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Comment by aclimatt | Hacker News Reader

Since the article only very lightly touches on it and some may be understandably confused about the "solidarity" between the Irish and Native Americans, the "Potato Famine" was only so deadly in Ireland to the Irish due to years of colonial rule -- not because the only food in Ireland were rotten potatoes.

Ireland had plenty of food at the time. They even continued to export food to England. It's just that due to systematic oppression, Irish natives couldn't afford anything that weren't (now blighted) potatoes.

That's where the parallel comes from with the Native Americans.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Famine_(Ireland)

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The Whig party's laissez-faire economic ideology and the belief that Divine providence was punishing the lazy natives[1] were major factors explaining why the famine was so severe compared to previous blights.

[1] http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/british/victorians/famine_01.sh...

Eeeh, this kind of looks like a British apologetic that ignores the whole "hundreds of years of colonial occupation" thing they were doing at the time.

Blaming the whigs for a technical agricultural policy point they were probably right about [1] while waving off the background of extractive colonialism that created the dependency on the potato crop is a little convenient

[1] when there's famine due to economic shortfall in a country with an agricultural economy, agriculture policy interventions like food dumping and banning exports can make things worse by collapsing the economy. if you want to help, don't send rules send money

A bit of a digression, but the same was true of famines in India under British rule. India (i.e. Britain) was exporting rice and wheat to England at the same time that a third of Bengal died from starvation.

The famine/genocide in the Ukraine ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor )had a similar dynamic too. Ukraine was exporting food to the USSR while ~4 million native Ukranians died and millions more experienced serious sickness or complications / birth defects.

It's pretty sickening to consider how often man-made starvation has been used as a weapon against particular nations/ethnic groups. Especially since it so often gets hand-waved away as an "act of god" later.

Last but not least

Great Chinese Famine - exporting food to finance rapid militarization. 15 milions dead - conservative estimate.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Chinese_Famine

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mao%27s_Great_Famine

A more accurate portrayal of the situation is to say that Ireland of the time was a state whose economy depended on the export of premium food products - cattle, dairy & grain - whilst the majority of the population were subsistence tenant farmers who grew that produce in order to pay for their farm tenancies, whilst growing a side crop of potatoes in order to sustain themselves. When the potato blight occurred, they were still expected to pay their farm rents using the produce they produced despite this leaving them without a food crop for their own sustenance. Despite what's believed from the common narrative, most of the landlords, middlemen and exporters facilitating the trade and export of food from Ireland at this time were Irish, and many were Catholics; and they were operating within an economic system were these actions made sense. As they would have seen it, stopping the export of food stuffs would have caused economic collapse.

In a modern state with well developed central government, the state would have been able to step in and take appropriate actions. But governments of the 1840s simply didn't have the scope of action available to a modern government, or the necessary vision of their role to accompany that. The result was a tragedy of truly enormous proportions, and which certainly more could have been done to avoid; but to suggest that it was simply due to 'systematic oppression' is to greatly simplify the divisions that existed within Irish society at the time, or the motivations of those involved.

Those poor capitalists and their empire just didn't have the means to let the filthy unwashed poor of Ireland eat. It was done out of economic necessity.

I agree that it's a simplification to blame the famine on 'British oppression', but to say `governments of the 1840s simply didn't have the scope of action available to a modern government` is something of a strawman.

There were a number of interventions accessible by the government. As parent points out there was ideological resistance to employing them, and where employed they were done so weakly and without enthusiasm. Sir Charles Trevelyan used the same argument you do - that there was ample actions Irish landlords could take directly - as an excuse for the government not to take action. Given he described the famine as a Godly judgement on the Irish, that argument is not a reasonable explanation for his approach.

I didn't say that the British government had no scope of action, but that it was limited compare to what a modern government could do. That this was further compounded by the attitudes and beliefs of members of the government of the time there's no doubt. But to be explicit about this, I believe that had there been an independent Irish state at the time, it would have continued to export food because not to do so would have been to risk economic collapse and would have outraged its merchant class.

Have you studied the actions of the Irish government in the decades after independence? The "economic war" with Britain caused economic collapse of it's 'merchant class' and it was undertaken to directly support tenant farmers.

Before the act of union of 1801 the Irish parliament, although pretty ineffectual, did block food exports during times of crisis. Even in the year of slaughter 1740 when a short term famine was caused by climate change food exports were stopped by a combination of local officials and angry citizens. The difference in the 1840s was the presence of a large number of troops who protected food exports at gunpoint. It is nonsense to suggest that an independent Irish State would have continued to export food in these conditions: it wouldn't have lasted a week.

> it was limited compare to what a modern government could do

That's 100% irrelevant. Compare it to what the contemporary British government was capable of doing - the very same protagonists with the same means available to them, who refused to act in Ireland - which was to prevent starvation during a the Highland potato famine[1].

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Highland_Potato_Famine#Famine_...

Trevelyan made completely clear that "the people cannot, under any circumstances, be allowed to starve" in a letter of September 1846.

I’m fairly centrist, almost a self-described neoliberal, but what you’re describing sounds like a convoluted argument to rationalize systemic oppression. I guess in many ways that’s what systems of property law and capitalism are for: ways for us to feel better about rationalising anti-social behavior as being a moral necessity even when plenty physical resources exist... “gotta pay rent, gotta pay debt, it’s only right...”

...and I say that as someone who recognizes the value of property laws. They’re all still a myth entirely created by society, so if it’s the system of debt and ownership that caused these people to starve, that is absolutely still what you can call “systematic oppression,” particularly when these terms of oppression were created by colonial masters...

(And the key to maintaining colonial power and oppression is always to make the colonial system in the interests of local power brokers like the local landlords you mention... but this sort of laundering of guilt does not absolve the colonial masters...)

It was an attempt to explain the economic structure that would allow food to be exported from a country during a famine, not necessarily to rationalize and certainly not to excuse. The fact of the matter is that these kind of economic structures were not unique to Ireland of the time, nor would they have been absent in Ireland under a native non-colonial government.

You're profoundly mistaken in diagnosing the problem as economic. It was a political choice to allow the Irish to starve.

No, most of the landlords were of British descent. The rest were under control of the crown and the crown got their taxes. The upper classes, mainly British and some Irish systematically bled the vast majority of the people.

>As they would have seen it, stopping the export of food stuffs would have caused economic collapse.

They knew very well that it would have caused economic collapse only for the people in power who were at no risk of dying. And they knew very well what they could do to save the lives of people they saw starving all around them. To say they could do nothing because 'it's the system' is ridiculous. The people with power were the system. The people who starved had no real representation and that's they way it was designed by the people in power, namely the landlords and the government.

Even before the famine the reason a lot of the tenant farmers emigrated was because if they managed to be in any way extra productive and make some profit for themselves it was immediately taken from them in the form of some tax (see for example the 'window' tax). This was systematic and the people in power were responsible.

> No, most of the landlords were of British descent.

So landlords of British descent can't be considered Irish? Even if their families had been present in Ireland for several centuries?

> To say they could do nothing because

Excuse me, where did I say they couldn't do anything? I was only trying to put some context on the original comment, but it seems people are more interested in being outraged.

> So landlords of British descent can't be considered Irish? Even if their families had been present in Ireland for several centuries?

There are people in 2020 whose families have been present in Ireland for several centuries who still do not consider themselves Irish.

They're called 'Unionists' and rather consider themselves British, and hold annual parades celebrating historical defeats of Ireland.

>But governments of the 1840s simply didn't have the scope of action available to a modern government, or the necessary vision of their role to accompany that.

The potato blight hit all of Europe, yet there were roughly a hundred thousand deaths in Europe compared to a million in Ireland with two million more emigrating. While Ireland certainly was more reliant on the potato than other countries, the rest of Europe seemed much more capable of addressing the crisis.

Good Lord.

>> A more accurate portrayal of the situation

By which measure? Because:

>> Ireland of the time was a state

No, no it was not, it was under direct rule of Westmminster as part of the United Kingdom of Great Britain & Ireland

>> most of the landlords [..] at this time were Irish

In that _some_ were born on the island of Ireland? Like the earl of lucan[1] who owned some 63,000 acres - is that what we mean when we go with the 'irish did this to themselves' narrative?

>> they were operating within an economic system were these actions made sense

Words actually fail me. Yes, i suppose it probably did make sense to those who were making money, yes.

>> But governments of the 1840s simply didn't have the scope of action available to a modern government, or the necessary vision of their role to accompany that.

This is ridiculous, The British government spent less than half a percent of the GNP at the time on relief for ireland, Lord Clarendon called it a 'policy of extermination'. The truth is that at best the british government at the time was not concerned by what was happening, at worse they saw it as a catalyst for change to tighten their grip.

I hold absolutely no truck with those that claim the great famine to be a genocide, but this 'ah well, actually if you look closely, you'll find the irish did it to themselves' is even more irksome.

[1] http://www.askaboutireland.ie/reading-room/history-heritage/...

> But governments of the 1840s simply didn't have the scope of action available to a modern government

In previous famines (both in Ireland and elsewhere) the government stepped in and halted exports. Governmental behaviour during the great famine was a shift.

I'm curious where you're getting your facts. Would be interested to read references to some assertions here.

> Ireland of the time was a state

As another (currently flagged?) sibling commenter has already pointed out, Ireland was not an independent state in the 1840s, it was ruled from London. This is, I think, pretty indisputable.

> Despite what's believed from the common narrative, most of the landlords, middlemen and exporters facilitating the trade and export of food from Ireland at this time were Irish, and many were Catholics

This is the one I have issue with. As someone only familiar with the "common narrative", could you elucidate with some links to sources on this? Everything I've read indicates that the majority of landlords were absentees from Great Britain, primarily Scottish & English Protestants.

It's certainly well-documented that Protestant landlords were not universally oppressive in Ireland at the time: there are plenty of accounts of wealthy families setting up soup kitchens and other nominally philanthropic acts, but I was unaware of the narrative of most landowners being Irish.

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