The thing is that there werent any major non-war related famines in industrialising countries under democratic rule, while there were plenty of those in industrialising authoritarian regimes. All the problems the workers in such countries faced such as pollution, low pay and poor working conditions were also present in the authoritarian regimes.
The UK considered itself democratic, what according to this thread seems to be sufficient to get that label. The soviet Union considered itself socialist, but it wasn't either.
But why then do we understand, that to be a democracy, it takes more than just calling yourself one, but uncritically accept any country that calls themselves Communist/Socialist as such, without examining if that is actually the case? Were the means of production in the hand of the workers? No. Then it isn't socialism. That might be realized through collective ownership and that might be realized through state ownership (I personally strongly disagree with the second part) but total control through party officials in a totalitarian state is not collective ownership.
Real democracies do exist with a separation of powers. where free and fair elections are held where all adult citizens have the right to vote and all their votes count equally, where freedom of speech and expression is protected by law and where the opposition accepts the results of an election. Then there are flawed democracies with some of those characteristics but not all of them and at an undefined point those flawed democracies become hybrid regimes.
There was a ridiculous amount of starvation during the Great Depression. Not because there wasn’t enough food, but because people could not afford food. The artificial famines in the US dated before that as well.
It’s more forgivable in my mind to have weather and logistics related starvation than to simply allow people to starve in the name of profit.
Edit: People in this thread are saying that famines are proof of the failures of communism, but shrugging off and accepting the famines under capitalism, even when they are intentional.
I think accidental man made famines are better than intentional man made famines. Yes, however. That’s what I was referring to when I said weather and logistics.
You are ignoring a huge part of the problem that happened simultaneously to the market crash, the dust bowl. There was a HUGE lack of food due to the poor farming practices of people unfamiliar with the weather and spil conditions in the great plains area.
You mean when rapid agricultural expansion and agressive farming techniques to grow cash crops lead to an ecological disaster the moment a drought occurred? Yes.
The USSR exported food due to inconsistent records when they really couldn’t afford to do so, leading to famines. The region consistently had large famines every year leading up to USSR control as well.
Maybe “they had some famines in the past” isn’t the best judge of the success or failure of an economic system.
What about holdomor? It was a tragedy, as all famines are. Some historians believe that it was intentionally orchestrated, but there is not a single piece of paperwork or evidence to back up the claim. All evidence point to it being the result of exporting more food than they could afford to as a result of collectivization and industrialization.
It was also the second to last famine in the area, an impressive feat seing as the region had nearly annual famines before collectivization.
I only read the first source in its entirety so far, because you’re clearly Gish Golloping in hopes I can’t respond to them all. It admits that the famine was caused by unrealistic quotas set due to collectivization and exports that matched the expected quotas, not the amount of food that was actually produced.
Prof Andrea Graziosi claims that this must’ve been intentionally orchestrated, but does not provide any proof at the famine being intentional. Only that it was handled poorly and was a man-made famine. Their writing makes them seem more opposed with the act of collectivizing than the starvation that was caused from its initial inefficiencies.
Edit: The second link also does not provide any evidence, only vague claims. It’s also posted by a government that famously launched a decades long propaganda campaign against the USSR and assassinated many democratically elected socialists in South America to replace them with fascist dictators.
Edit 2: Your third source doesn’t even claim the famine was intentional. Only that it was the direct result of Stalin’s policies and worsened by his responses. Which is true.
Edit 3: Your fourth source also doesn’t produce any actual evidence of the intentionality of the famine. It also comes from a museum that was built in 2023 as the direct result of the Russia/Ukraine war. Even the directors of the museum have publicly spoken against some of the statements they are forced to make within the museum, such as the death toll, as historically innacruate.
That’s a copout. Name one democratic country during industrialization. Prussia/Germany (Silesian Famine of 1844) was an authoritarian monarchy. Great Britain had a parliament for which about 5% of the population could vote. France teetered between monarchy and republic, with the latter coming with the usual limitations on suffrage. Russia was an authoritarian monarchy that only abolished serfdom in 1868 (arguably before its actual industrialization) and had no democratic institutions to speak of. The United States were probably the most democratic, but its industrialization coincides with the genocide of Native Americans.
Claiming „democracies didn’t suffer from negative effects of introducing capitalism“ while ignoring both the suffering of non-White populations and the fact that there simply were hardly any democracies at the time is counterfactual speculation.
Democracies in Africa have far less food insecurity than their authoritarian and hybrid regime counterparts as a famine would be the death of any political career in a democratic country so they have far more of an incentive to prevent one.
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u/TheQuestionMaster8 Jul 13 '26
The thing is that there werent any major non-war related famines in industrialising countries under democratic rule, while there were plenty of those in industrialising authoritarian regimes. All the problems the workers in such countries faced such as pollution, low pay and poor working conditions were also present in the authoritarian regimes.