Communism, Mass Starvation and Agriculture.

in the last few years it has become easy
perhaps all too easy for people to identify themselves as quote unquote anti-capitalist without explaining what it is they're in favor of or really what their critique or rejection of capitalism is about now obviously some of these people are to be frank crypto communists they're communists who do not have the courage of their convictions to really identify with communism and they also may be aware that they are simply ignorant of and don't want to make excuses for the disasters of communism in the recent past on this same youtube channel you can watch some videos that deal with mass starvation under communism it's an incongruous and interesting fact that many people criticize and blame capitalism for starvation in the world with the very simple premise that food costs money therefore you can blame capitalism and they do not want to face up to deal with or discuss the real history of mass starvation under communism for example in the Soviet Union and in communist China under Mao Zedong now I myself lived in and researched agriculture in a former communist country called Laos the lao people's democratic republic and i was there when their transition from a communist system of food production and food distribution to a capitalist system was quite resented some ways still ongoing and when they were still dealing with the sudden contrast between those two systems I studied that and in my own small way I was a part of that transition I'll describe how that was in just a moment Laos is a somewhat strangely shaped country during their high Communist period their period of not having a market economy in rice rice was grown by farmers it was taxed by the government but it was also redistributed by the government so under communism under high communism because it's still a communist country but now it's a communist country with a free market economy this meant that rice was taken away from the rich and given to the poor it was distributed to the people who need it most now many people think that sounds wonderful you simply state it in so many words in a simple sentence and all kinds of people will flock to the banner of communism and support communism especially if they're unaware of the real history of mass starvation and other disasters under communist governments now Laos interestingly was not one of those disasters Laos did not have the type of mass starvation that did happen in China that's a tremendously important chapter of human history that frankly every age educated person should devote a little bit of time to studying and understanding the consequences and ramifications are so enormous Laos also did not have the type of disaster that happened just to the south in Cambodia they didn't have the type of mass murder or mass persecution etc in many ways the tiny lao people's democratic republic is one of the most positive or one of the most flattering examples of communism that you could look at another one I mean East Germany believe me I think this to FLAC these Germans plenty of people written autobiographies but a horrible life was under communism in East Germany but nevertheless you have to say compared to the real disasters of communism places like East Germany and Laos were really the success stories now here's what happen when they transition to capitalism suddenly rice was no longer being sent from the centers where it was aggregated where there was the most production and we're natural there'd be the most wealth to the areas where people were poor starving etc rice was no longer being redistributed as according to need now need ultimately means a bureaucrat has a piece of paper with a list saying send so many kilograms to this village so many kilograms to that village that's another problematic issue but in principle under communism rice was being reallocated to the people who needed it the same way that the military tries to organize sending food giving rations etcetera to the people in need and indeed communism brings about one way or another the militarization of a whole society under capitalism instead rice began flowing in the exact opposite direction race was no longer going to the people who needed it it was going to the people who had the greatest ability to pay now in terms of the geography of Laos that meant that in the middle of the country pretty much all of the rice would aggregate in the capital city rice was going to wear was least needed this does not say the rich are getting richer but naturally people would sell their rice to the central market so to speak and from there a great deal of it would be exported to Thailand again people didn't need it people were not poorer people are not starving where people were less poor people have more money more ability to pay now the double-edged sword of capitalism is that this benefited exactly the same people who had harmed so people who were rice farmers in remote rural areas were suddenly making more money from the rice they're being paid a better wage they were themselves farming rice producing rice and selling it at a better price when it came time to sell in terms of the logic of the market the rice would then go wherever it went some people go to Thailand some who go to Vietnam some of it will go to the big cities but then when there was famine when there was seasonal starvation when there was a lack of food locally that in some areas would happen like clockwork in between harvest seasons then there would be no rice to redistribute from the rich to the poor now I myself was part of capitalism's method of compensating for this and I should say there are two methods so I'm going to do number one and then number two method number one was simply charity a charity is itself part of the capitalist system it's not a contradiction within the capitalist system it's not an offence the guidepost system I myself was part of an agency that's handed out sacks of rice that were donated to the poorest of the poor in Laos to be blue would have been starving against seasonal starvation that had written on every sack gift of Finland stamped onto the plastic with some kind of logo vaguely resembling United Nations logo you had a map of Finland sorry a flag of Finland on there somewhere and I can remember having some really surreal conversations with local villagers people receiving this these donations as aid and they asked me we're speaking while both way but I was speaking very simple out course I didn't become completely fluent in the language they said to me things like tell me Finland it's a tropical country somewhere in the South Pacific isn't it Finland it's it's a small island near Australia perhaps yeah that's the way allow people ask a question they they make a statement and then ask you isn't it at the end hmm had some really interesting conversations about where finland was and why these people in finland were donating rice to poor people and laos interesting conversation had in that context um I can remember they asked me also in terms of the climate in Finland boy they must farm a lot of rice and I told them no actually not at all Finland is such a cold country that they don't farm any rice whatsoever this led to more interesting questions but look number two under capitalism and this is going to sound cynical but it is all too real if you're open-minded enough to read real history primary source documents etc people fundamentally have the freedom to get up and move to run away from famine even to go to another area and beg now if you're talking to left wingers you're talking to people who are diehard communist they'll then throw this back here is oh you talk about freedom this is just the freedom to go from one place to another and starve to death the freedom to go begging from plus another we'll take a look at the video i made about masturbation under communism in china a real disaster really killed millions and millions of people and yes there is a difference between a government that will kill you literally kill you for daring to complain that your village is starving to death and a government that allows you to get on a train get on a truck or even walk barefoot from your province to the next province because people are starving yes in extreme situation that's a huge fundamental difference ultimately when you're talking about famine when you talk about food shortages even we talk about unemployment but in extreme situations the freedom to move from one place to another the freedom to ask for help whether that's demanding help from the government or just demanding help from whoever has the rice to give it to you is crucially important and one of the reasons why masturbation was so disastrous and so dramatic in both communist China and Russia was that people were deprived of those freedoms it's no joke you know if you really are willing to read those accounts of mass starvation whether under Soviet Union or under China for a lot of people they break down crying I haven't had anyone admit that they were weeping openly but in talking to professor's about it here you know when I was talking about the different sources on this period of history the different published text a lot of the mitted to me that after you know that reading those books some of them they couldn't finish the book something say yeah I could read that stuff for an hour or two but then I have to put it down and work on something else it's heavy I mean reading about the reality of food production starvation etc under communism it'll it'll mark you I depending on what kind of character i can say it'll scar you for life and look I'm still I mean studying the history of communism is still a big part of my life yeah I wish these were the only books on my desk I'm more here only this side of the camera um and I can read that history with a certain degree of sympathy for the idealism of the people involved but my point here is whether or not the critique of capitalism comes up in the context of a vegan interest in making the feeding of the poor more efficient by eliminating meet agriculture or in terms of reforming capitalism there were many different headings under which this is a legitimate and interesting set of questions we can't allow ourselves to fall into the lazy way of thinking of simply saying well I'm anti-capitalist therefore I'm morally pure without identifying what it is you're in favor of in many ways the comparison between capitalism and communism is asymmetrical because communism is a specific system of social organization and really capitalism is an incredibly broad and diverse category for example capitalism is not incompatible with monarchy really in history of the world in many cases you had capitalism with a monarchy ruling over it capitalism even within the world today you can look at ten different capitalist countries that are very fundamentally profoundly different including in the question of how they organize food agriculture but they still are capitalists really there are just a couple of checkmarks that define what a capitalist system is including obviously the type of land ownership there's a checklist that's not that long etc whereas with communism you are really talking about one specific system and it is a system that has a history that many people today are tempted to ignore but that we dare not ignore that gives us a set of lessons that we must learn from and those lessons include the most dramatic episodes of mass starvation in the history of the world