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Multiheaded comments on Open Thread, August 16-31, 2012 - Less Wrong
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Sorry, but it's hardly possible to fake such a tremendous increase in such basic statistics.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_People%27s_Republic_of_China_%281949%E2%80%931976%29#Mao.27s_legacy
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Healthcare_in_China#Post-1949_history
It certainly did; I never claimed otherwise, and neither did Lindsay. Mao's leadership was a little unhinged to say the least. However, we're talking about the really existing alternatives to China's particular situation in 1949, not the Cuban revolution or anything else.
Um, looks like that's exactly what happened.
And equally hard, no doubt to fake the very similar tremendous increase in the basic statistics for North Korea, Cuba, and Ethiopia.
I notice that in the case of Marxist Ethiopia, we saw a tremendous increase in basic statistics despite bloody and unending civil war, and the massive use of artificial famine to terrorize the peasants.
And when the Marxist Ethiopian regime was finally overthrown in that bloody and terrible civil war, and peace returned, their statistics abruptly fell back to African normal. Did everyone suddenly forget how to read? Perhaps capitalism caused the death rate to suddenly rise, but did it overnight erase all that wonderful education that the communists had so successfully done?
Industrialization is a hell of a drug, isn't it?
I'd also note that in my reading about the Chinese famines and especially the Great Leap Forward ones is that they were due only minimally due to nation-wide shortages, but mostly to massive failures in distribution such as falsified statistics; this scenario is consistent with both claims.