[37] Padraic Scanian — What the Irish Potato Famine Tells us About Markets and Merit

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The so-called Irish Potato Famine between 1845 and 1852 killed up to one million people and led to the emigration of hundreds of thousands of others. It left a deep imprint on Irish, European and American history and memory. But this was not a natural catastrophe, argues economic historian Padraic Scanian. He sees the famine as a result of globalisation, and of a very Victorian determination to let the market do its work and discipline the undeserving poor. The stereotype of the lazy Irishman was born out of the quasi colonial perspective of large landowners and London bureaucrats. The famine may be in the past, Padraic observes, but the mechanisms that led to it may still be more present than we think.

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