Re: Taiwan, capitalism, socialism, and mass murder

Interesting and distressing.  

One possible hypotheses as to why the "drumbeat goes on about how 
"capitalism" is "inherently more favourable to human rights.....etc. etc." is 
the question of  scale & intentionality:  the two largest self-styled 
socialist regimes (the USSR and the PRC) appear to have contributed directly 
to the deaths of at least 40 million people between 1925 and 1965 (via 
collectivisation of agriculture and the Great Leap Forward, respectively).  
Capitalism probably contributed to a large  number of deaths during the same 
period (some of which you name below), but often deaths from capitalism are 
the result of neglect rather than intentional, large-scale attempts to alter 
the human condition/world system.  I would say that it is the difference 
between second-degree murder and manslaughter.  While it would make little 
difference to the victims, it may have some explanatory value (as might the 
fact that most media & history is written by capitalists).

Regards,

Milo Jones
Invictus Capital Partners

Subj:   Taiwan, capitalism, socialism, and mass murder  
Date:   26/04/2001 15:29:44 GMT Daylight Time   
From:    spectors@netnitco.net (Alan Spector)
Sender:    wsn-owner@csf.colorado.edu
To:    psn@csf.colorado.edu (PROGRESSIVE SOCIOLOGISTS NETWORK), 
wsn@csf.colorado.edu (WORLD SYSTEMS NETWORK), ahs-talk@ncsu.edu
    
    


Note from Alan Spector:
 
The following excerpt is from a British Broadcasting Company (BBC) project on 
the history of Taiwan. I found it interesting, because in all the debates 
over the various repressive measures taken by capitalist and socialist 
regimes, there is an overwhelming tendency to minimize or completely cover up 
massacres by capitalist regimes which are labeled "democratic" while roften 
inflating statistics on the deaths caused by socialist regimes. For example, 
Cuba is continually referred to as a regime which "violates human rights" and 
the U.S./British media continues to focus on the deaths of perhaps 1,000 
people during the Tienamein Square protests. In the past, we have mentioned 
obvious incidents, such as the anti-communist repression in El Salvador and 
Guatemala which killed perhaps 180,000 people, the U.S. organized fascist 
coup in Chile which killed tens of thousands, and the U.S. organized fascist 
coup in Indonesia that killed perhaps 500,000!  Here is another story. 
Considering the relatively small population of Taiwan at the time, a 
"massacre of perhaps 18,000-30.000 " people makes any discussion of Castro's 
Cuba, or even gangster Milosevic's Yugoslavia look pale by comparison. But 
yet the drumbeat goes on about how "capitalism" is "inherently more favorable 
to human rights.....etc. etc."  I'm sure there are dozens more countries 
where situations like this happened, in addition, of course to the other 
unnecessary deaths from things like measles (40,000 in Ethiopia alone), 
malaria, cholera, AIDS, etc. etc. These situations should be discussed more 
actively in courses we teach.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/hi/english/static/in_depth/asia_pacific/2000/taiwan_elec

tions2000/1945_1949.stm
 
 
With the end of World War II Taiwan was handed over to the control of 
mainland China, under the Kuomintang (nationalist) government of General 
Chiang Kai-shek. The move brought to an end more than 50 years of Japanese 
control. 

Chiang moved quickly to formalise the island's status as a province of China. 
On Taiwan itself liberation from Japanese rule was initially welcomed, but 
many quickly came to resent the corruption of the new government and what was 
seen as the exploitation of Taiwanese resources for mainland post-war 
reconstruction. Taiwanese industry, which had been closely tied to Japan, was 
redirected to supply the needs of the mainland and the island's economy slid 
into crisis. Unemployment soared and, as protests grew, a brutal crackdown 
took place in 1947. 

In what became known as "the White Terror" an estimated 18,000 - 30,000 
members of the island's native-born political and academic elite were 
executed as Chiang's government asserted its control. For decades afterwards 
the government insisted the action was a crackdown on communists and 
gangsters. 

As the war with the Japanese came to an end, on the mainland the civil war 
with Mao Zedong's communist forces resumed more fiercely than ever with the 
communists increasingly gaining the upper hand. As defeat loomed hundreds of 
thousands of Chiang's soldiers defected to the communist side. 
 
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