The Great Famine was caused by British capitalists who, before and during the crisis, prioritized profits over the Irish people's welfare. British landowners forced Irish farmers to rely on the potato, making them vulnerable to disease. High rents, taxes, and lack of investment left Irish farmers impoverished. During the famine, British merchants continued exporting food from Ireland to England, and the British government’s inadequate aid policies worsened the situation. This exploitation and neglect led to the deaths and emigration of millions of Irish people.
“but plagues are acts of god and are impossible to predict—“ NO that’s basically the equivalent to if i removed 80% of your white blood cells and then claimed innocence when you develop an infection 😐
people that aren’t oppressed by capital tend to be infinitely more resilient to natural disaster.
An estimated 0.8–3.8 million people died, in the Bengal region (present-day Bangladesh and West Bengal), from starvation, malaria and other diseases aggravated by malnutrition, population displacement, unsanitary conditions, poor British wartime policies and lack of health care. Millions were impoverished as the crisis overwhelmed large segments of the economy and catastrophically disrupted the social fabric.
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The financing of military escalation led to wartime inflation. The British "inflation policy" during World War II, which aimed to reduce the consumption of the poor to make more resources available for British and American troops, had played a major role in exacerbating the famine. This policy, along with other economic measures, led to a "forced transfer of purchasing power" from ordinary people to the military, and led to the diversion of food supplies and resources to support military operations, especially in the context of the ongoing war with Japan. Winston Churchill, the British Prime Minister at the time, has been criticized for his role in exacerbating the famine, Critics argue that Churchill's refusal to divert food supplies to Bengal, despite the urgent need, and his decisions regarding war priorities significantly worsened the situation. Churchill's government did not prioritize relief efforts adequately and was also slow to respond to the crisis
There wouldn’t have been a famine if the population wasn’t forced to be reliant on a single crop. It would have just been a regular run of the mill crop plague.
In both cases, the powers that be created a situation where the populace was very vulnerable, leaving them in a position where one bad harvest was all it took. In both cases, the elites then proceeded to make the situation worse because of a combination of immense incompetence and intentional imperialist shenanigans aimed at squeezing out wealth and putting down the rowdy colonized folk.