I’m currently teaching an undergraduate course on “Capitalism and Its Critics,” and one student paper assignment is to describe specifically what kind of governmental coercion and force was used in the name of creating a socialist society in any one country discussed in The Black Book of Communism. (The students had just finished reading The Road to Serfdom by F.A. Hayek). Here’s one paragraph from one of the student papers that reminded me of the legacy of Dishonest Abe:
“More death and destruction came about from the Mengistu regime [in Ethiopia] after he declared total war against the Eritrean secessionists. ‘The total death estimate of 80,000 civilians and military personnel for 1979-80 includes victims of the massive air raids that were used as reprisals, but does not include those who must have died as a result of the government’s subsequent disruption of the traditional way of life.’”
