Most Helpful Customer Reviews
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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
Free markets vs. government planning, 22 Jul 1999
By A Customer
I have taught finance at universities in both Hong Kong and the US, and I regularly recommend this book to my MBA and undergraduate students as a graphic illustration of the risks and weaknesses of a planned economy, particularly when combined with control of the media. Perhaps, as another reveiwer suggested, Becker puts too much emphasis on the responsibility of Mao and not enough on his many followers. But the fact remains that this massive famine could not have occurred in a market economy and would not occurred if so much power had not been concentrated in the hands of one person. Mao was brilliant when it came to maintaining political power but painfully inadequate in his understanding of science. In power politics, reality is whatever you can convince people to believe. Mao refused to accept the fact that science and economics do not ulitimately follow this same rule (or perhaps he didn't care). No matter how many people claim to believe in a bountiful harvest, they will still starve to death if they have nothing to eat. To further understand the Chinese Communist Party under Mao, I recommend the book written by Mao's personal physician. As for Becker's account of the worst famine in history (and the postscript to the later edition, pointing out that it's happening again today in North Korea), the book is informative and fascinating. It offers a lesson for those, particularly in Asia, that don't believe that economic decisions should be left to the market. A government directing industrial policy is unlikely to produce the extreme consequences seen here. Nevertheless, the dangers of lack of diversification due to one set of possibly misguided or simply mistaken leaders forcing everyone in the same direction are the same. Too much attention is given to the relatively rare cases, such as Japan or Singapore, where it worked, at least temporarily. This is the most extreme of the many, many examples that show how painful failure can be when the same policy is forced on everyone.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
A Very Important Book, 1 Jun 2005
This book blows apart the myths of greatness that surround Mao Zedong, and exposes him as the devastatingly cruel and incompetant dictator that he was. "Hungry Ghosts" is an incredibly important work, and a must-read for anyone interested in twentieth-century China.
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2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:
World's largest coverup also its most gut wrenching, 6 Mar 1997
By A Customer
Unlike any other famine, this one did not have a political objective - it was essentially unintentional, making it even more horrifying. It was of such proportion the country even suppressed the 1964 census data. Doctors were not permitted to claim starvation as a cause of death. Cannibalism was rampant. And the entire time, China continued to export grain. The state's granaries remained full.
The details elicit emotions like I have never experienced in reading the worst atrocities of Nazi Germany or Stalinist Russia, probably because this had no goal - it just happened and kept happening to a worse and worse effect. It is all thoroughly and painstakingly documented, making it absolutely believable, and horrifyingly real, from the bizarre policies that led to it (melting all metal in backyard furnaces to create "steel") to the insane agricultural "solutions" (cutting three to six foot deep furrows so the wheat harvest would multiply) inspired by Mao, it is all there, in seeming science fiction of the worst kind. Truly a must read.
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