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Here’s a letter that I sent today to the Wall Street Journal:
John Lahey alleges that the Irish potato famine was caused by “British laissez-faire policies” (Letters, April 8). Not so. This calamity was caused by British prohibitions on land-ownership by the Catholic Irish, burdensome taxation, and public-works projects that built roads that were useless for carrying goods and foodstuffs from places where they were abundant to places where they were in short supply.
The great 19th-century French economist, Jean-Baptiste Say, writing in the early 1800s, harshly criticized these British interventions: “What is lacking in Ireland is not subsistence but the ability to pay for it. With landowners far away [in Britain], without capitalists who might introduce productive businesses, and with numerous government employees, ecclesiastics, and military personal to feed, heavy taxes to pay, and the ignorance resulting from so many evils, the Irish simply lack the means of improving their condition.”*
Doesn’t sound like laissez faire to me.
Sincerely, Donald J. Boudreaux
* Quoted on page 108 of Robert Roswell Palmer, ed., J.-B. Say: An Economist in Troubled Times (Princeton University Press, 1997).
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Frank Lawton Wish I could remember what I read better but I just finished a book on capitalism by Hayek and other authors. They specifically mentioned the myth of the Irish Potato Famine. Apparently there were other foods in abundance but because of punitive government tariffs or restrictions they weren't readily available to the general public. Perhaps someone else here with a better memory can fill in the gaps. Stephan Like already mentioned Ireland was exporting food while in a famine. Or to memorize John Mitchel: "The Almighty, indeed, sent the potato blight, but the English created the Famine." Crawdad I need to do more research. Crawdad I'm going to throw something out and risk reaping the whirlwind. I agree that laissez-faire had nothing to do with the Irish potato famine and that British policies probably exacerbated the problem once it arose.But the primary cause of the potato famine seems to have been the unfortunate culture-wide practice of Irish peasants to depend almost exclusively on one type of potato for their sustenance at this particular time in geologic history - the Little Ice Age. I believe the particular potato the Irish relied on was called the lumper and it was prone to rot because of a type of fungus that thrived in wet conditions. During that period there were weeks (really months) when it rained every day and basically the entire crop failed, and failed several years in a row. Some estimates of the death toll go as high as 1.2 million. Stephan As a side note. This is also the reason why I'm little bit disappointed that 2008 the year of the potato http://www.potato2008.org/ got so minor attention. It would really be worthwhile to look into the potential of potatoes to feed the world and rank side by side with rice and corn. Stephan First the potato problem was not confined to Ireland. Actually it first occurred in Belgium. The fungus was imported by shipment of seed potatoes via New York and Baltimore and spread all over Europe. Next to solely rely on potatoes was not an unfortunate decision by dumb Irish peasants. It was the consequence of British rule. The rise of the cottier class. These people had no other chance than to plant potato to support their family. No other crop would have generated such yield given the small size of land and it's marginal quality. Most of the land was used either for export crop or after the corn laws for grazing cattle. Crawdad Stephan,I never said the Irish peasants were dumb. The way I understood it, there were actually a variety of potatoes available, but because the lumper was easier to grow it became the crop of choice, and yes all this played into the role of British rule - I was not absolving them of anything. Of all the varieties however, the lumper was the most susceptible to the fungus and while other types of potatoes were also effected (hence the impact throughout Europe but not the death toll) the lumper was particularly vulnerable. They couldn't have known that before hand, and neither could the Brits - that's what I meant by unfortunate decisions meeting severe climatic conditions.How would you explain the French peasantry's near universal rejection of the potato and continued reliance on their own mono-crop, wheat, during this same era? The famine they suffered as a result of crop failures stemming from the severe weather (also because of the Little Ice Age), while not as total as in Ireland was devastating. Some scholars have suggested that this famine led directly to the revolution.Ironically, the addition of the potato to French agriculture might have prevented or lessened the effects of famine as the potato is usually more weather resistant than above ground, grain crops like wheat. It is my understanding that the monarchy had been actively promoting the potato, even eating them at court to encourage imitation, but the peasants held to tradition. S_M_V I have read somewhere (poor memory on where) that at least in England potato growing was discouraged by governments because it could not be collected and stored as taxes. This type of thinking might have influenced the French as well. Seth Interesting. Can you explain this more: "Next to solely rely on potatoes was not an unfortunate decision by dumb Irish peasants. It was the consequence of British rule. The rise of the cottier class."How did this prevent the Irish from importing food so they would have a much more diverse food supply? Stephan Well ... Like said. They were eventually exporting food. In the 1780s the Irish simply closed the ports and although the merchants protested the government overruled them. No famine. Not so with British rule. davesmith001 I think the famines in the U.S.S.R. were the result of Stalin's laissez faire policies, also. rbosque I'm more inclined to think they were deliberate famines. They were exporting food while the population starved. Sad. Methinks1776 I can't edit, so I'll add this here:People mistakenly believe that everyone at the top in Russia was a bumbling idiot. This is a mistake. In fact, Stalin's communications with members of the Politburo illustrated his detailed knowledge and understanding of agriculture. Yet, the socialist economic policies were so disastrous that by 1964, the Ukraine, formerly the "breadbasket of Europe", wasn't producing enough grain to feed Russia. The Soviets could no longer export grain and were forced to rely on oil exports to obtain the hard currency necessary to import food for the population.Socialism is sooooooo altruistic and kind. Steve_0 They meant well. HaywoodU It seems strange that our usual trolls never reply to your posts about Russia. If socialism is so great, why don't they try to debunk your posts? Sam Grove One FI claimed it was because the USSR didn't have democracy. Methinks1776 Oh, Haywood.....it's better they leave it be. The "debunking" usually follows one of two paths. Usually they become outraged by how ridiculous it is that I would ever insinuate anything like what happened "there" could ever even remotely resemble anything that could happen here. Presumably, this is because they consider themselves to be so superior to other socialists around the world. This fits nicely with their view of themselves as the elite of all elites. You know, Russian and Cuban socialists are just so stupid compared to the enlightened American ones.The other path is to excuse all the horror by pointing to all that dubious rapid economic expansion that happened under Stalin. In his popular economics text, Paul Samuelson basically said that the consequences to the population was worth it - that is, once it became clear to every school child what was going on and he could no longer continue to deny it. After all, without Stalin, "we" wouldn't have won the war. And it is taken for granted that the Russian industrial revolution, occurring many decades after the industrial revolution in the West, would have just magically evaporated necessitating a strongman like Stalin to lead us to our Glorious Future.When I first came to this country, people were still rightly scared of "communism" (really, socialism. We never made it to communism and were continually sacrificing to reach our Glorious Future). It was alive and well and fresh. Now, at least a generation of children have been ground out by the American government meatgrinder public minding numbing ("education") system, where these diseased ideas are peddled to the innocent in place of reading, writing and math. Without a large, living breathing example of the consequences of this ideology, this generation is lost to its empty promises and dangerous consequences. So, I will always tell the stories. Until I die. Although, I may be doing it from outside the U.S. at some point and on sites they may have to hack past the censors to get to.Previous post: Some Links
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