this post was submitted on 23 Jun 2025
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[–] [email protected] 104 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Explanation: While the Irish Potato Famine in 1847 was triggered by potato blight, a fungus-like parasite, the deeper cause of its devastation was the exploitation of the English landlords and the bizarre ultra-free-market policies of the British Empire at the time, leading to English absentee landlords getting richer as their tenants were literally dying, and Ireland exporting food at a time when starvation was rampant.

[–] [email protected] 52 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Steal lands, call it "free market"

classic liberalism

[–] [email protected] 26 points 5 days ago (5 children)

While the land theft was an important component of English oppression of the Irish, I mean in terms of the famine - if the landlords were Irish instead of English transplants, it's unlikely that their behavior would have been significantly different in terms of grain export, unless a feudal or clientistic power structure was retained. The free market, rather than the land theft, is in the core of this issue.

[–] [email protected] 23 points 5 days ago (1 children)

The land theft was fundamental to the famine.

Under the British rule, the Irish were not allowed to own land and had to rent it from a British landlord; more important still, the Irish were not allowed to rent more than a half-acre.

The only crop with a sufficient yield per acreage to feed yourself and have enough left over to pay rent off a half-acre of land, is the potato.

The potato blight hit the entirety of Europe, not just Ireland. Only Ireland suffered a famine. Because the British rule had reduced the options for the Irish to potatoes or starvation.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Under the British rule, the Irish were not allowed to own land and had to rent it from a British landlord; more important still, the Irish were not allowed to rent more than a half-acre.

That's a pretty dire misunderstanding of the situation. The Irish were allowed to own land. The problem was that some 60%+ was in the hands of absentee British landlords, and another ~30% in the hands of Anglo-Irish magnates. Irish were absolutely allowed to rent more than a half-acre - a half-acre wouldn't feed a single person, much less pay rent besides. A fourth-acre was the limit for those seeking relief at the poorhouses.

The potato blight hit the entirety of Europe, not just Ireland. Only Ireland suffered a famine. Because the British rule had reduced the options for the Irish to potatoes or starvation.

I mean, other areas in Europe suffered famine conditions in the same period because of the potato failure - Ireland was just hardest hit.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

just mocking the concept of coming in, stealing everything, then instituting a free market and claim it is fair.

[–] RedditRefugee69 7 points 5 days ago (2 children)

How is that liberalism? Sounds like colonialism to me.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Liberalism in the sense of a championing of liberal free markets. Extreme property accumulation is generally built on the oppression of past generations, so the idea of a liberal free market being 'fair' because it marks off the (worse) past exploitation as no long acceptable, but allows the extreme inequality that directly resulted from it to continue (and dominate the 'fair' free market), is, at the least, a questionable usage of the term 'fair'.

[–] RedditRefugee69 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

That's an interesting definition of liberalism. Never heard it before.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

It's not a common usage in US English outside of academia.

[–] RedditRefugee69 1 points 4 days ago (1 children)

Yeah I did some searching around and none of the definitions I found are consistent with yours.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 days ago

Liberalism became a distinct movement in the Age of Enlightenment, gaining popularity among Western philosophers and economists. Liberalism sought to replace the norms of hereditary privilege, state religion, absolute monarchy, the divine right of kings and traditional conservatism with representative democracy, rule of law, and equality under the law. Liberals also ended mercantilist policies, royal monopolies, and other trade barriers, instead promoting free trade and marketization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liberalism

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 days ago (1 children)

its fair because now the markets are free.

Irish people were free to buy food, if only they worked harder.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I think you dropped this: /s

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

sorry, I assumed the /s was so fucking obvious.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I assumed, but Poe's Law and, well, you know, people are really fucking classist and stupid

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

I need a comedy, when the most racist person possible, accidentally becomes friends with a leftists group because they all think he's being sarcastic (and he thinks they are as well) and see him as the funniest and smartest person in the group.

the opposite also works.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago

It also was worse in the fact that the UK had kept food prices up due to various corn laws preventing food importation into Ireland.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Under mercantilism you still export so a feudal system wouldn’t change anything. There would just be less imports

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

Feudal systems express and store power in different ways than mercantilist and early capitalist systems. Maintaining local loyalties and manpower are important to each feudal landholder, so the intention is generally to ensure that everyone else's lands starve, and, if your own lands starve anyway, ensuring that you and your most loyal men do not starve with them. The kind of absentee landlords that dominated Ireland at the time were not wholly unknown under feudal systems, but would not have made up such an overwhelming proportion of a nation's land, for inability to maintain the necessary loyalties, if nothing else.

This is not to say that the behavior of feudal lords is better than capitalist magnates - only emphasizing that it is different.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

A lot of them were Irish who buggered off to London after the Irish lost home rule. Led directly to the collapse of a lot of things.

[–] [email protected] 53 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (1 children)

If you pinpoint it on the English nobility it might be more digestible for most people. And if anyone still objects, ask why all of Europe had the same fungal outbreak but only Ireland starved, while still exporting food.

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 days ago (1 children)

English nobility it might be more digestible for most people.

Eat the rich!

[–] [email protected] 9 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Or at least their babies. It's just a modest proposal... 🤷🏻‍♂️

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Top quality reference.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 days ago (1 children)

Say it. Just say it. It's always fun to see the profs reaction while the class bursts out laughing.

[–] [email protected] 31 points 5 days ago

Most of my profs would've laughed along with us, and then probably mused something along the lines of "Correct, but not the answer I was looking for."

[–] [email protected] 27 points 5 days ago

but, that's the correct answer.

the mold only hurt potatoes, but what happened with all other farms? why was Ireland exporting grain and cattle?

The mold caused potatoes to fail, but the famine was undoubtedly caused by the English.

[–] [email protected] 14 points 5 days ago
[–] [email protected] 11 points 5 days ago (1 children)

I made the mistake of saying something similar during english class(cant remember what it was exactly) and i just felt everyone staring at me lol. I think the teacher agreed but kinda tried to brush it away as my comment was kinda out of line but true.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (2 children)

Edit - you don't get to choose the stripes of racism you approve and disapprove (except you do make those choices with your downvotes. You are not social liberals - politics just hasn't gone your way. You are as bad as sthe Trumpists. You approve one stripe of racism you approve them all. That is on you. A downvote does not change that obvious reality.

I think English people would just look at you these days and think 'that was literally nothing to do with me, or anybody I know. While I don't deny the Irish famine, actually get over it, because this is without doubt just angry and meaningless/pointless racism.' Sorry but when you do it in something like a UK university, they just think 'what are you doing here if you don't like it?'

There are loads of racist anti British posts here. It wouldn't be acceptable the other way around so fuck it.

Edit - if racist brit posts are allowed then racism towards anyone has to be allowed. Lemmy you decid0e, but of course you decide if you are inherently racist or not. Maybe you pick a side, but fuck knows what that side would be right now if you reject the British as being worthy targets of racism.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 days ago (1 children)

There are loads of racist anti British posts here. It wouldn't be acceptable the other way around so fuck it.

Huh, it's almost as if "punching up" by making statements denigrating oppressors isn't the same as "punching down" by making statements denigrating the oppressed.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago) (3 children)

Never mind the fact that there really are constant racist anti-British posts on lemmy.

Racism is racism. No doubt someone will jump in and say it is xenophobia or something else. Whatever. It is not fucking acceptable, except a lot of you people love it when it is directed towards targests that suit you. There is no such thing as good and bad racism, or xenophobia.

Edit - at the end of the day when an individual is happy with anti-British racism they accept racism of every stripe. That is on each of those individuals. And to spell it out, if you can have racism/xenophobia towards brits then racism/xenophobia towards every nation is acceptalbe on Lemmy.

It isn't fucking hard logic to figure out.

Edit - Your downvoting absolutely is what has allowed Trump. You can't see it. Oh well.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 days ago (2 children)

Truly, landlordism runs deep in the blood of all sons and daughters of Perfidious Albion; not a soul can escape the grip of their ancestors' deeds, like Lovecraft finding out his pure Anglo bloodline was tainted with the W*lsh and being consumed with an urge to speak evil tongues with too many consonants😔

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

tainted with the W*lsh and being consumed with an urge to speak evil tongues with too many consonants

This is hilarious

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 days ago (1 children)

"andlordism runs deep in the blood of all sons and daughters of Perfidious Albion"

Fuck off. This is nonsense.

Nothing but racist nonsense. If lemmy allows it then it allows all types of racism.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Fuck off. This is nonsense.

Yes, that's the joke.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago (1 children)

You know, I almost addressed that insinuation of yours in my previous comment, but (perhaps naively) let it pass in hopes that you'd actually engage my point in good faith instead of doubling down on your rhetoric. So much for that.

Just FYI, criticizing the policies of the 17th century English government not is "racism." Your attempt to conflate it with bigotry against the English people is a lie, and your pearl-clutching over your false victimhood is uncivil.

Let me guess: you think criticism of Israel is "antisemitism" too, don't you?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago

No.

Nowhere have I said criticism of Israel is the same as your racism towards England. You nasty little troll.

This racism must be removed from lemmy.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago* (last edited 5 days ago)

I think people would be better able to see your point if you actually took the time to lay it out, rather than just screaming "racism" into the abyss fifty times.

With which parts of this post in particular do you take exception?

From my perspective, it seems to me that you are conflating hatred of the objectively cruel and callous British imperialist government (and the rich landlords who were rewarded by it) and the policies thereof (which, along with similar policies from other countries toward those they deemed lesser than themselves, led to most of the modern geopolitical problems of this godforsaken world) with hatred of people of Anglo-saxon descent.

Frankly, I can't tell if you're trying to make a genuine complaint poorly, just screaming out in bad faith, or if you are truly so incapable of divesting your identity from the governance of England from hundreds of years ago that you're defending imperialist spoils systems.

I personally am leaning towards the second interpretation, because the one thing you've repeated in every one of these comments is that, if anti-british "racism" is allowed, then ALL types of racism must be allowed. It sounds like you're really itching to say something really racist, but need to hype yourself up with an excuse to do so.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 days ago

I'm English and agree with OP. What we've done to countless nations over the past few centuries is fucking deplorable, all in the name of racism and wealth hoarding. Sure, it was nothing to do with me, but Brexit tells me that I'm surrounded by fuckwits who would gladly oppress other countries all over again in the name of British 'superiority'.

Did you know that independence from British rule is the leading cause of national holidays across the world?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 days ago

Lol ethnic hatred

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 days ago