Reviewing the history of the 20th century, there is one unavoidable fact about nation-states: they were responsible for the deaths of hundred of millions of human beings. Nations killed a lot of people.
Do we wish to say that each episode of societal killing—each instance of death by government—had a unique, idiosyncratic cause? This mode of explanation violates the principle of parsimony.
Is it possible that killing human beings--slaughtering them--is one of the central functions of nation-states? |
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Based on a lifetime of research on democide, Rudy Rummel calculated that—for the period of 1900-1999—a total of 262 million human beings were murdered by their own governments. This figure excludes deaths that occurred based on clashes between armies (direct military conflict).
The typical figure for First World War casualties is 9 million dead; and it is estimated that 56 million died during the Second World War. If we factor in other wars during the 20th century, perhaps a minimum of 325 million human beings were killed as a result of collective forms of violence initiated and generated by nation-states (we omit discussion of the “wounded”).
Whatever the exact figure—and whatever descriptive words we use (genocide or war or mass murder or democide), a salient fact of the 20th century is that hundreds of millions of people were killed based on actions undertaken by governments. Based on his research, Rummel concludes that the “preeminent fact about government” is that “some murder millions in cold blood.”
Historians study specific cases of war or genocide or mass murder. The search for causes focuses on the origins of—the factors leading up to—the occurrence of each event. A shibboleth of anthropological and historical research (and of post-modernism) is that each event is unique—and can be studied only within a particular cultural context.
Still, reviewing the history of the 20th century, nation-states have something in common: they took actions that led to the deaths of millions upon millions of human beings. Do we wish to argue that each instance of death generated by a government had a unique, idiosyncratic cause? This mode of explanation is inconsistent with the principle of parsimony?
The orbit of Mercury around the sun differs from the orbit of the earth and that of Jupiter. Yet the path of each planet is governed by the Law of Universal Gravitation. We don’t yet have a law or principle allowing us to generalize about state (collective forms of) violence. Still, we can begin empirically--by simply focusing on the fact that nations kill a lot of people.
— Richard A. Koenigsberg, PhD.
rak@LibraryofSocialScience.com
718) 393-1081
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