You’re ignoring the problem of exploitation by landlords (capitalism) which made it difficult to farm land as a tenant, and the dominance of a single breed of potato due to economic pressure (capitalism), which made Ireland vulnerable to potato blight. Export of crops was largely motivated by desperation of Irish farmers to pay the rent to landlords (capitalism). Historical criticism of Britain’s actions during the famine mostly attacks the government for not doing enough, not for doing too much.
It’s a mystery to me why these absentee landlords didnt consolidate their plots in order to capture more income from the non-failing crops. I guess maybe things were just too chaotic during the famine for them to switch plots around or rearrange business arrangements?
However the lack of other food sources in Ireland was a predictable result of the British government putting import bans, and providing heavy export subsidies, to cereal crops.
A natural market contains diversity because rare goods pull a higher price. People are naturally incentivized to seek out un-filled needs. But the Corn Laws of 1815 distorted that natural system of incentives — natural in the sense of emerging from the desires of people connected to the market, and balanced according to their own priorities — by placing a heavy new layer of incentives on top of it.
Like if you put a ball bearing in a bowl it rolls to the center. Here the “center” represents a match between what people need and what people are producing. But if you put a magnet beside the bowl that ball bearing finds a new equilibrium point that’s not in the center any more.
In the case of the Irish Famine, it introduced a gap between the need of people to eat — what capitalists like me call “demand” — and the tendency of others to produce food and keep it in country — what capitalists like me call “supply”.
It’s a signal distortion. It’s like putting an ice cube next to the thermostat, and then your heat runs like crazy and there’s now a gap between what you want — 72 F — and what’s being produced — 102 F
You’re ignoring the problem of exploitation by landlords (capitalism) which made it difficult to farm land as a tenant, and the dominance of a single breed of potato due to economic pressure (capitalism), which made Ireland vulnerable to potato blight. Export of crops was largely motivated by desperation of Irish farmers to pay the rent to landlords (capitalism). Historical criticism of Britain’s actions during the famine mostly attacks the government for not doing enough, not for doing too much.
It’s a mystery to me why these absentee landlords didnt consolidate their plots in order to capture more income from the non-failing crops. I guess maybe things were just too chaotic during the famine for them to switch plots around or rearrange business arrangements?
However the lack of other food sources in Ireland was a predictable result of the British government putting import bans, and providing heavy export subsidies, to cereal crops.
A natural market contains diversity because rare goods pull a higher price. People are naturally incentivized to seek out un-filled needs. But the Corn Laws of 1815 distorted that natural system of incentives — natural in the sense of emerging from the desires of people connected to the market, and balanced according to their own priorities — by placing a heavy new layer of incentives on top of it.
Like if you put a ball bearing in a bowl it rolls to the center. Here the “center” represents a match between what people need and what people are producing. But if you put a magnet beside the bowl that ball bearing finds a new equilibrium point that’s not in the center any more.
In the case of the Irish Famine, it introduced a gap between the need of people to eat — what capitalists like me call “demand” — and the tendency of others to produce food and keep it in country — what capitalists like me call “supply”.
It’s a signal distortion. It’s like putting an ice cube next to the thermostat, and then your heat runs like crazy and there’s now a gap between what you want — 72 F — and what’s being produced — 102 F