Pretty big questions, an-salad.

I'm a democratic socialist, so there's my bias. "Capitalism" is not a huge unitary entity. There are numerous players with often mutually exclusive aims -- hence the anarchy. Capitalist economies may be organized into blocks, like the G7. organized around shared values of pluralism, liberal democracy, and representative government. China is (some sort of quasi) capitalist country but it doesn't share the same values as the G7.

According to the world bank, 8% of the world's population (650 million) live in extreme poverty -- that is, they have less than US $2.15 to live on per day. Almost a quarter of the global population, 23 percent, lived below the US$3.65 poverty line, and almost half, 47 percent, lived below the US$6.85 poverty line, as reported in the 2022 Poverty and Shared Prosperity report (World Bank).

Capitalism IS responsible for the impoverished lives of many people who produce goods for export to the G7 and other countries. By contracting with ever cheaper capitalist operatives in 3rd world and developing countries, labor costs are driven to the absolute minimum--a level at which people in Bangladesh can not feed themselves.

Socialism has to be the shared system around the world if it were to make a significant difference. A few socialist countries here and there (even big ones) can't dismantle the capitalist system alone.

War and poverty have been around since Ur, a long time ago. Given that we are heading into a period of globally heated instability, I'm pretty sure there are going to be wars over ever diminishing necessities like fresh water, food, tolerable heat levels, and so on. From that point of view, I'm not sure any politico-economic system will be able to equitably administer the world's needs.

En-salad -- are you a socialist?

WELCOME TO THE PHILOSOPHY FORUM, even though you joined 4 years ago.

Has the economic anarchy of capitalism produced the current status quo of 2/3rds of the world living below the poverty line? — an-salad

Not all by itself, but it's a major contributor. Other causes have been imperialism, superstition, technological disparity and climate.

Can a centrally planned economy democratically and logically distribute resources, wealth, and labour of the world? — an-salad

Of course, but people would first have to agree to hand over control - first to the UN, then to a central computing bank. They're unlikely to do that.

Do all historically progressive tasks -such as the end of war and poverty- depend on the overcoming of the barriers erected by the profit system, the division of the world into rival and competing nation states and private ownership of the means of production? — an-salad

That's too many items for this checkout. There were wars long before capitalism, long before the means of production was anything more than an old guy chipping arrowheads on a big rock. People have always fought over land, water, hunting rights, minerals, jealousy, anger, revenge and power. More recently, they've been fighting over crowns, near-identical deities and dominion over other peoples.
Poverty is caused by other factors than profit: overpopulating a confined territory, hunting prey to extinction, unfavourable natural conditions (flood, drought, locust swarm, potato blight) Rival and competing nations states are usually contesting territory, but sometimes a serious divergence of ideologies can also be in effect. Large-scale landowners and warring aristocrats were just as exploitive of the vulnerable classes as are supranational corporations.

I'm inclined to say that humanity's troubles are not caused by any particular human invention so much as the fact that humans keep coming up with destructive inventions.

I'm inclined to say that humanity's troubles are not caused by any particular human invention so much as the fact that humans keep coming up with destructive inventions. — Vera Mont

Aren’t all inventors both destructive and constructive? Isnt this true of knowledge in general?

Aren’t all inventors both destructive and constructive? Isnt this true of knowledge in general? — Joshs

I suppose one could find a constructive use for mace and the guillotine, but I'm hard-put to imagine what that is. My contention was that it's not one single invention [capital] that brings all the trouble, but the fact that we can't stop corrupting our inventions.

I'm inclined to say that humanity's troubles are not caused by any particular human invention so much as the fact that humans keep coming up with destructive inventions. — Vera Mont

I'm inclined to say that humanities troubles are caused by our evolution from adaptable but short-sighted primates to overly clever, adaptable, and short sighted primates. We're good at inventing, but not projecting long-term consequences (like, longer than 15 minutes or 15 years). Our short-sightedness isn't a bug, it's a feature. Survival USUALLY is determined in the short run. In the long run, we're all dead. ("‘The long run is a misleading guide to current affairs. In the long run we are all dead,’ wrote John Maynard Keynes in his 1923 work, A Tract on Monetary Reform.")

Survival USUALLY is determined in the short run. In the long run, we're all dead. — BC

The selfish gene wear blinkers. (But we're damn destructive in the short term, too.)

I suppose one could find a constructive use for mace and the guillotine, but I'm hard-put to imagine what that is. My contention was that it's not one single invention [capital] that brings all the trouble, but the fact that we can't stop corrupting our inventions. — Vera Mont

Who’s to say what constitutes corruption? One person’s corruption is another’s innovation. How to draw thr moral lines is far from clear.

For context, I think humans are lucky to do as well they do in Denmark.

There were wars long before capitalism, long before the means of production was anything more than an old guy chipping arrowheads on a big rock. People have always fought over land, water, hunting rights, minerals, jealousy, anger, revenge and power. — Vera Mont

:up:

As a Cormac McCarthy character might put it, is it not weird that we dream of something more ? It's wrong for just one particular apex predator to compete (though we deserve our own new level, really).

We want to be safe, right ? That's the motive Hobbes gives for kings endlessly expanding their territory. Press any advantage and push that risk towards $0$. Kill the little baby snakes while it's easier and safer.

I don't mean to wallow in this. Part of us loves it though. Community through the shared enemy. Unmitigated cruelty spurts freely, in an orgasm of pentup hate. .

The true hallmark of lion sociality is their joint defense of a territory (Figure 1). Karen McComb measured the responses of females to recorded roars of unfamiliar females. A roar is a territorial display, and the females responded according to the odds: if a lone female heard the roar of a single female, she recruited distant pridemates, but a group of three females immediately approached the loudspeaker. When exposed to a roaring trio, real trios again recruited help, while quintets quickly approached. The real females moved to oust the invaders as long as they outnumbered the strangers by at least two individuals. Jon Grinnell found a similar sense of ‘numeracy’ in males, but they sometimes approached even when outnumbered three to one — probably because males have such a brief opportunity to father offspring and must protect their pride at all costs.

https://www.cell.com/current-biology/fulltext/S0960-9822(10)00564-6

The game theory in The Selfish Gene stays with me. Dawkins wears the face of Nietzsche's Socratic optimism, but his 'ontology' is more like Schopenhauer's. Biological evolution is an amoral demiurge. David Pearce was great on this stuff. What I took from him is that lots of utopian ideologies don't strike at the root, which is to say the source code generated algorithmically by this 'demiurge.'

My question might be whether we can trust who we are now to program who we might become. It's not 100% crazy sci-fi to imagine a relatively immortal ruling class. Vampires will become real ? Or maybe a superstrain of humanity, not immortal but Better In Ovary Way.

Has the economic anarchy of capitalism produced the current status quo of 2/3rds of the world living below the poverty line?

Uummm... in a word: no. The percentage of wealth owned by the top 10% is essentially the same during the 1400s (a bit more than a century before capitalism was invented) and now. The only times when the top 10% had a major decrease in their percentage of wealth owned was during the Black Plague and the WW1/WW2 eras (one before capitalism and one during it).

one could find a constructive use for mace and the guillotine, but I'm hard-put to imagine what that is — Vera Mont

Guillotines remain the go-to device for severing heads. Much more reliable than a hand held axe. Quicker than hanging. Etc. Now, as for severing heads, there is an abundance of heads which, severed from their bodies, would have beneficial effects on society. I can think of a few dozen right off.

The major drawback of the guillotine is excessive bleeding. The place d'severence was moved periodically, probably because the ground became saturated with varying degrees of noble blood. Now, of course, we would funnel the blood into sanitary sewers.

Don't forget the American Civil War. A lot of southern slave owners were reduced to poverty. Wealth was greatly reduced after WWI and lasted until around 1970. What caused it? Progressive legislation! The Progressives started trimming the wealth at the top before 1914. The economic collapse in 1929 wiped out some of the Uber-wealthy, but legislation played a crucial war. The New Deal to turn the depression around was expensive, and it was very high taxes on wealth that paid for it. Then came WWII, and continued high rates of high-wealth taxation. The post-WWII boom was financed partly by government efforts (FHA, VA, NDEA, etc. which, again, were paid for out of high taxation.

Heavily taxing wealth required an agreement among labor, capital, and politics. That agreement held until the early 1970s, when the highest tax levels began to be lowered, and various changes made it possible for the rich to again get much richer at the expense of the working class.

There is nothing inherent in Capitalism to bring about the Gilded Age of the 1880s or the current gilded age of multi-billionaires. It's the cooperation, yea--the facilitation--of government that makes this possible, or not.

Who’s to say what constitutes corruption? — Joshs

Every human being on the planet. We punish one another enough for perceived immorality; the least we can do is acknowledge one another's moral compass.

....How to draw thr moral lines is far from clear.

Not to me.

...One person’s corruption is another’s innovation.... — Joshs

No, that's backward. Things are innovated by one person and corrupted by another. You cannot corrupt that which does not yet exist.

Now, as for severing heads, there is an abundance of heads which, severed from their bodies, would have beneficial effects on society. I can think of a few dozen right off. — BC

So can I, but they're rarely the class that gets tumbrilled up to the scaffold. Anyhow, my secret desire for the destruction of someone or something I dislike does not turn it into construction.

Getting rid of the parasite class did France a world of good.

And a great deal of harm. Hoomons at work and play as usual.

Has the economic anarchy of capitalism produced the current status quo of 2/3rds of the world living below the poverty line? — an-salad

Not exclusively, but capitalism plays a major role in creating a minority of 'haves' and a majority of 'have nots.' A massive, global, power and influence imbalance.

Can a centrally planned economy democratically and logically distribute resources, wealth, and labour of the world? — an-salad

Creating a global system which is more equitable and fair for all stakeholders must be possible. Central control, distributed control, localised control, all of the above, who cares? Probably trial and error and trying again until we get something that works, will continue to be the methodology. What is needed, is a majority will to create and maintain a global, secular, humanist, democratic, socialist system.

Do all historically progressive tasks -such as the end of war and poverty- depend on the overcoming of the barriers erected by the profit system, the division of the world into rival and competing nation states and private ownership of the means of production? — an-salad

Money was invented. War is a choice. Poverty is circumstantial or imposed. Nationhood is the result of stage by stage, co-operation. Competition is entertainment or is instinctive behaviour due to an inherent 'survival instinct.' Competition is really only necessary when resources cannot meet need.

I would ask simple questions:
1. Why does one human wish to be more powerful and have more wealth than any other?
Are such drives/motivations, 100% connected to our 'survival of the fittest, jungle rules, beginnings?'
If so, then what does the notion of 'civilisation,' really mean to humans?
2. Do you think 8 billion humans, fully co-operating, could achieve more than 8 billion humans competing
under the control of an elite global few?
3. Can the human species find common cause, when we consider the scale of the universe and the
resources available within it?
4. Consider unfettered capitalism in permanent action, forever unchallenged, what would you predict,
would be the main result of such a permanent global system, for our species?

Who’s to say what constitutes corruption?
— Joshs
Every human being on the planet. We punish one another enough for perceived immorality; the least we can do is acknowledge one another's moral compass.
....How to draw thr moral lines is far from clear.
Not to me.
...One person’s corruption is another’s innovation....
— Joshs
No, that's backward. Things are innovated by one person and corrupted by another. You cannot corrupt that which does not yet exist — Vera Mont

I’m with Ken Gergen’s brand of social constructionism when it comes to issues of social justice and morality:

Constructionist thought militates against the claims to ethical foundations implicit in much identity politics - that higher ground from which others can so confidently be condemned as inhumane, self-serving, prejudiced, and unjust. Constructionist thought painfully reminds us that we have no transcendent rationale upon which to rest such accusations, and that our sense of moral indignation is itself a product of historically and culturally situated traditions. And the constructionist intones, is it not possible that those we excoriate are but living also within traditions that are, for them, suffused with a sense of ethical primacy? As we find, then, social constructionism is a two edged sword in the political arena, potentially as damaging to the wielding hand as to the opposition.

Has the economic anarchy of capitalism produced the current status quo of 2/3rds of the world living below the poverty line? — an-salad

Actually, there are now less people living in absolute povetry than earlier.

Perhaps the reason isn't only capitalism. It might be also that China and India threw away old school socialism.



But we can always choose again socialism! :wink:

I would ask simple questions:
1. Why does one human wish to be more powerful and have more wealth than any other? — universeness

Probably because h. sapiens are about a chromosome and a half away from p. troglodytes (chimpanzees).

Are such drives/motivations, 100% connected to our 'survival of the fittest, jungle rules, beginnings?'

The history of h. sapiens' dominance hierarchies (i.e. civilizations, sovereigns / states, cults-communes) certainly suggests such a sociobiological "connection".

If so, then what does the notion of 'civilisation,' really mean to humans?

In practice – dynastic-oligarchical dominance hierarchy.

2. Do you think 8 billion humans, fully co-operating, could achieve more than 8 billion humans competing under the control of an elite global few?

No. Not under conditions (status quo) of political-economic scarcity.

3. Can the human species find common cause, when we consider the scale of the universe and the resources available within it?

We haven't yet in over half a century. It's certainly not in the interest of shareholders who profit from – dominate by – exploiting natural and/or man-made / strategic scarcities.

4. Consider unfettered capitalism in permanent action, forever unchallenged, what would you predict,
would be the main result of such a permanent global system, for our species?

Eventually 'survival of the elitest' (millions, not billions) in scattered networks (sprawls) of AI-automated enclaves. Think: Ayn Randian dystopias à la Judge Dredd or Blade Runner (without Replicants).

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/787957

https://thephilosophyforum.com/discussion/comment/801029

Constructionist thought painfully reminds us that we have no transcendent rationale upon which to rest such accusations, and that our sense of moral indignation is itself a product of historically and culturally situated traditions.

Nevertheless, we have those values, hold those convictions and make those judgments. Society cannot function in an ethical void.

And the constructionist intones, is it not possible that those we excoriate are but living also within traditions that are, for them, suffused with a sense of ethical primacy?

If he has to 'intone' a credo, he probably has no confidence in it. Hypocrites quite regularly intone the 'correct' credo most popularly espoused by their society, while surreptitiously fracturing all of its tenets. By their actions shalt thou know them, not by their insincere words. By their actions can you also discern whether they are carrying out the dictates of true conviction or doing something quite else.

As we find, then, social constructionism is a two edged sword in the political arena, potentially as damaging to the wielding hand as to the opposition.

Let them hack one another and themselves to pieces, if that is their hearts' desire. I'll settle for a one-pointed pen.

Has the economic anarchy of capitalism produced the current status quo of 2/3rds of the world living below the poverty line? — an-salad

Is this true?

Answer: No.

Contrasting capitalism to socialism is folly, instead, we should assume private ownership, and ask what level of government interventionism there is. Neoliberal capitalism is largely responsible for most of the issues people associate with capitalism, but really, we've been told a bunch of lies about what's needed for capitalism. Let's not underestimate human greed, even under very unfavourable and unfair conditions with high levels of government oversight, companies would retain their drive for profit and innovation.

The second question is the structure of the private ownership, contrasting what we have to co-ops etc.

Yes, and that "good in (our) world" is – has always been, IMO – the chrysalis from which butterfly-AGIs might emerge ... before we scarcity-catepillars drive ourselves to extinction. I agree with Samwise that (only) that chrysalis is "worth fighting for". :fire:

Global inequality has been falling since the 90s and has fallen at a faster rate since 2019. But at the same time, the share of wealth held by the top 1% has also been steadily increasing. Both phenomena seem set to continue.

Although, I do wonder if the shift of population growth towards Sub-Saharan Africa might effect this trend in the long term. We will soon be in a world where the population is falling almost everywhere else; over 50% of human beings under age 18 are expected to live in SSA by 2100. I haven't heard as much about this as I'd expect.

Mathematically, it easier for the very poor to see huge 50-200% surges in annual earnings, as this can amount to all of $3-6 a day. Thus, looking at % growth rates in earnings can be fairly misleading.

In any event, measures of capitalism's effect on global inequality tend to ignore migration. Neo-liberalism was a main motivator behind the liberalization of immigration across the developed world. Migration has allowed millions of people from poorer nations to move to wealthier ones, dramatically boosting their earnings. The money they send home is not insignificant either. Remittances dwarf all foreign aid; people send a LOT of money back when they migrate away.

Capitalism can at least be cheered for this. Such migration has made inequality greater in wealthy nations and tended to hurt the living standards of the poor there, but it's been very beneficial for people from less wealthy nations. This is not a policy socialists embraced with open arms. Into the 1990s the left, particularly labor unions, paid a lot of attention to this; it's just that the "culture war" tended to place migrants and traditional socialists more and more on the "same team" over the 2000s. So, if capitalism is to blame for "exporting" its lower class as nations became more wealthy, it is as least also fair to praise it for motivating the opening of migration opportunities.

Of course, now we have a weird sort of blow back effect where high rates of migration are making people less willing to support socialist wealth redistribution, so who knows how that will all end up. It seems like sort of a positive feedback loop in favor of less socialism. Meanwhile, the process raises national inequality but lowers global inequality.

Global inequality has been falling since the 90s and has fallen at a faster rate since 2019. But at the same time, the share of wealth held by the top 1% has also been steadily increasing. Both phenomena seem set to continue. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Exactly. As the West hasn't seen such rapid growth, we tend to miss just what a huge transformation has happened in China, the Far East and is happening in India. It's a fantastic development that people that has really faced large scale famine (and did experience a famine of 15 to 55 million deaths in 1959-1961) has prospered so much. All thanks to Chinese Marxism! :wink:

Although, I do wonder if the shift of population growth towards Sub-Saharan Africa might effect this trend in the long term. — Count Timothy von Icarus

The hope would be, that after Asia, the economic growth would finally start in Africa. Yes, it starts with sweatshops and cheap labour, but hopefully similar development as in Asia would happen there too. Yet there are many problems that can make it not happen.

Remittances dwarf all foreign aid; people send a LOT of money back when they migrate away. — Count Timothy von Icarus

As do direct investments work. With Foreign aid I'm not so sure: it is basically drug addiction that doesn't make the countries better. In fact the now collapsed Republic of Afghanistan is a perfect example of just pouring money creates: rampant corruption and state that collapses. Before the collapse, 43% of the GDP of Afghanistan came from foreign aid. About 75% of public spending was funded by foreign aid grants. That is totally reckless, basically from the West that was responsible of this. Yet when you look at the countries that have really developed, really went from the verge of famine to an industrialized country, it hasn't happened because of foreign aid. Foreign markets, yes, but not aid.

Shanghai in 1990 and in 2010, just 20 years:

Has the economic anarchy of capitalism produced the current status quo of 2/3rds of the world living below the poverty line? — an-salad

I'm neither a political Capitalist nor a political Socialist. Instead, I'm apolitical, and I happen to live in a regulated mixed economy, where my status is far above the world poverty line. My retirement Uber gig is "platform capitalism", where the workers are free to come & go, but their income remains near the bottom of the U.S. economic pyramid (not counting the unemployed)*1. At the same time, I benefit from socialist medicine (VA) because I gave four years of my life defending my less-than-perfect country. Although my income is near the bottom of the US scale, I don't consider myself impoverished, compared to the rest of the world --- much of which doesn't benefit from the political stability and moderation of a mixed economy*2.

I questioned the assertion that "2/3rds of the world living below the poverty line". So, I Googled "poverty line" and found a variety of estimates based on such criteria as "global data set on basic commodity prices to provide first estimates of global extreme poverty in the long run using a 'cost of basic needs' approach"*3. Proponents of Capitalism like to boast of the millions of people "raised out of historical poverty". As illustrated in the chart below *5. But, do you trust the data and criteria of Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, DC.?

A major factor in world poverty seems to be, not so much Capitalism vs Socialism, as the political stability of the government. Capitalism flourishes with minimal regulation, but benefits mostly those near the top of the pyramid, and tends toward Oligarchism. Socialism depends on top-down suppression of the acquisitive motives of human nature, but tends toward Totalitarianism. Yet, a blend of both approaches seems to moderate the worst of each system, while allowing enough sociopolitical freedom to avoid the poverty rates of Ancient Rome for example*4. I'm just trying to put the current world economy into a broader perspective --- not either/or but BothAnd. Marx's philosophy may have had more impact on poverty than his politics. :smile:

*1. Gig employment vs poverty :
Thirty-two percent of drivers in the study reported falling into a “debt trap;” given the costs of an Uber lease, car insurance and Uber's 25 percent commission and booking fees, some drivers net less than $5 an hour. Half of drivers live at or below the federal poverty level.
https://today.advancement.georgetown.edu/georgetown-magazine/2020/is-uber-taking-its-drivers-for-a-ride/
Note --- My part-time gig income averages around high minimum wage : $25/hr

*2. Mixed Economy :
A mixed economic system is a system that combines aspects of both capitalism and socialism. A mixed economic system protects private property and allows a level of economic freedom in the use of capital, but also allows for governments to interfere in economic activities in order to achieve social aims.
https://www.investopedia.com/terms/m/mixed-economic-system.asp

*3. Global extreme poverty: Present and past since 1820 :
Based on our methodology, the global poverty rate fell below 70% in 1873, and below 60% by 1897; after that, it takes much longer to drop below 50% by 1955, then much less time to drop below 40% by 1977.
https://www.oecd-ilibrary.org/sites/e20f2f1a-en/index.html?itemId=/content/component/e20f2f1a-en

*4. Ancient Poverty :
Their society may have consisted of a handful of wealthy individuals which made up 0.6% of the population, an army that made up 0.4% of the population, and the poor masses that made up 99% of the populace.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poverty_in_ancient_Rome

*5. HISTORY OF WORLD POVERTY SINCE 1800
Marx's critique of unregulated Capitalism published in 1867.
https://cepr.shorthandstories.com/history-poverty/

I'm somewhat skeptical of the massive figures thrown around as the "death toll," for Marxism. Russia has massive famines under the Tsars shortly before the advent of the Soviet Union. Russia was a backwards nation before WWI began and took the largest number of losses in that war. Then the Russian Civil War that followed was 3-5 times more deadly than the Great War. It left Russia in an absolute shambles.

Not that this cuts against all the ample evidence that some famines in the USSR were essentially intentional, wielded as tools of genocide by Stalin. It's simply that there is little reason to think a Democratic government or market economy would have avoided famines either. Indeed, food scarcity was a major issue when the Bolsheviks overthrew the democratic regime. Famines did also end in the former Russian empire under communism, following the Second World War. The same is true for China.

China is an even less obvious case. China was in a brutal civil war from 1911 through 1950. The scale of the war is such that it is normally covered as multiple wars, the Warlord Era broken out from the KMT and CCP struggles and the Japanese invasion, but by itself it might be the deadliest war in human history.

China was incredibly impoverished in 1950. It was still fighting civil wars as it fought the US in Korea, and would be fighting insurgencies into the 60s when it fought the Soviets. China's population growth has basically stagnated since 1791, a century and a half of little growth due to extremely high infant mortality, waves of famine, and brutal warfare. By Mao's death, China's population had more than doubled, China had held its own in wars against the USA and USSR, and the PRC was one of a handful of nations with space launch capabilities, nuclear weapons, and hydrogen bombs, which it made domestically ahead of many "great powers."

This is not to ignore Mao's atrocious peacetime leadership, particularly during the Cultural Revolution, but to point out that the base case was likely one with as much death, perhaps more due to instability. If the KMT had won, famine, massive corruption, and misrule would definitely be a part of China's post war history. It's statistically dubious to talk about "55 million," excess deaths in China at a time when its population was skyrocketing after a long period of stagnation. It seems like it's enough to simply document that Mao knew enough to understand what his policies were doing and kept doing them anyhow.

Plus, if the deaths in these war racked previously totalitarian nations is indicative of the socialism as a whole then British rule over massive famines and the mass death of the Partition might as well be an "effect of capitalism." Did capitalism save India from famines? Did it save Ireland? Even with a surge in migration, Ireland's population is still significantly lower today than it was in the mid-19th century, when it collapsed as the British exported food during an apocalyptic famine because it fetched a higher price on the continent. We'd also have to add in the slave trade, the genocide of native tribes across the Americas, the particularly atrocious conditions of slaves on Haiti, etc. to the results of market liberalism.

Point being, Russia and China are bad examples because they were absolute basket cases before communism and in many ways improved despite communism, while it's unclear that any system could have avoided their problems.

Point being, Russia and China are bad examples because they were absolute basket cases before communism and in many ways improved despite communism, while it's unclear that any system could have avoided their problems. — Count Timothy von Icarus

Of course, you have the best example of Marxism-Leninism in the example of East-Germany and how it compared to West-Germany. It didn't experience famine and didn't experience massive purges, even if it had a large security state. Germans really showed just where you could make of Marxist-Leninist socialism. And we really have to remember that the most successful version of socialism has been with social-democracy, which is still quite alive an kicking in the Western World. Social Democrats have ruled many Western countries and are and inherent part of Western democracy just as are conservatives.

I think it isn't even just related to Communist revolutions but overall to revolutions: just how bloody or bloodless they can be differs. The French Revolution compared to American Revolution is the best example I can think of. Both countries had to fight foreign armies ("foreign" perhaps in the US case), but only one had internal terror.

When you have radicals in control that share a firm belief that they can better the World by killing the "bad" people, then there is no end to the piles of bodies they leave behind them. Pol Pot is a good example, but so is the Holodomor.

And when you have these killers then reading Marx, they will interpret Communist Revolution literally meaning that you have to kill the bourgeois, kill the rich, in order for the class struggle to succeed. Heaven forbid if you then are defined as "rich", a "kulak" or an "enemy of the state". The similar kinds of people can read the Koran and have their own ideas what fighting the "Jihad" means and would happily kill the unbelievers. Even Christianity has had this with it's Crusades, which really is a bizarre feat to pull out from the teachings of Jesus Christ, and all those time people wanted to build "The New Jerusalem".

And we really have to remember that the most successful version of socialism has been with social-democracy, which is still quite alive an kicking in the Western World. Social Democrats have ruled many Western countries and are and inherent part of Western democracy just as are conservatives.

Agreed. The best examples of socialism are those where it sublated/subsumed liberal democracy and the best examples of liberal democracy are those where it sublated socialism. It's a sort of hybrid vigor.

Even Christianity has had this with it's Crusades, which really is a bizarre feat to pull out from the teachings of Jesus Christ, and all those time people wanted to build "The New Jerusalem".

Right, lol. It's the sort of "reverse Tower of Babel," bringing heaven down to Earth, that Dostoevsky burns the socialists on in the Grand Inquisitor.