I was recently asked : "we all, know that Communism's death toll is about a 100 million (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_killings_under_communist_regimes)....but what about the death toll of capitalism?".
An example was cited where the Nestle corporation "went into" Africa, convinced mothers that formula was better, leading to less milk production, dependency on formula and 10 million child deaths due to poor water. We will return to this example below.
In this brief note, I will provide some clarifications and make assertions to address this question (and I may return in the future to edit and provide references and citations). My own ethical/moral/political perspective is that of a libertarian/voluntaryist/anarcho-capitalist.
Defining capitalism.
Depending on how one defines capitalism, the modern (liberal) economy (or, more generally speaking, the modern liberal project of the Nation-State as a whole) either --
- is not capitalism, and never was capitalism, or
- is only and only ever has been capitalism
Wait, what?!
Let's attempt a definition.
Capitalism. The observation that human beings do not immediately consume everything that they produce, procure or already possess, but instead tend to save at least some of it for future consumption and/or for the creation of "tools", i.e. means of future production or procurement and/or for "entrepreneurship", i.e. the pursuit of joint projects with others, for the same purpose.
The thing(s) saved may be referred to as capital.
This definition is incomplete, from the perspective of morality/ethics. In particular, we have said nothing regarding property or lawful possession. It goes without saying that we here rely on the libertarian presumption of the objective and universal nature of the moral law (i.e. private property and non-aggression). (See, for example, the classic 'The Law' by Frédéric Bastiat).
Once we specify and distinguish the nature of the production, procurement and/or possession in the above definition, on the basis of the lawfulness or the lack thereof, our definition will be complete, and it will yield the two versions of "capitalism" that are completely unrelated to and opposed to each other.
If the capital is produced and/or procured (therefore, possessed) lawfully, i.e. without aggression or unprovoked violence committed upon innocents and non-criminals, then we are in the lawful and anarchic private property regime, where capitalism is merely a descriptor of human behavior (that is not inherently unlawful). See also this. This regime has not existed or prevailed in any meaningful scope (in time and/or space) in the last few hundred years of modernity (the era of the modern Westphalian Nation-State), and for millennia prior.
If the capital is produced and/or procured (therefore, possessed) un-lawfully, i.e. with aggression or unprovoked violence committed upon innocents and non-criminals, then, we are speaking of the modern liberal economy -- the real present world. This is the prevailing regime on the whole earth. Often, people have used the words cronyism or corporatism to refer to aspects of this economy that involve large, organized projects managed by corporations -- and, some have even used the word capitalism itself for this.
If we use the latter style (even if it is misleading and confusing), then, as mentioned at first, there is only capitalism. The term itself becomes vacuous and unnecessary, since we already have liberalism, which is far more all-encompassing in terms of its social, political, ethical and economic scope and premises.
Again, what?! If there's only liberalism, then what is communism?
The modern liberal project of the Nation-State is just the modern variant of Statism, which has been the prevailing problem with human society, going back to the earliest known records. In recent times, the tradition of truth (and true ethics) had so sufficiently penetrated and suffused the thoughts of men, such that there arose at least a general (albeit, partial and dim and reluctant) acknowledgement of the fact that freedom (even if limited) leads to vastly more material prosperity. Therefore, the ruling classes naturally became incentivized to try and increase this freedom among the subject slave classes, without entirely giving up or abandoning the false premise that humanity MUST have two classes -- the ruling class, and the ruled mass -- which is another way of stating that there is no inherent right to property, that man is just a tribal, social beast, where power and victory in violent conflict is all there is, such that there is no other moral "ought" outside this brutish "is".
The modern liberal premises also contain ideas regarding inevitable and perpetual scientific "progress" and the ability to engineer man and society toward greater and greater "economic efficiency".
All these premises (and more) of liberalism had one (and only one) logical conclusion -- namely, communism. This logical conclusion arose already in some societies in Europe and Asia in the 19th century and we saw its full and tragic flowering in the 20th century.
More precisely, the logical end point of liberalism is a world where the ruling classes constituted the "capitalistic" (or, corporatist) managerial and rent-seeking class, and the slave subject masses constituted the "communistic" worker class, that owned nothing.
In other words, in every timeline, liberalism is logically ONLY and ALWAYS simultaneously communism (often to a moderated degree) and "capitalism". And, history has sadly borne this out (even if not everywhere yet).
Then, what of the centuries-old apparent conflict and competition between liberalism and communism, throughout recent modernity. This again is a difference of degree, and not kind. The liberal ruling classes, incentivized by the desire to hang on to power, saw the natural revulsion against full communism and understood it to be in their best interests to maintain the tension and the apparent conflict between a property-less partial market and a full property-less technocratic corporatist communist State -- in order to distance themselves from the stigma associated with the fruit of their beliefs, while they hypocritically and safely continue their same regime of rent-seeking, sadism and parasitism.
Back to the death toll -- is it communism or capitalism?
From the preceding discussion, it should be fully clear that the death toll that the modern liberal State (or, Statism) has caused need not even be distinguished that sharply between communism-lite (most of the world, for most of modernity) and full-blown communism.
It is understandable why liberal States desire to do this.
But, the deeper point is that wherever and whenever other human beings are seen as mere instruments or tools (or, "capital"), where no objective limits (i.e. lawful limits) on one's behavior toward them are recognized (which is another way of saying that private property and free markets are not recognized), the apex predator class (or, ruling class, or "capitalist" class) will engage in large genocidal-scale democide, whether by a thousand slow cuts [liberal communist-lite "capitalism"] or in fell swoops [full-blown "communism"].
Did Nestle kill 10 million African children?
Again, the preceding discussions should make it clear that the present modern liberal regime of the State will result in a lot of wanton bloodshed and death. The question of disaggregating which of those deaths are effected by direct State action (war, full-blown communist gulags and cleansings) vs. indirectly through corporate intermediaries is then purely an academic question, of not much practical value.
The corporatist-communist juggernaut of the modern State will march on, spilling increasingly swelling rivers of blood, as long as much of society imagines that some men (the ruling class) may legitimately be given a (false) right to hurt an innocent non-criminal person.
Welcome to the (Marxist-Hobbesian) jungle!