as to share with the rest of us your determination of what constitutes a “higher-order democracy”? That way we can determine whether it actually makes any sense at all.
Your statements leave me with next to no idea of what you mean by “democracy” - “higher-order” or otherwise. What do you see as the necessary connection between voting for rulers (which is typically what’s meant by “democracy” these days) and greater freedom/rights?
There is conflict within anarchic society? Necessarily? I’m still waiting for your proof of this.
I see no reason to do that. It’s not like you won’t make your determination regardless. How about you explain to me what voting has to do with “individual rights”. Obviously there have existed governments which allowed “their” citizens to vote and yet practiced chattel slavery and denial of citizenship to women and/or other groups.
Once you actually provide your definition of “(higher-order) democracy”, I think your position will be a lot clearer to the rest of us. But I won’t hold my breath for that.
See above.
The only ideological blindness and hatred that I see in this thread is coming from you, buddy.
Again, regarding our recognition and appreciation of “democratic peace theory” - funny that here you call it a “theory” when you’ve clearly been presenting it as fact - maybe it’ll be easier for us to recognize (if not also appreciate) its efficacy when we actually understand what it is.
Stop imposing your “cause-and-effect” dialectic on us! It works by use of magical neocon fairy dust.
Clayton -
@ marko
I apologize for assuming that you understood the explicit, central and fundamental tenets of Democratic Peace Theory:
First, liberal democracies are inherently hostile and coercive to autocratic regimes
Second, that liberal democracies are peaceful to likeminded societies.
By whom?
Ya I can’t find the articles I was reading. So until further evidence comes up, I will retract that.
But like I said, if ONE person dies for the “wrong” reasons, that is a failure. It matters not to me whether the numbers are inflated a lot. I’m not going to see Stalin as any worse than Andrew Jackson because the numbers were diffferent.
Fair enough.
Interesting choice of Presidents. I presume you include Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson in the list of murdering Presidents, as well?
I think that the numbers matter. The murder of 1,000 people is worse than the murder of one person, not in a moral sense (the murder of one is murder… the other 999 are still just murder) but in a sense of the wellbeing of mankind. For the same reason it bothers me to see a farm animal being mistreated, I think it is worse for 1,000 people to be murdered than for 1 person to be murdered.
But you’re right, getting meaningful numbers is extremely difficult, especially during war time when lots of rumors get passed around with the official air of telegrams, memos and “battlefield reports” and attain an orthodox status they definitely do not deserve.
Clayton -
Firstly, I’m not an anarcho-capitalist, though I do have sympathies for Hoppe’s theories of monarchy vis a vis mass democracy. Secondly, I do not consider Freedom House a reliable source on how “free” a country is. Aside from their obvious neoconservative bent, they hold double standards for “democratic” regimes (especially US-supported ones) and other regimes when they practice the exact same policies. It’s also decidedly difficult to come up with an objective overall ranking of “freedom”, and if you did it in the sense libertarians and classical liberals understood it, I think you’d find that several Eastern European countries and micronations would rank above the United States in both the economic and social spheres.
Leaving aside their double standard on things like police brutality and censorship, they also show significant errors in the economic sphere. Singapore is ranked very highly in terms of economic freedom, despite having a forced savings program that for all intents and purposes amounts to a hefty tax that wouldn’t be unusual in places like Denmark or Norway. Paul Gottfried has some further details and explains it far better than I could ever hope to: http://www.theamericanconservative.com/blog/2011/02/21/freedom-houses-illiberal-democracies/
Interesting choice of Presidents. I presume you include Abraham Lincoln and Woodrow Wilson in the list of murdering Presidents, as well?
You betcha
Here’s how I try to look at it, before my ego gets in the way:
I commend Jackson for standing up to tyrannical banksters. I am disgusted at his treatment of the natives.
I commend Lincoln for his defense of relative liberty over slavery. I deplore him for his wretched tactics used at that end, and racism.
I have nothing I know of to commend Wilson for… maybe his apology for the FED. But I’m sure he did something good in his life. I despise him for his presidency.
I commend myself for volunteering, studying, and making a real attempt to live by my principles. I reproach myself for my failures, my non-attempts, and my transgressions.
The numbers do matter, to degree. What is more important than sheer numbers would be per capita numbers. Nevertheless, if we kill one innocent person we have failed imo. But that is no reason we cannot learn from our mistakes and do better in the future.
Endorsed the principle of self-determination of nations.