Why are socialist and communist countries usually considered more authoritarian than capitalist countries?

PumpkinDrama@reddthat.com to Asklemmy@lemmy.ml – 130 points –
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Yeah, the legendary communist free world, where you went to gulag, if you dared to think of your own. And the awful authoritarian capitalists of bringing up the average quality of life that much since ww2. /S

Sorry, but this view is very much too simple.

What country has the biggest prison population both by raw numbers and on a per capital basis?

By raw numbers obviously the US, followed by china with not too many less. Per capita El Salvador and Cuba are on the first two places. So what's your point? Per Capita and in raw numbers there is a capitalist country and a country which calls itself socialist on place one and two.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_incarceration_rate

Better check your facts before next time.

Now include Guam and Puerto Rico, which are US territories.

? I really don't know what you are hinting at. In raw numbers the US will still be number 1 followed by China and per capita adding in countries with a lower incarceration rate and less people than the USA won't lift up the USA in the ranking.

Perhaps, if NATOpedia’s raw data is to be trusted.

Incarceration rates and counts. From World Prison Brief

The World Prison Brief at PrisonStudies.org is an online database providing free access to information on prison systems around the world. It is now hosted by the Institute For Crime & Justice Policy Research (ICPR), Birkbeck College, University of London.

It was previously hosted by the International Centre for Prison Studies (ICPS). It was a research centre at the University of Essex. It was launched at the House of Lords on 4 April 2011. Between 1997 and 2010 ICPS was based in King's College London and was launched formally by Home Secretary Jack Straw in October 1997. In July 2010 the International Centre for Prison Studies incorporated and registered as a charity with the Charities Commission of England and Wales. From the outset the Centre was independent of governmental and intergovernmental agencies, although it would work closely with them.

So who really knows what the quality of the data is without further investigation. But it seems to have been originally created by the UK’s military-intelligence-industrial complex.

Yeah, nice thing that everything not fitting your view is propaganda. I mean also what does not fit? If Wikipedia is just a pro US propaganda machine and the source they give, too: Why would the US still be on place one when looking at the absolute numbers?

Also the raw data is not from "NATOpedia", but from the source you gave. What even is your point? They are lying about China being second place in raw numbers or what? Feels a bit like killing the messenger before thinking about what he said.

I flubbed one stat that doesn't really move the needle on the point I was trying to make. I was thinking of world powers and didn't double check to make sure nations scorned by empire didn't barely hedge the US out of the top 5 on per capita (though another of its territories made it).

America is a remarkably "authoritarian" country by all standards whether they be prisons, police spending, or military spending.

I do agree with the US being quite authoritarian and that the US are a good example why capitalism in this form is very bad.

My only points are, that the world is not black and white. There may still be points where the US are doing good (national parks may come to ones mind) and China is surely no workers paradise.