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Capitalism neither prevents gulags nor famines. And you can bet (pun intended) someone will create them on purpose if they can make profit from it
by croes 7mo ago
Capitalism neither prevents gulags nor famines.
And you can bet (pun intended) someone will create them on purpose if they can make profit from it
- logicchains 7mo agoPlease do share what capitalist country had a famine in the past century.
- forinti 7mo agoLots of African countries have market economies and also poverty and hunger.
- throwthrowuknow 7mo agoPoverty and hunger are not famine
- ModernMech 7mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943
- iso1631 7mo agoNiger springs to mind, massively capitalist with a lot of oil and mining
- pigpop 7mo agoMassively capitalist in what way? They have a long history of price controls and nationalization and their current military junta is trying to nationalize the uranium industry. How could you even imagine a free market operating in a country that has a revolving door government that alternates between military dictatorships and transitional officials?
- ceejayoz 7mo agoGive it a bit! https://www.npr.org/2026/03/26/g-s1-115240/iran-war-strait-hormuz-fertilizer-exports-farmers-planting-season https://www.npr.org/2026/03/26/g-s1-115240/iran-war-strait-h... (I'm being snarky here, but COVID definitely exposed some supply chain vulnerabilities.)
- forinti 7mo agoDoesn't the US already have an above average incarceration rate and private prisons? Maybe, just maybe, there's some relation?
- abound 7mo ago"Above average" is underselling it: the US has by far the the highest incarceration rates of the rich world [1] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarcera...
- miki123211 7mo agoThe concept of private prisons basically proves why people who don't understand capitalism shouldn't engage in it. The entire advantage of capitalism over socialism is that customer choice forces you to make better products, and everything else stems from that. If you only have one grocery store, one school system, one health insurer, one employer in town, it doesn't matter how bad they get, you'll be their slave forever. This is particularly true if the person making the decisions at those institutions doesn't profit from them doing well. In a private prison system, there's no choice, you can't just switch prisons if you don't like the one you're in. This is the worst system of all, as there's still the profit incentive, without competition keeping it in check. I think you could do a private prison system well. Maybe let the prisoners choose their prison, with major disincentives for prison owners if prisoners escape. Maybe pay them for every day their newly-released inmates stay out of jail, encouraging rehab programs that actually work. Those would align what's good for the owner with what's good for society, which is all that capitalism is ultimately all about.
- throwthrowuknow 7mo agoExcept it does? Capitalist countries don’t seem to have any famines. You could argue that for profit prisons are similar to gulags in some ways but the important differences are so vast it’s hard to compare them honestly.
- ModernMech 7mo agoCapitalist countries don't have famines at home. That's different from "capitalism prevents famines". Capitalism is happy to cause hunger, inflict death, or imprison people if it's profitable for capitalists, that's baked into the structure of the structure of the system. There's no systemic feature of capitalism that directs capital generating activity unless it violates natural and human rights.
- azan_ 7mo agoIt actually did prevent lots of famines.