(December 9, 2022 at 3:23 pm)The Grand Nudger Wrote: Capitalism, the private ownership of the means of production.
Communism, the public ownership of the means of production.
Did GB have a broadly capitalist economy at the time? Yes. Was that form of economic organization the cause of the blight, or the famine. No. Strong measures were taken to ensure that capitalism could not undermine british health and wellbeing- at the expense of the irish. I believe the phrase is "god caused the blight, england caused the famine"....?
It was by following the rule of those laws, that the english secured their goods, and by those laws the irish lost what little they had left - leading to diaspora.
If we posited an alternate universe where GB had a largely communist economy at the time - and all other things and actors being equal - they would have done the same thing - as it was the english public that the anti-irish measures were taken to protect. Effectively seizing irish means of production, for the british publics good. It was believed to be better that many irish died or fled, than that an englishman paid more for bread.
I mean, the Irish Potato Famine would be utterly impossible in anarcho-capitalism. Blight would have killed the potato, but the laws that made it impossible for Irish Catholics to grow anything other than potato would not exist. It was stupid senseless laws preventing Catholics from owning more than a small amount of land that made them dependent on potato. And the absentee-landlord system would probably also be impossible under anarcho-capitalism. In anarcho-capitalism, everybody is armed and protects their own property with guns.
