Which nation has killed the most?

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inspired by this:
Justin hawkins (The Darkness) To Release Anti-German World Cup Song

So who has killed more people, the Yanks or the Brits? Are the Krauts any competition? The Russkies? Rome?

Side question: which Religion is the biggest instigator of murder and destruction?

― The First Guy Ever to Have The Crazy Frog Ringtone, Friday, 28 April 2006 12:06 (twenty years ago)

1) germany
2) xtianity

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:09 (twenty years ago)

1. The Brits didn't really kill that many did they? They never had large enough armies for a start.

2. Christianity by a mile.

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:11 (twenty years ago)

Eternal damnation.

― NickB (NickB), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:11 (twenty years ago)

1. The Brits didn't really kill that many did they? They never had large enough armies for a start.
Dude, the British Empire didn't start itself.

― The First Guy Ever to Have The Crazy Frog Ringtone, Friday, 28 April 2006 12:13 (twenty years ago)

But how much of the British Empire was gained thru war and conquest and how much by trade and politicking?

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:16 (twenty years ago)

british army was relatively tiny up till 1915. navy was big.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:16 (twenty years ago)

40/60

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:16 (twenty years ago)

Gunboat diplomacy!

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:18 (twenty years ago)

relatively (I mean in relation to their size accross the ages) or absolutely?

― clodia pulchra (emo by proxy), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:20 (twenty years ago)

relative to comparable rival colonial powers, relative to the scale of the operation, as it were.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:21 (twenty years ago)

I think it's only in the 20th century that wars have been mass affairs(There was no universal conscription prior to WW1) so it's almost certainly been Germany, or if you include killing your own people, Russia.

and religion probably, as the biggest religion, christianity.

― Bidfurd (Bidfurd), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:22 (twenty years ago)

20th century answers here maybe.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/war-1900.htm

― Pete W (peterw), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:23 (twenty years ago)

1. Unwanted impreg

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:25 (twenty years ago)

it's almost certainly been Germany, or if you include killing your own people, Russia.

Germany killed its own people too! The Jews were Germans (and Poles and Austrians, etc) or at least as German as Ukranians, Czechs, and Latvians etc. were Russian

but i do think it was Russia, which would make #2 = atheism

― Mack, Friday, 28 April 2006 12:45 (twenty years ago)

the xtianity-as-killer thing doesn't refer to a 'single incident' type thing -- it's more the long-term killings of indigenous peoples in like south american and australia and ting. it's shakey to put it down to religion in itself obv!

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:48 (twenty years ago)

Is atheism a religion? (xpost)

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:51 (twenty years ago)

1. Used to be commies, but now it's Al Quaeda.

2. The Pro-abortion Lobby

― George W. Bush, Friday, 28 April 2006 12:51 (twenty years ago)

The actions of Nazi Germany, Stalinist Russia and Imperial Japan in the 20th Century all pin them down as easily the most murderous bunch of nation states ever. The last 100 years of human history make the book of Judges look like a Hardy Boys adventure.

The strange thing is, and I know we all love to hate some organized religion on this board, but you really can't blame any of those countries' actions on Jesus (or any religion) one bit. Nationalism is a much more frightening tendency. Books written by God are notoriously more open to interpretation than "The good of the homeland at whatever cost."

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:52 (twenty years ago)

However the (supplemental) question was "which Religion is the biggest instigator of murder and destruction"

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:54 (twenty years ago)

imperial spain took its religion pretty seriously.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:55 (twenty years ago)

Mass murderers - dont forget Mr Mao.

http://users.erols.com/mwhite28/tyrants.htm

― Pete W (peterw), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:56 (twenty years ago)

a religion can't kill people any more than an ideology like nazism can -- but you could argue religion was as integral (and indeed non-integral) to spain as nazism and communism were to germany and russia.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:56 (twenty years ago)

....in which case Christianity is the winner (xxxpost)

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:57 (twenty years ago)

http://www.afscstore.org/store/images/0195085574.jpg

Christians v. indigenous ppl.

― gbx (skowly), Friday, 28 April 2006 12:58 (twenty years ago)

You guys are right, why bother having any kind of intelligent debate on this issue, let's just have another 200 post thread bagging on Christians. Pick on the fat kid! Pick on the fat kid!

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:01 (twenty years ago)

suprised to see no-one arguing USA - though i think you'd have to count all the murderous little despots employed by the USA in order to do so, which could get tricky.

― cfg, Friday, 28 April 2006 13:02 (twenty years ago)

surely there's a pie chart on the internet to solve this?

― Ste (Fuzzy), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:03 (twenty years ago)

Pick on the fat murderous intolerant kid! Pick on the fat murderous intolerant kid!

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:03 (twenty years ago)

How in the fucking world could USA possibly top Russia unless you have absolutely no fucking clue about actual real historical events? Oh right, I guess I'm surprised no-one's arguing USA too.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:03 (twenty years ago)

You guys are right, why bother having any kind of intelligent debate on this issue, let's just have another 200 post thread bagging on Christians. Pick on the fat kid! Pick on the fat kid!
-- TOMBOT (tombo...), April 28th, 2006.

it's not bagging on christians to ponder whether their religion was an important component in the mass-killings of people in the americas by countries in which orgainzed religion played an absolutely fundamental role in government.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:04 (twenty years ago)

the people saying usa are crazy though, yes.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:04 (twenty years ago)

PLZ TO NAME ME THE RELIGION WHICH WORSHIPS THE GOD OF ABRAHAM WHICH IS NOT MURDEROUS AND INTOLERANT IN ITS MOST PRIMITIVE, THROWBACK FORM

GET ONE FUCKING HISTORY BOOK AND/OR LET'S PLAY WHO DOES ALL THE KILLING IN THE OLD TESTAMENT

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:05 (twenty years ago)

by countries in which orgainzed religion played an absolutely fundamental role in government.

The role in question being 'excuse'.

― Andrew Farrell (afarrell), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:07 (twenty years ago)

who are you yelling at? I don't think anyone's made an argument of the type you're objecting to... nobody's saying USA... I only said I'm suprised no-one has!

― cfg, Friday, 28 April 2006 13:08 (twenty years ago)

I think that the interesting thing is that when countries have decided to perform mass murder (esp. on their own populations) since the invention of breech-loading weapons have been motivated to do so by largely nationalistic reasons (us civil war counts as does the aftermath of the french revolution, i would argue) and not on faith-based principles. Imperialistic genocide campaigns prior to the Enlightenment & the Revolutionary War vs. those that followed = very different strain of rhetoric.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:08 (twenty years ago)

do we chalk the pogroms up to russia or christianity?

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:09 (twenty years ago)

I'm yelling at Dada because it seems like he's the one most interested in having this thread just be about how Christ as your Saviour is the first step on the road to tying people up two by two to save bullets as you walk parallel to the mass grave you've dug for them

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:10 (twenty years ago)

Ha ha, what on earth are you on about? What can't you understand about the initial quesiton:

Side question: which Religion is the biggest instigator of murder and destruction?

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:12 (twenty years ago)

by countries in which orgainzed religion played an absolutely fundamental role in government.
The role in question being 'excuse'.

-- Andrew Farrell (afarrel...), April 28th, 2006

that, and, you know, imposing their law on the rest of the population and bestowing/withholding legitimacy on the ruling families of europe.

― the Enrique who acts like some kind of good taste gestapo (Enrique), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:13 (twenty years ago)

I'll repeat it again very slowly:

Which RELIGION is the biggest instigator of murder and destruction?

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:14 (twenty years ago)

dudes if we're talking religion then buddhism wins obv

http://www.moviezine.se/filmbilder/016/kung_fu_hustle.jpg

http://www2.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2005-10/01/xin_00090230105773883657.jpg

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:14 (twenty years ago)

Which I take to mean which religion IN COMPARISON TO OTHER RELIGIONS

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:15 (twenty years ago)

OK well actually the religion which is the biggest instigator of murder and destruction would be Judaism. If fucking Abraham hadn't been a complete nutbag ready to kill his only son to prove his love for YHWH, none of the other shit we're talking about on this thread would have happened. We'd all believe in 20 or 30 or 300 different gods and you never would have heard of Jesus or Mohammed much less Sayyid Qutb or the Ku Klux Klan.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:19 (twenty years ago)

Prolly

― They're Dairylea Mad, Them Kids (Dada), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:21 (twenty years ago)

he didn't kill his son anyway.

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:22 (twenty years ago)

wimp

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:23 (twenty years ago)

Yeah maybe he should have, that woulda ended the whole thing right there. Well I know what I'm doing with a time machine now.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:23 (twenty years ago)

BTW I wish the answer to this question was Gnosticism, just because.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:23 (twenty years ago)

Cain wiped out a fair chunk of the Earth's population single handedly.

― Onimo (GerryNemo), Friday, 28 April 2006 13:24 (twenty years ago)

Skipping 48 messages at this point... Click here if you want to load them all.

the website shasta links to also tries to play down the higher numerical estimates of am. ind. pop. at every turn so i'm really not sure how much to trust it, but yeah, how do you measure the destruction of a people? what about land use, songs, sports, celebrations. all those things are gone except as ossified reconstructions. it's a whole system of living and way of conceptualizing society and nature that doesn't any more. i mean, talk about "totalitarianism"!!!! it's as if earthlings went to mars, discovered people living there who wore strange clothing, spoke a different language, ate different food, had little concept of private property, made strange noises in the night, and knew valuable skills that they taught the earthlings and suddenly a few decades later the earthlings were like "damn, shoulda sterilized that spaceship before we left i guess, doop de doo, i think i'm going to build a subdivision right here and grill up some corn"

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:26 (twenty years ago)

At the risk of getting pummeled here, I'd also like to point out how uncomfortable I often feel about the terms 'American Indians' or 'Native Americans'. Before the arrival of the Spanish, California, for example, had over 400 language groups, a diversity practically unheard of anywhere else on Earth. Europeans may all be from Europe (whatever that is, according to whatever abitrary delineation) and they may all look the same to an Indian, but they were historically no less capable of cordially or even violently hating each other than Asians, Africans, or even Native Americans. The thing that seems to unify all the American tribes is the fact that they were feared, hated and despised by the Europeans that came here and generally suffered similar fates, not because of any linguistic, ethnic, cultural or social similarities or any common affinity for each other.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:29 (twenty years ago)

Dude this reconstruction is totally ossified, let's blow this joint.

― TOMBOT (TOMBOT), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:30 (twenty years ago)

Europeans may all be from Europe (whatever that is, according to whatever abitrary delineation) and they may all look the same to an Indian, but they were historically no less capable of cordially or even violently hating each other than Asians, Africans, or even Native Americans

is it just me or is this the most confusing sentence ever?

― huh?, Friday, 28 April 2006 15:34 (twenty years ago)

m. white - very much agreed.

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:35 (twenty years ago)

American Indian is a term like Asian or African or what-have-you, it's just meant to be a general larger-race signifier, not what a person actually is or any kind of judgement of solidarity with one another (I mean christ just look at the Asians! Big winners in the killing each other stakes upthread!). I don't particularly care for the term American Indian but it's much more unwieldly to try to break them down by individual nations for a general discussion. No one really ever uses the term Europeans to describe anything modernly but they do use general catch-all "white" in the same fashion, I guess.

Also Tracer I'm really not sure it's fair to include disease-by-accident as genocide, I agree with that point in the linked article. Unless it's like God Genocide or something, I mean we could probably have a great thread about huge disease plagues, but those diseases would've occurred even had Spaniards immigrated peacefully.

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:39 (twenty years ago)

Haha I'm going to just start using the term "what-have-you" to describe ppl not of my race from now on.

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:41 (twenty years ago)

Ally,

How can you really justify No one really ever uses the term Europeans to describe anything modernly but they do use general catch-all "white" in the same fashion, I guess.? Europe is a cultural, political and social reality mentioned on the sporting pages, the business pages, and in politcal coverage. It exists, to a great extent, because Europeans want it to exist. My point about the appelation 'Native American' wasn't that there is no present feeling of solidarity among some Natives or that AIM doesn't exist or whatnot, but that at the time of the arrival of the Spanish, say, or the French in North America, they were newcomers but also just tribes amongst all the already existing tribes.

Native Americans dying from enslavement/warfare is worse than dying from exposure to hitherto unknown exotic pathogens

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:48 (twenty years ago)

Obviously them dying from enslavement and warfare is worse, which is why I think including the disease factor is jumbling up the issue and bad.

And I can easily justify my statement as there is not a single person in all of the United States who is a "European-American" but there are apparently millions of American Indians, African-Americans, Asian-Americans, Hispanics (who don't even get "American" tagged on), etc--that statement you highlighted was actually my catch out if someone called me on "Well no one uses European-American" as a counter to "just some kind of catch all race term, unfortunately." White=European-American.

Sorry if this is convoluted at all, I shouldn't be on ILX at all right now and should be fully concentrating on elsewhere but too tempting a discussion :)

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:58 (twenty years ago)

the answer is turkey

― DEEDS NOT WORDS (vahid), Friday, 28 April 2006 15:58 (twenty years ago)

I get it. You mean in an American context. I have often contended that one of the most interesting social developments of the last several hundred years has been the invention of 'whiteness' to provide a commonality for the myriad pink and pale peoples of Europe. Incidentally, there is a theory that the epithet 'honky' derives from the Wolof word for pink.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 16:03 (twenty years ago)

yeah i just came here to say china but steve shasta beat me to it - 50 million ppl under mao alone + 4000 yrs of state killing before that, nobody is really fuckin w/ em

― -+-+-++-+++, Friday, 28 April 2006 16:05 (twenty years ago)

not to diminish the north & south american genocides of course, i was horrified to read somewhere a while back that the population of what is now mexico was like 10 million in 1600 and 100k a century later

― --+--++--+-+, Friday, 28 April 2006 16:06 (twenty years ago)

yay way to go china! pwn!

― ken c (ken c), Friday, 28 April 2006 16:06 (twenty years ago)

50% must be averaged globally 'cause, ifrc, some of the tribes that Columbus so disobligingly 'discovered' in the Carribean went virtually or maybe even actually extinct.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 16:10 (twenty years ago)

Incidentally, there is a theory that the epithet 'honky' derives from the Wolof word for pink.

Proabably wrong.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 16:23 (twenty years ago)

50% would be a total average, yeah, I mean I don't think there are many sources who have bothered to even attempt to do a by-nation breakdown considering they can't even decide on a every-nation final tally.

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Friday, 28 April 2006 16:34 (twenty years ago)

According to anthropologist John H Bodley, author of Victims of Progress (Mayfield, 1999), capitalist civilization, both in its traditional and state capitalist forms, has been responsible for genocides of unimaginable ferocity. In every encounter between tribal and capitalist cultures, the same pattern has occurred. Capitalist economies depend upon unlimited growth, which leads capitalist societies to invade lands held by tribal people. The tribes are forced into submission, often through wholesale slaughter. Tribal economies are decimated, and the land’s resources are fed into the capitalist machine. Those tribal peoples who survive find themselves destitute, traumatized, and excluded from the power structures of the invading society. Many are enslaved.
Bodley estimates between 1780 and 1930 tribal populations worldwide fell by 30-50 million people. Take the Americas, for example. Prior to contact with Europeans, the tribal population of North America was approximately 7,000,000, while the tribal population of Lowland South America was 8,500,000. At their lowest point after colonization, these numbers had fallen to 390,000 and 450,000 respectively. Even Bodley’s figures may be conservative. Scholars like W E B DuBois, Walter Rodney, Cheik Anta Diop, Joseph Inikori, and Basil Davidson estimate that the European slave trade alone was responsible for the loss of between 50 and 100 million African lives.
In terms of raw numbers, several genocides in the 20th century rival this genocide of tribal peoples. Between 1940 and 1945, approximately 11 million people died in the Holocaust. According to Religious Tolerance.org, 20 million Soviet citizens were killed in the USSR between 1917 and 1987, while 35 million Chinese citizens were killed in Communist China between 1949 and 1987. These comparisons mask the severity of the genocide of tribal peoples in two ways. First, the planet’s population has increased dramatically in the last two hundred years. In 1780, the global population was approximately 1 billion. By the 1930s it had reached 2.2 billion, and by 1987 it stood at 5 billion. Relative to the population of the planet, the genocide of tribal peoples remains unparalleled in human history. Second, the Nazi, Soviet, and Chinese genocides didn’t completely wipe out the people they victimized, and afterwards the survivors were often able to rebuild and prosper. In contrast, during the genocide of tribal peoples, many tribes, such as the Beothuk of Newfoundland, were driven to extinction. Throughout the world, surviving tribal peoples remain marginalized and impoverished.
Our civilization was built upon the proceeds of a crime more nightmarish than the Holocaust. Of course, for some time now, we haven’t had to think about it. It was easy to rationalize our actions as the inevitable result of societal evolution. We were the torchbearers, carrying light into the shadows. We were waging a righteous war against savagery and superstition, banishing ignorance and bringing civilization to those lost in primitive squalor. Our way was superior to theirs, and inevitable, too.
Only now it turns out that while the planet could support small-scale tribal societies for many tens of thousands of years, our civilization is ruining global ecosystems and destabilizing the climate. Fifty-five million years ago, increased volcanic activity caused the planet’s methane levels to increase, raising global temperatures and triggering widespread extinctions. It took the Earth over 100,000 years to recover. Earth Sciences Professor James Zachos, the leading expert on this period, has reported that greenhouse gasses are accumulating in the atmosphere at 30 times the speed they accumulated back then. Jim Hansen, the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and President George Bush’s top climate modeller, predicts that melting ice sheets will cause sea levels to rise by 25 metres in the foreseeable future. World-renowned scientist James Lovelock believes that as a result of positive feedback loops, climate change is now irreversible, and that “before this century is over, billions of us will die, and the few breeding pairs of people that survive will be in the Arctic, where the climate remains tolerable.”

― hmm, Friday, 28 April 2006 16:35 (twenty years ago)

anyway, even if the genocide of the indigeneous peoples of the americas may be the worst holocaust ever - it wasn't perpetrated by a single nation so it doesn't really answer the question. the chinese still win.

― hmm, Friday, 28 April 2006 16:45 (twenty years ago)

I don't think that most of the disease related deaths of the indigenous peoples of the New World count towards "holocaust" totals.

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 28 April 2006 16:47 (twenty years ago)

Not in most estimated totals, no.

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Friday, 28 April 2006 16:48 (twenty years ago)

Imagine how nice people would be without capitalism. Why can't we return to our pacifist tribal roots and be more like the Visigoths, the Vikings and the Basques?

Besides nationalism, I would say another big killer is mechanized warfare, which got it's start in WWI, and was first perfected by the Germans and Japanese in WWII.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts our Impending DOOM. Blast you, Capitalism! (Fluffy Bear Hear, Friday, 28 April 2006 16:54 (twenty years ago)

capitalist civilization, both in its traditional and state capitalist forms includes Visigoths, the Vikings and the Basques, dummy

― geoffery, Friday, 28 April 2006 16:58 (twenty years ago)

"capitalist civilization, both in its traditional and state capitalist forms includes Visigoths, the Vikings and the Basques, dummy"

geoffrey,

State capitalism refers to a capitalist system primarily owned or run by the state, like China or the USSR. When he uses the term "traditional capitalist" I think he is refering to liberal capitalism, like in the USA (some say that we are as much a state capitalist society as we are a liberal capitalist society).

Anyway, I'm prety ignorant, so can you please explain the Visigoth's economic system to me?

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Enlightenment (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 28 April 2006 17:08 (twenty years ago)

the visigoths were a tribal group colonized by the romans, who were capitalists (or mercantilists anyway), dummy

― geoffrey, Friday, 28 April 2006 17:15 (twenty years ago)

http://www.civfanatics.com/sotd/sotd12.jpg

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 28 April 2006 17:25 (twenty years ago)

http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/sgt_stryker/civhome.htm

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 28 April 2006 17:27 (twenty years ago)

wow waht!!!

― Allyzay Rofflesbot (allyzay), Friday, 28 April 2006 17:31 (twenty years ago)

capitalist civilization, both in its traditional and state capitalist forms includes Visigoths, the Vikings and the Basques, dummy

-- geoffery (defgeof...), Today 10:58 AM. (later)

not the basques duder.

― Steve Shasta (Steve Shasta), Friday, 28 April 2006 17:39 (twenty years ago)

the visigoths were a tribal group colonized by the romans, who were capitalists (or mercantilists anyway), dummy

Wrong. Visigoths were the Western branch of the Goths. They ended up invading Northern Spain and Southern France. Catalonia is named after them.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 17:57 (twenty years ago)

But how much of the British Empire was gained thru war and conquest and how much by trade and politicking?

Hate to be the voice of treason here, but I think you could safely say British Empire killed tens of millions. That is if by "killed" you mean "was responsible for the death of". The biggest killer was famine caused by negligent and in some cases deliberate policy. If in the death toll figures for Stalin and Mao you're including those who died by famine under the regime, you've got to do the same for the British Empire (10 million in the Bengal famine of 1770 alone).

This opens up a bit of a can of worms, however.

― Cathy (Cathy), Friday, 28 April 2006 17:58 (twenty years ago)

The Visigoths did settle along the northern edge of the Roman Empire and they did trade with the Romans. Eventually, the Roman Empire expanded northward. I suppose this does make the Visigoths capitalists. Geoffry's history and economics skills are unbeatable.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Antagonizing Geoffrey (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 28 April 2006 18:09 (twenty years ago)

the way i remember it fro class is the visigoths were caught between the huns and the romans, and lived under the protection/iron rule of the romans until finally rsing up against them... in any case, their existence does nothing to moot the tribal group vs. capitalist model that dude objected to

xpost

― geoffrey, Friday, 28 April 2006 18:11 (twenty years ago)

We should also note that the Ostogoths were neo-liberals. The Vandals, however, were anarcho-socialists.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Vandals (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 28 April 2006 18:14 (twenty years ago)

nitsuh otm

― geiffery, Friday, 28 April 2006 18:30 (twenty years ago)

People be killing people

― Colonel Poo (Colonel Poo), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:16 (twenty years ago)

I'm not sure what model of capitalism applies when we're talking about Rome, for example. The Romans may have been a mercantile nation and there may have been some amounts of private capital available to the better traders and to people of the senatorial class but it's hardly equivalent to what Marx and Engels were describing.

Ironically, many of the titles and pretentions and hereditary preoccupations that dominated Europe prior to the dawn of the capitalist era have their origins or derive from the practices of just the kind of germanic tribes like the Visigoths. There was nary a kingly line in the days of the Heptarchy which did not claim descent from Odin or one of the other gods of the germanic pantheon (many royal lines originally claim divine descent or the mandate of Heaven, e.g., Japan, China, Mexico, Egypt), and the deference shown for centuries to the Amali and later the Balti clans is hardly a phenomonon limited to the Goths.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:17 (twenty years ago)

i think you're getting hung up on irrelevent details... whether or not Rome is a modern capitalist state or not is a whole other argument, but bodley's description of the dynamic works nonetheless: Capitalist economies depend upon unlimited growth, which leads capitalist societies to invade lands held by tribal people. The tribes are forced into submission, often through wholesale slaughter. Tribal economies are decimated, and the land’s resources are fed into the capitalist machine. Those tribal peoples who survive find themselves destitute, traumatized, and excluded from the power structures of the invading society. Many are enslaved...

― geoffrey, Friday, 28 April 2006 19:22 (twenty years ago)

;_;

― JW (ex machina), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:23 (twenty years ago)

geoffrey = bethune??
visigoths=cheney/rove?

― timmy tannin (pompous), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:29 (twenty years ago)

geoffrey that's not how rome worked though - lotta lands carried on just as before as long as they paid a tribute each year and set up the local parochial boss roman w/a nice villa somewhere

― Tracey Hand (tracerhand), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:31 (twenty years ago)

"The tribes are forced into submission, often through wholesale slaughter. Tribal economies are decimated, and the land’s resources are fed... Those tribal peoples who survive find themselves destitute, traumatized, and excluded from the power structures of the invading society. Many are enslaved..."

this is true of almost every society - in no way is it exclusive to capitalism.

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:32 (twenty years ago)

(also Tracey OTM - but debating whether modern political appellations apply to ancient civilizations seems beyond pointless to me. that was then, this is now and all that...)

― Shakey Mo Collier (Shakey Mo Collier), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:32 (twenty years ago)

OK. I'll be serious for a moment. Here's what I really objected too in the post I originally quoted:

Capitalist economies depend upon unlimited growth, which leads capitalist societies to invade lands held by tribal people.

He is talking about the causal mechanism, here. What is his backup. What causes non-capitalist societies to invade the lands held by tribal people?

I agree that various economic, government and social constructs help to channel human behavior, but at the base, some of this has to be blamed on human nature and not one of the "isms".

Also, dude goes from imperialism to the extinction of the human race in about four paragraphs.

I think we have to look at more than the capitalist system if we are to gain understanding.

Can't hurt to start here.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts the Noble Savage (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:43 (twenty years ago)

Those tribal peoples who survive find themselves destitute, traumatized, and excluded from the power structures of the invading society. Many are enslaved...

This is all interesting considering the fact that the proximate cause of the fall of Rome was the invasion of its heartland by tribes whose reason for conquest was that there were other tribes behind them.

I'd be careful about romanticizing peoples too cut-off, too conservative, or simply too primitive to arrange for the institutions and technology with which to defend themselves. I don't mean to condone conquest or blame the victims. If you leave your front door open and someone steals all your shit, they're still bad but it doesn't make leaving the front door open good. If you knew there was crime in the world, your're either a naif or a straight-up fool and if you didn't, welcome to the cruel and indifferent workings of history.

― M. White (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 19:48 (twenty years ago)

People have done a lot of bad stuff for a lot of bad reasons. So what causes war?

Is poverty the cause of war?
Is nationalism the cause of war?
Is religion the cause of war?
Is capitalism the cause of war?
Is socialism the cause of war?

I think stuff is the cause of war.

Stuff killed more people than China.

― Fluffy Bear Hearts Peace, Not Stuff (Fluffy Bear Hearts Rainbows), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:16 (twenty years ago)

The visigoths are surely beside the point, the tribal society most relevant to this argument is surely the Mongols, who were very definitely not capitalists, not even particularly mercantile, and most of the time their destruction reached the levels it did because they weren't planning to stay too long in the area but head on further forward and so they could burn as many fields and kill as many locals as they felt like, it wouldn't be them who had to stick around and deal with the ensuing famine.

i mean, 40 million in the 13th century! that is a fuckload of people.

― permanent revolution (cis), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:25 (twenty years ago)

It's quality, not quantity, people!

― Don't knock masturbation, Friday, 28 April 2006 20:51 (twenty years ago)

"Quantity has a quality all its own."

― Dzhugashvíli (Miguelito), Friday, 28 April 2006 20:55 (twenty years ago)

Carrie Nation killed the most buzzes, that's fo'sure.

http://kansasdar.org/randolphloving/CarrieNation.jpg

― timmy tannin (pompous), Saturday, 29 April 2006 01:13 (twenty years ago)

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