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thomblake comments on Hayekian Prediction Markets? - Less Wrong
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That was the point? Sorry, I missed it as I never thought anyone would make a suggestion that stupid.
Killing 20 million people - mostly in context of two world wars and civil war between them - cannot possibly increase standards of living of the rest. You basically look at massive destruction of human capital due to wars and revolutions and pretend it's somehow net positive... This is Malthusianism taken to ridiculous levels. So dropping a few nukes here and there would help the economy?
In any case, even accepting an argument as retarded as that, it doesn't apply to the vast majority of Communist countries.
Name calling aside, you missed the point again. It's not Malthusianism, it's algebra.
per capita wealth equals wealth divided by population
By simple algebra, killing people without decreasing wealth increases per capita wealth, and thus a significant percentage of the population dying will artificially look like economic growth if you're measuring growth per capita.
taw's question-wrapped-in-barbed wire is how you keep wealth level despite killing people, since presumably those people were adding to the economy by both producing and consuming goods.
That is a good question, but I don't see it in taw's comment, even between the lines. taw seemed to think someone was implying that the economy would actually get better by killing poor people, thus the reference to Malthus.
I could easily contrive a scenario where one kills 20 million people without significantly decreasing wealth, and I noted that I don't know whether this was such a case. Note CarlShulman's observation below.