• intensely_human@lemm.ee
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    11 months ago

    The Irish Famine was 100% caused by capitalism.

    This is a lie.

    The Irish Famine was caused by the British government using thugs with guns to steal food from Irish farmers. It had absolutely nothing in it to resemble a free market situation. The Irish Famine was caused when the government stepped in to disrupt the action of the free market.

    Capitalism is defined by free markets. When the government comes in and confiscates all the food to export overseas, that is the opposite of a free market,

    • novibe@lemmy.ml
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      11 months ago

      What are you talking about? The Irish famine was caused by two factors:

      1. The potato blight, and potato mono-culture. Potato mono-culture being caused by capitalism, by industrialisation, privatisation of Irish land at the hands of British landlords, and profit maximisation in a laissez faire market.
      2. During the famine, it was more profitable for the British landlords to export agricultural produce to England and other parts of Europe than to sell it in Ireland. So laws of the market dictated pretty much everything was exported.

      The famine was literally caused by the government NOT stepping in, doubling down on laissez faire liberalism and using racist Malthusian excuses like “helping the Irish would just make things worse cause they would procreate like rabbits and need even MORE food”…

    • IHadTwoCows@lemm.ee
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      11 months ago

      Oh, I get it now… You just read your first Ayn Rand book lol

      You’re gonna vmbe amazed at what a brick wall the imaginary “free market” solutions are gonna run into.

      You have all the free market capitalism you can stand right now and the problems got WORSE, not better. Corrporations literally control the US government and have created food deserts and starvation and utterly empty calories. #FAIL. Capitalism cause famines.