Victims of Capitalism

In the spirit of the Victims of Communism memorial being unveiled in Washington, I think we should design and build a monument to the hundreds of millions—billions—of people who have died as a result of capitalism. It should be appropriately scaled.

We can build a “Victims of Socialism” monument, too, for completeness. These are mostly people who suffer through the UK’s sorely underfunded health care system.

Of course, your typical American history class, and hence your typical American adult, draws no distinction between communism, a centrally-controlled economy in which all citizens are equal owners, and an authoritarian dictatorship, such as, for instance, Russia under Stalin.

The question of whether or not communism can succeed on any meaningful scale is a long-standing one, which has been the source of much debate. But anyone with a clear understanding of civics can understand that these people were not victims of an abstract economic theory, but of corrupt and brutal leaders.