3 ms·

Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century? Random individuals/groups, or Governments? If you support nonviolence, why support an organizat

by david 18y ago

Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century? Random individuals/groups, or Governments? If you support nonviolence, why support an organization that threatens violence if you do not follow rules have no moral basis (ie, not "don't murder" and "don't steal") that you never agreed to follow?

run4yourlives 18y ago
Do you honestly believe that random individuals organized in some other fashion than government - say a corporation - are not just as able to murder and pillage on the same level as governments past? If you think that governments are some sort of special organization, and that the same problems would not occur with any other power, you sir are a fool.
- DanielBMarkham 18y ago
  Voted up, but almost didn't with the reference to corporations being as evil as governments. Haven't seen that yet, mostly due to free market influences. (There is a good reason why your neighborhood store owner is not also a flagrant lawbreaker -- it's bad for business) But substitute "armed gangs", "the mob", "terrorist organizations", etc -- works great.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    Give corporations power and an absence of government and it does happen. Look at the industrial revolution prior to workers' rights, or even look at telecom and communications monopolies today. That law that the store owner doesn't dare break is what holds him back!
    - randallsquared 18y ago
      But it didn't happen. No private organization ever produced something on the scale of the gulag or the Nazi concentration camps, even in places where government was very weak.
    - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
      Corporations are government-defined entities. You can't have them without governments. Not trying to argue, but it's a non-sequitur. The industrial revolution had corporations over-taxing the body politic. It was the natural result of taking rural agricultural ethics and putting them in a mechanistic world. It led to labor reforms. trust-busting, and labor unions. Sucked a lot, and lots of folks probably died early, but it was hardly the stuff of the holocaust. You have to remember that everybody was just figuring all this stuff out as it was happening. Once it became clear where we were headed (and that we didn't want to go there) then the government, which defines corporations, defined what they could and couldn't do in a different way. Badda bing, badda boom, your democratic republic at work.
- david 18y ago
  So your theory is that no matter how people organize themselves they will always commit mass atrocities? I can agree with this on some level, there is a lot of psychological disturbance among human beings and has been throughout history. I'm wondering if you are aware that there is ample evidence in the work of Adorno and his collegues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality), Lloyd deMause and the Institute for Psychohistory (http://www.psychohistory.com/ http://www.psychohistory.com/) and Alice Miller (http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php) that political and military disasters are not linked to something intrinsic and inevitable in human nature, but rather to childhood and even prenatal experiences that can be avoided? If you haven't, you might take a look at Lloyd deMause's book "The Emotional Life of Nations" (readable online: http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm), which I think traces this ability of humans to murder and pillage to it's source and provides a plan for how it can be eliminated in the future.
  - run4yourlives 18y ago
    So your theory is that no matter how people organize themselves they will always commit mass atrocities? Not quite, my theory is that the ability to commit atrocities is (much like I would assume your evidence would suggest) certainly evident in every being on the planet. Mass atrocities and murder on large scales is simply a result of many people getting together, regardless of how they do so. Because it's the individual, and not the organization that is the actor, your point that "governments have murdered more people than corporations" is bunk. Given more power, any organization is capable of such crimes. For example, the Catholic Church.
    - david 18y ago
      Well if you ever have some time to kill, check out some of those links, they provide a way out that isn't easy, and is probably mulitgenerational.It seems pretty solid to me and would get rid of the ability to commit atrocities not by a new form of organization, but rather by curing individuals.
DanielBMarkham 18y ago
"Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century?" Just googling around, looks like communists governments, by a long shot. Made Hitler look like a boy scout. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF

by david 18y ago

run4yourlives 18y ago

Do you honestly believe that random individuals organized in some other fashion than government - say a corporation - are not just as able to murder and pillage on the same level as governments past? If you think that governments are some sort of special organization, and that the same problems would not occur with any other power, you sir are a fool.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago
Voted up, but almost didn't with the reference to corporations being as evil as governments. Haven't seen that yet, mostly due to free market influences. (There is a good reason why your neighborhood store owner is not also a flagrant lawbreaker -- it's bad for business) But substitute "armed gangs", "the mob", "terrorist organizations", etc -- works great.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  Give corporations power and an absence of government and it does happen. Look at the industrial revolution prior to workers' rights, or even look at telecom and communications monopolies today. That law that the store owner doesn't dare break is what holds him back!
  - randallsquared 18y ago
    But it didn't happen. No private organization ever produced something on the scale of the gulag or the Nazi concentration camps, even in places where government was very weak.
  - DanielBMarkham 18y ago
    Corporations are government-defined entities. You can't have them without governments. Not trying to argue, but it's a non-sequitur. The industrial revolution had corporations over-taxing the body politic. It was the natural result of taking rural agricultural ethics and putting them in a mechanistic world. It led to labor reforms. trust-busting, and labor unions. Sucked a lot, and lots of folks probably died early, but it was hardly the stuff of the holocaust. You have to remember that everybody was just figuring all this stuff out as it was happening. Once it became clear where we were headed (and that we didn't want to go there) then the government, which defines corporations, defined what they could and couldn't do in a different way. Badda bing, badda boom, your democratic republic at work.
david 18y ago
So your theory is that no matter how people organize themselves they will always commit mass atrocities? I can agree with this on some level, there is a lot of psychological disturbance among human beings and has been throughout history. I'm wondering if you are aware that there is ample evidence in the work of Adorno and his collegues (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authoritarian_personality), Lloyd deMause and the Institute for Psychohistory (http://www.psychohistory.com/ http://www.psychohistory.com/) and Alice Miller (http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php http://www.alice-miller.com/index_en.php) that political and military disasters are not linked to something intrinsic and inevitable in human nature, but rather to childhood and even prenatal experiences that can be avoided? If you haven't, you might take a look at Lloyd deMause's book "The Emotional Life of Nations" (readable online: http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm http://www.geocities.com/kidhistory/childhod/chindex.htm), which I think traces this ability of humans to murder and pillage to it's source and provides a plan for how it can be eliminated in the future.
- run4yourlives 18y ago
  So your theory is that no matter how people organize themselves they will always commit mass atrocities? Not quite, my theory is that the ability to commit atrocities is (much like I would assume your evidence would suggest) certainly evident in every being on the planet. Mass atrocities and murder on large scales is simply a result of many people getting together, regardless of how they do so. Because it's the individual, and not the organization that is the actor, your point that "governments have murdered more people than corporations" is bunk. Given more power, any organization is capable of such crimes. For example, the Catholic Church.
  - david 18y ago
    Well if you ever have some time to kill, check out some of those links, they provide a way out that isn't easy, and is probably mulitgenerational.It seems pretty solid to me and would get rid of the ability to commit atrocities not by a new form of organization, but rather by curing individuals.

DanielBMarkham 18y ago

"Who has committed more murders and violence in the past century?" Just googling around, looks like communists governments, by a long shot. Made Hitler look like a boy scout. http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.FIG1.GIF