• @gandalf_der_12te@discuss.tchncs.de
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    9 days ago

    Also gotta remember about the Irish Potato Famine where the English just literally stood by and said “well yeah that’s just how it is” due to “free market” reasons. (In fact, they made everything worse by demanding that Ireland continue to export wheat)

    The Irish Potato Famine killed approximately 1 million people due to “free market above all” ideology.

    • Flying Squid
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      9 days ago

      Don’t forget the, “no, you can’t grow what you used to eat, you have to grow potatoes” part.

      • @soycapitan451@lemmy.world
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        78 days ago

        The worst part is they could and did grow what they used to eat. It just was packed off to England while the Irish starved as their own potato crops (which they could afford to eat) failed.

        There was no famine. It was a deliberate and political choice to let the people who grew the crops starve.

    • @rottingleaf@lemmy.world
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      139 days ago

      Malthusianism is very different from “free market reasons”.

      But in any case those were all internally contradictory excuses.