<Anything, including the concept of capitalism, can be taken to an extreme and be capable of great evils if unbridled.

The tragedy lies in the destruction of the individuals by stopping forever their choice of being able to eke out a subsistance level living from the commons, uprooting them and forcing them into the towns.



Back in 1975, the exact opposite thing happened in one country. The people were forced to evacuate the cities and towns and forced to work the land in the countryside. The country was Cambodia, the political party was the Komer Rouge (hard core Communists under Pol Pot), and the result was the deaths of from 1 to 3 million people.

Some years earlier, "enlightened" government policies under Mao directly led to an estimated 40 million people starving to death. Millions more were killed as a result of his policies like the Cultural Revolution.

Even earlier, a somewhat similar outcome happened in Ukrainia back in the 1930s when the people tried to oppose collectivism ordered by Stalin and the Communists. Stalin ordered the land stripped of all food, resulting in millions of people starving to death. The brutality of the Communists was a major reason why many Ukrainians and other poor people first welcomed the Germans as liberators. Of course, they quickly changed their minds when faced by the brutality of the Nazis.

Back in the 1950s and 60s, it wasn't uncommon to hear some people say "Better Red than dead." Apparently, they didn't realize that red or dead wasn't necessarily an either-or proposition.