Anonymous #3 1d

That’s one school of thought, but it’s also missing context. The British DID intervene at first. They imported cornmeal (which Irish mills weren’t equipped for milling corn) and repealed tariffs which controlled the price of bread. Peel even expanded roads and fishing piers. They even proposed a bill granting Ireland more control, which was shot down by the laissez-faire Whigs, Irish Repealers, Radicals, and Protectionists.

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Anonymous OP 1d

I mean the expert talked about all those things.

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Anonymous #3 1d

Once the Whig Lord John Russell became prime minister, he refused to regulate food exports to England and walked back Peel’s public works and relief. The head of the Admin of Government Relief Charles Trevelyan limited food aid and even wrote in a letter, “If small farmers go, and their landlords are reduced to sell portions of their estates to persons who will invest capital we shall at last arrive at something like a satisfactory settlement of the country.” TEXTBOOK genocide.

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Anonymous OP 1d

If it was textbook it would be more widely recognized as such by scholars I feel. That letter is the best evidence towards it being considered as such, but I still don’t think there’s enough evidence to indicate the lack of food aid as a whole was specifically with the intent to eradicate, rather than not caring or viewing the Irish as “deserving it.” Actions can be awful without meeting that narrow legal definition.

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Anonymous #4 1d

The U.S. food supply is far more diverse, so a repeat seems unlikely, but it is a good lesson about how government can create perverse incentives, sometimes with deadly consequences.

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Anonymous #4 1d

It wasn’t just because of reliance on the potato, there were plenty of other options. However, since poverty was so widespread, nobody could afford the rising costs of other food. Rather than lowering prices, producers simply sold to the English. Crop failure happens naturally often, but famine is almost universally man-made. Today, the US is cutting off food, healthcare, energy, and job assistance which tens of millions rely on. Millions will suffer and for what? LIHEAP is 0.06% of the budget.

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Anonymous #4 1d

That’s also not even mentioning the impact on nations receiving support from USAID. Estimated death tolls directly attributed to loss of aid was in the hundreds of thousands in November and ~490,000 in December. We won’t even know an actual death toll until the UN releases its 2025 mortality statistics in 2027. This is history rhyming in the same way the US saw high blanket tariffs with the Smoot-Hawley Tariff Act. We are just on a much bigger scale.

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Anonymous OP 1d

Are you arguing that the potato famine was caused by making cuts to welfare programs? That would be a remarkable rewriting of history. We live in the richest nation in the history of the world, the comparison doesn’t work.

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Anonymous #4 1d

Deepened. Made way worse. Initial relief efforts were there, such as the import of grain and expansion of road and fishing infrastructure. When PM Peel was succeeded by PM Russell, Russell (who was a Whig and believed heavily in laissez-faire economics) cut nearly every form of aid that Peel provided. By the time the government realized how bad they fucked up and face all that aid back and more, it didn’t help.

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Anonymous #4 1d

Today, regardless of how rich our nation is, we are at a level of wealth disparity comparable to before the Great Depression AND before the Long Depression. Yes, cancelling food, housing, energy, and healthcare aid will kill many Americans. Cancelling foreign aid will kill an untold tens of millions in developing nations as well.

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Anonymous OP 1d

I’m sorry but it’s a huge stretch to say any recent cuts to welfare programs will lead to an American equivalent of the potato famine. Wealth disparity is irrelevant to this conversation unless you’re claiming that it was inequality, not material poverty that caused the Irish famine.

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