Droughts and other weather events can be cyclical, but famines rarely are because humans are actually fairly good at adapting to cycles like that and plan accordingly. However colonial governments tend to ignore any preexisting systems and primarily focus on extracting surplus of the barest minimum to keep the colonized alive, rather than building reserves for these catastrophes.

And that's when the colonial power doesn't intentionally slaughter, maim or execute people to cull the "excess population" (which arguably was part of the motivation behind the Irish famine as the Irish Catholics were seen as being at risk of outbreeding the British Protestants).

Frankly, I don't think it's good or desirable to model any modern company after an enterprise built on extracting as much surplus value as possible from people who were not permitted any rights to object. That seems like the exact opposite of the kind of company I would consider good or desirable. It's the kind of company I would like to see made illegal if at all possible.

Not picking on him or anything. Just that this may be less widespread than it appears because of high throughput users.