5 ms·

I like the part where they killed all the sparrows and triggered huge famines when insects started devouring crops unchecked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fou

by ythl 10y ago

I like the part where they killed all the sparrows and triggered huge famines when insects started devouring crops unchecked. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_Pests_Campaign

pastProlog 10y ago
Yes, the PRC has been run so incompetently by the standing committee of the Politburo of the CPC it has become by some measures the largest economy in the world. How about when they were so eager to increase production that they failed to prevent wind erosion, causing massive crop failure, starvation, and I guess that means its OK to call it a genocide? Oh yaa, that was in the USA, 19 years before this happened. Where are the article on the Dust Bowl GENOCIDE ? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl )
- mattnewton 10y ago
  The american government never claimed control over people's decision to farm that land. Certainly never did by force. Also, I've said it elsewhere in this thread, but it bears repeating: No amount of whataboutism changes what happened here.
- flomble 10y ago
  Yes, since Mao's death and the complete reversal of his economic policies and embracing of capitalism by Deng Xiaoping, whom Mao disgraced for his unorthodoxy, the economy of China has rapidly developed. There is a reason this article lays the blame for the senseless waste of life at Mao's feet and not the CCP leadership as a whole. Comparing the Dust Bowl to the Great Leap Forward is... questionable. How many people died due to the Dust Bowl? Did the US government of the time respond to it by doubling down on an absurd economic plan in the furtherance of a political ideology?
  - pastProlog 10y ago
    > embracing of capitalism Zhao Ziyang embraced capitalism, and he was arrested after the June 4th incident. Capitalism run by the communist party of China? Also, Mao and Zhou Enlai are who made peace with the USA, not Deng Xiaoping. > Deng Xiaoping, whom Mao disgraced for his unorthodoxy Mao and Deng had a falling out in the mid to late 1960s, but Mao empowered Deng again in 1974. Deng Xiaoping called himself a communist, not a capitalist. He did say it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice. If China was a capitalist system, it would be more like Japan or South Korea or the US or Western Europe. Deng said he was proceeding in a dialectic manner economically. If you don't know what that means, then you don't know what communism is, and you wouldn't be able to tell if Deng was a communist or not. Actually Mao was accused by people to his left of abandoning communism due to his interpretation of the theory of productive forces (as well as the role of peasantry and proletariat etc.) Deng just expanded on that.
    - adrianm 10y ago
      "Deng said he was proceeding in a dialectic manner economically." What does this mean? Isn't dialectics a form of reasoning?
      - twblalock 10y ago
        Dialectical materialism is a Marxist view of history, which is generally what people mean when they use the word "dialectic" in this context. These may be useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism
        adrianm 10y ago
        I still want to understand what it means to be economically dialectical.
    - flomble 10y ago
      The reason Deng Xiaoping had to use a coy phrase about cats to avoid admitting to his policies running counter to communism is that communism is at the core of the Party's identity and history, and that abandoning it openly would seriously undermine their legitimacy. The 'dialectical' approach to communism has meant slowly discarding almost everything which makes an economy communist. The "socialist market economy" allows private ownership, even of means of production and allows the private accumulation of capital. If you want to argue that it's actually communist because the transition was slow and the leadership still claims to be communist with a straight face, I'm not going to bother rebutting that. The reason China's system is not more like the countries you listed is that it is autocratic, and the reason Zhao Ziyang was arrested was his excessive and open sympathy for a people's democratic movement.
  - fennecfoxen 10y ago
    > Comparing the Dust Bowl to the Great Leap Forward is... questionable. How many people died due to the Dust Bowl? Did the US government of the time respond to it by doubling down on an absurd economic plan in the furtherance of a political ideology? Doubling down? It was more like an excuse to introduce the absurd economic plan. FDR's New Deal featured the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which ultimately tried to restore prosperity by paying farmers not to farm and burning crops as a price-support tactic. (Won't even go into the non-agricultural price-fixing schemes of the NRA which were ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court. No, the other NRA.) Mild, mild stuff compared to the Great Leap Forward, of course (and of course unrelated to more reasonable programs like Social Security).
    - vinceguidry 10y ago
      > Mild, mild stuff compared to the Great Leap Forward, Err, that was the whole point.
    - Spooky23 10y ago
      The whole point of the New Deal activities was to stop deflation. It's a tough problem to solve. Our way of dealing with it today is to compel banks to hoard cash.
whoopdedo 10y ago
They then overused insecticides which decimated pollinator species. Now farmers have to resort to hand pollinating flowers to maintain their orchards[1]. The town is called Maoxian; was it named after the Chairman? [1] http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-11-00108.1 http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-11-00108...
- maxwelljoslyn 10y ago
  No, Mao Xian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_County https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_County) in Sichuan is not named after Chairman Mao. The 'Mao' in its name and the 'Mao' in his name are different characters. (Chairman Mao --> 毛茂 --> Mao County)

by ythl 10y ago

pastProlog 10y ago

Yes, the PRC has been run so incompetently by the standing committee of the Politburo of the CPC it has become by some measures the largest economy in the world. How about when they were so eager to increase production that they failed to prevent wind erosion, causing massive crop failure, starvation, and I guess that means its OK to call it a genocide? Oh yaa, that was in the USA, 19 years before this happened. Where are the article on the Dust Bowl GENOCIDE ? ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dust_Bowl )

mattnewton 10y ago
The american government never claimed control over people's decision to farm that land. Certainly never did by force. Also, I've said it elsewhere in this thread, but it bears repeating: No amount of whataboutism changes what happened here.
flomble 10y ago
Yes, since Mao's death and the complete reversal of his economic policies and embracing of capitalism by Deng Xiaoping, whom Mao disgraced for his unorthodoxy, the economy of China has rapidly developed. There is a reason this article lays the blame for the senseless waste of life at Mao's feet and not the CCP leadership as a whole. Comparing the Dust Bowl to the Great Leap Forward is... questionable. How many people died due to the Dust Bowl? Did the US government of the time respond to it by doubling down on an absurd economic plan in the furtherance of a political ideology?
- pastProlog 10y ago
  > embracing of capitalism Zhao Ziyang embraced capitalism, and he was arrested after the June 4th incident. Capitalism run by the communist party of China? Also, Mao and Zhou Enlai are who made peace with the USA, not Deng Xiaoping. > Deng Xiaoping, whom Mao disgraced for his unorthodoxy Mao and Deng had a falling out in the mid to late 1960s, but Mao empowered Deng again in 1974. Deng Xiaoping called himself a communist, not a capitalist. He did say it doesn't matter whether the cat is black or white, as long as it catches mice. If China was a capitalist system, it would be more like Japan or South Korea or the US or Western Europe. Deng said he was proceeding in a dialectic manner economically. If you don't know what that means, then you don't know what communism is, and you wouldn't be able to tell if Deng was a communist or not. Actually Mao was accused by people to his left of abandoning communism due to his interpretation of the theory of productive forces (as well as the role of peasantry and proletariat etc.) Deng just expanded on that.
  - adrianm 10y ago
    "Deng said he was proceeding in a dialectic manner economically." What does this mean? Isn't dialectics a form of reasoning?
    - twblalock 10y ago
      Dialectical materialism is a Marxist view of history, which is generally what people mean when they use the word "dialectic" in this context. These may be useful: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Historical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dialectical_materialism
      - adrianm 10y ago
        I still want to understand what it means to be economically dialectical.
  - flomble 10y ago
    The reason Deng Xiaoping had to use a coy phrase about cats to avoid admitting to his policies running counter to communism is that communism is at the core of the Party's identity and history, and that abandoning it openly would seriously undermine their legitimacy. The 'dialectical' approach to communism has meant slowly discarding almost everything which makes an economy communist. The "socialist market economy" allows private ownership, even of means of production and allows the private accumulation of capital. If you want to argue that it's actually communist because the transition was slow and the leadership still claims to be communist with a straight face, I'm not going to bother rebutting that. The reason China's system is not more like the countries you listed is that it is autocratic, and the reason Zhao Ziyang was arrested was his excessive and open sympathy for a people's democratic movement.
- fennecfoxen 10y ago
  > Comparing the Dust Bowl to the Great Leap Forward is... questionable. How many people died due to the Dust Bowl? Did the US government of the time respond to it by doubling down on an absurd economic plan in the furtherance of a political ideology? Doubling down? It was more like an excuse to introduce the absurd economic plan. FDR's New Deal featured the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which ultimately tried to restore prosperity by paying farmers not to farm and burning crops as a price-support tactic. (Won't even go into the non-agricultural price-fixing schemes of the NRA which were ultimately struck down by the Supreme Court. No, the other NRA.) Mild, mild stuff compared to the Great Leap Forward, of course (and of course unrelated to more reasonable programs like Social Security).
  - vinceguidry 10y ago
    > Mild, mild stuff compared to the Great Leap Forward, Err, that was the whole point.
  - Spooky23 10y ago
    The whole point of the New Deal activities was to stop deflation. It's a tough problem to solve. Our way of dealing with it today is to compel banks to hoard cash.

whoopdedo 10y ago

They then overused insecticides which decimated pollinator species. Now farmers have to resort to hand pollinating flowers to maintain their orchards[1]. The town is called Maoxian; was it named after the Chairman? [1] http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-11-00108.1 http://www.bioone.org/doi/pdf/10.1659/MRD-JOURNAL-D-11-00108...

maxwelljoslyn 10y ago
No, Mao Xian (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_County https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao_County) in Sichuan is not named after Chairman Mao. The 'Mao' in its name and the 'Mao' in his name are different characters. (Chairman Mao --> 毛茂 --> Mao County)