Here we would have to decide first on what we will attribute to the U.S. as a cause of death. Do we count only direct killing, or more indirect killing? Do we count killing carried out by proxies, or only by ourselves? Do we count crimes of omission or only comission? etc.
To give you an idea of the kinds of difficulties such a calculation runs into, consider just the issue of starvation. Of the approximately 24,000 people who die from starvation every day, we can place a lower limit on the number that we could prevent from starving to death at 10,000. In fact, the number is probably much higher, and was much higher still in the past, but just for the sake of argument, let’s say 10,000. That is, if we were willing, we could prevent 10,000 deaths by starvation every day. In fact, every few years, UNICEF puts out a study detailing how much it would cost to alleviate starvation world-wide, and to provide basic necessities like health care and housing to the entire world. The estimates are usually around $40 billion in additional funds. That is about 1/10 of the U.S. military budget.
So, if we take the 10,000 dying of starvation every day, then that is more than 3 million per year, and in 3 decades you get to 100 million. That is a pretty conservative estimate, I think.
Some might say that the devastation of the Third World is merely due to the failure of the rich countries to be giving enough, that if only we were more generous that these things wouldn’t happen. I think this is an error. As you can see from the above calculation, it would take only a miniscule effort on the part of the rich countries to alleviate a massive amount of suffering in the world. A simple reduction of the war budget by 10%, and the redirecting of these resources to the world’s poor would have a HUGE effect in alleviating world poverty. It is such a simple thing that it simply CANNOT be an error. It must be deliberate. And this is only counting the failure to alleviate suffering.
Then we can discuss the economic policies that the rich countries pursue that deliberately keep countries poor. The main enterprise of the financial institutions of the rich countries, in particular the U.S., is to maintain the dichotomy in wealth that exists in countries around the world, commonly referred to as the North/South divide, or the First World/Third World division. As Svinlesha has explained well, in order for vast wealth to be created in the rich capitalist countries, it is necessary for capitalist economies to expand their exploitation of the poor. Around the end of the 19th century, the capitalist countries had just about maxed out their ability to exploit the poor in their own countries, and it was at this time that imperialism exploded. I would reference Lenin’s essay “Imperialism: The highest stage of capitalism” for information on the explosion of imperialism, linked to earlier in this thread. While I disagree with almost everything Lenin had to say, his critique of imperialism was spot-on, and, of course, the situation has become many times worse in the ensuing 80 years.
In short, the situation in many of the poor countries in the world is a direct result of policies that are carried out in the rich countries, which are designed to deliberately keep the poor countries poor. Therefore, the deaths from starvation in these countries are attributable to imperialism, mostly U.S. imperialism, which has been by far the dominant power in the world for 50 years.
Imperialism is simply the enforcing of your will onto other countries. Imperialism is often conflated with military conquest, but this really misses the point. Imperialism is carried out by a variety of mechanisms, notably these days by international economic institutions which regulate trade, like the IMF, WTO and World Bank. The penalties for not following the orders of these institutions can be very severe, up to and including complete destruction, as was achieved, for example, in Vietnam and Nicaragua.
Obviously not. Rome was pretty imperialist, as was China in the middle ages, etc.
Yes. This is not something that is even really debatable. The U.S. is by far the most dominant empire that has ever existed on Earth. We have more power over more countries and more people, both absolutely and relative to the world’s population, than any country has ever had. The U.S. maintains a military presence in 120 of 191 U.N. member states, and the economic system organized and dominated by the U.S. reaches its tentacles into every corner of the globe.
I don’t think there is a simple formula saying that the more socialist/capitalist the wealthier or whatever. There are many more factors to account for than simply the economic system. The most important factors contributing to a country’s wealth are those that have little to do with the economic system, such as the natural resources of the country, it’s accessibility for trade, and so on. Certainly, the economic system plays a large role, but it isn’t the only factor.
My criticisms of capitalism are not directed at its ability to create wealth. Clearly, capitalism can and does create vast wealth. This isn’t really debatable. You will recall, in fact, that Marx was greatly impressed with the ability of capitalism to create wealth and to destroy the old institutions of feudalism. The problems with capitalism have to do with the distribution of wealth, and the exploitative class structure that it creates. So, for example, despite the highly oppressive social structures that existed under feudalism, in the feudal system everybody had a place in society, and had a right to live. Under capitalism you do not have a right to live, but only a right to try to get what you can from the market. It is only reforms grafted onto the capitalist structure that give people the right to live–it would not exist under a pure capitalist system.
There is a common mistake being made in this thread by equating socialism with totalitarianism. Socialism, as envisaged by classical socialist thinkers, is a system that is democratic in the economic sphere. The distiniguishing characteristic of socialism is worker control of the means of production. It seeks to eliminate private property, by which is mean private ownership of the means of production, and to place these under the control of the workers.
In the history of socialist thought, there have been several divisions, but perhaps the most important is that between anarchists and communists. Communists advocated a “dictatorship of the proletariat,” which mean, in reality, a dictatorship of the Vanguard Party in Leninism. This has led, almost everywhere, to totalitarianism and autocracy, probably the only exception being Cuba. The theory is that once the dictatorship of the proletariat is consolidated that the state will whither away, bringing a new era of direct democracy and equality. Clearly, this has not happened. On the other side of the division, anarchists have thought that the way to achieve direct democracy and socialism is just to do it, that you don’t need to go through the dictatorship of the proletariat to do it. So, for example, the Spanish anarchists took control of a large part of Spain in 1936, and succeeded in creating what is probably the most successful modern socialist society, where you had direct democracy, workers councils running the factories, etc.
Personally, I attach myself to the anarchist tradition, and think that the best model for a modern society is the anarchist model. That said, I do not think there is only one way to arrange an economy. Basically, what I think we should do is experiment, try different ways of organizing our economy, under the principle that all authority should be questioned, and that the goal of an economy is to create a healthy society based on principles of equality, justice and solidarity.
