Speaker 1: We returned the bastards in England. No, the verse from
Speaker 1: that's my terrible English accent. Boy, we are both neither
Speaker 1: of us are very good at this. I remember now
Speaker 1: being reminded Island calling somebody a ball bag, how much better?
Speaker 1: Garrett from the Dollar Piss and doing an English accent
Speaker 1: is an Irish name. I think his mom is actually
Speaker 1: English if I'm remembering the Dollarp episode that his mom
Speaker 1: came on um or at least ethnically. I have a
Speaker 1: friend who's ethnically British. It's a weird situation. His parents
Speaker 1: you don't meet any of many of those, No, but
Speaker 1: he has never been outside of the United States, was
Speaker 1: born and raised here. But his parents are both English
Speaker 1: who came here in like they're late twenties. So he
Speaker 1: it's not many people like that. It's weird because he
Speaker 1: doesn't have like he grew up in Texas, so he
Speaker 1: like talks like most other Texas well, except for every
Speaker 1: now in and he'll say like he doesn't say bathroom.
Speaker 1: He says bathroom like there's there's all there's these little
Speaker 1: bits where it's like, oh, I can tell that you, Like,
Speaker 1: we're raised by somebody who didn't speak Texan. Yeah, he
Speaker 1: exclusively drove sobs most of the time that I knew
Speaker 1: when we were younger. His dad had like thirty of
Speaker 1: them taken apart on his lot. That's amazing. He's got
Speaker 1: a jeep. Now. Last time, gare H Wilkerson, I think
Speaker 1: that's his last name, but he's very Northern Irish, so
Speaker 1: he would say stuff like ball bag. I was like,
Speaker 1: I was like, dude, I love your sling. I got
Speaker 1: a lot of ship rightfully, So for for by the
Speaker 1: last time I did an Irish accent on this show.
Speaker 1: But I will say some of my favorite moments in Ireland,
Speaker 1: and I had another version of this in England is
Speaker 1: like you get drunk with your friends and you try
Speaker 1: each other's accents on. And the particular thing one of
Speaker 1: my buddies who is uh Irish but grew up in
Speaker 1: England for reason, and that we will be talking about
Speaker 1: in this episode because that that happens to a lot
Speaker 1: of people in this period. There's a um But the
Speaker 1: thing that he couldn't get over was the differences in
Speaker 1: how we pronounced banana. So there was like a long
Speaker 1: drunken conversation that would just be me saying banana too,
Speaker 1: and then then him being like banana because we were
Speaker 1: making fun of how the others. Yes, I could not
Speaker 1: get over the banana, um banana. One of the real
Speaker 1: joys of hanging out with people who speak English but
Speaker 1: are not from the United States is making fun of
Speaker 1: how you each pronounced the same words differently. Yeah. I
Speaker 1: remember I was trying to like tell one of my
Speaker 1: like my my friend who's like, you know, born and
Speaker 1: raised in London, but they're Punjabi Indian, you know, and
Speaker 1: so obviously that's quite a quite a ride situation boys, right, Yeah,
Speaker 1: but I kept saying, like why your spell stuff like that,
Speaker 1: like what's this you for? Like, what's wrong this? Yeah?
Speaker 1: He was like he goes just as calm in the
Speaker 1: most British way possible. He was just like, yo, it's interesting,
Speaker 1: how like you keep telling me that we're spelling things wrong.
Speaker 1: But the language is called English because it's from England.
Speaker 1: And I was like, touche, touche, touche, I have no comeback,
Speaker 1: and he just said, in the most British just as
Speaker 1: a matter of fact ly, like, well, it's called English
Speaker 1: because it's from England. And one of the things that
Speaker 1: was always really interesting to me, is you know where
Speaker 1: I grew up for a decent chunk of my like adolescence. Um,
Speaker 1: the school that I went to in North Texas had
Speaker 1: a really high population of people from the Indian subcontinent
Speaker 1: because like their parents worked for Texas Instruments or for
Speaker 1: Raytheon or something, um, and so they were people most
Speaker 1: of them had been born in India but had come
Speaker 1: over here pretty young, and they had learned English from Americans.
Speaker 1: And then I went over to India where the people
Speaker 1: that I was talking do who spoke English had learned
Speaker 1: English from British people generally, and so and it's really
Speaker 1: it's interesting, like how the how how differently people say
Speaker 1: especially since as an American, like most of your contact
Speaker 1: with people who speak English is the second language is
Speaker 1: people who learned it from an American And it really
Speaker 1: is like a different beast. And there's different types of like, um,
Speaker 1: different idioms that people pick up and stuff, as as
Speaker 1: as a second language speaker when they get taught, you
Speaker 1: know by one of the when he picked me up,
Speaker 1: when he picked us up from an airport, he was like, hey,
Speaker 1: I hadn't seen him. He was like, hey, you know
Speaker 1: look look, look we're we're we're two brothers were Asian dudes.
Speaker 1: I was like, all right, I walked by them dudes
Speaker 1: three times because I'm like, hey, man, you said you
Speaker 1: was Asian. Yeah, because we yeah, we use it differently
Speaker 1: than they do over Yeah. He was like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: he goes, he goes. Yeah. Americans for some reason don't
Speaker 1: think India is a part of Asia. Yeah, which is weird,
Speaker 1: but didn't. Yeah. You look at a map and it's like, well, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's it's right in there. It's just the most British
Speaker 1: just like condescend but nice way to say. Yeah, well
Speaker 1: because India is a part of Asia. Yeah, because it's
Speaker 1: like you know how they share that giant land border
Speaker 1: with China. Yeah, Asia, Like oh yeah, yeah, I guess,
Speaker 1: I guess, I guess you're right. Yeah yeah right whatever
Speaker 1: you guys are saying that wrong, Okay, So yeah, anyway,
Speaker 1: let's talk about this horrible crime against humanity, um, the
Speaker 1: coming of the blight. This this potato mold and it's airborne,
Speaker 1: Like this is a nasty fucker to hit you. And
Speaker 1: now there's ways to deal with these now, Like I
Speaker 1: think it's a copper sulfate solution that you can spray
Speaker 1: on your tubers and stuff. There's people have like developed
Speaker 1: ways since and obviously one of the better ways to
Speaker 1: deal with it is to grow more than one kind
Speaker 1: of potato, because there's that one kind of potato maybe vulnerable,
Speaker 1: but another kind won't. And if you know, you can cross.
Speaker 1: But whatever, there's there's options, but we didn't have a
Speaker 1: lot of that. They are they do start to figure
Speaker 1: them out, and in fact, there's some very smart people
Speaker 1: when the blight hits who are starting to figure out that, like, oh,
Speaker 1: there's from things you could spray on these. So it
Speaker 1: it hits Ireland and it's it's obviously it's not great,
Speaker 1: but six it doesn't hit that hard yet. Um there's
Speaker 1: only six counties in Ireland that lose more than a
Speaker 1: third of their crop, which is significant. It is devastating
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways, but it's not as bad
Speaker 1: as it's going to get. Um. Now, what this does
Speaker 1: mean though, and it all kind of compounds. So one
Speaker 1: of the things about potatoes, I've been growing potatoes for
Speaker 1: a couple of years. I'm not an expert at it,
Speaker 1: but one of the things that you do if you're
Speaker 1: growing potatoes and you're not somebody you can just go
Speaker 1: to a gardening store and pick up seed potatoes. Every
Speaker 1: year is when you harvest potatoes, you set aside a
Speaker 1: chunk of your harvest as seed for the next planting season,
Speaker 1: and you don't eat them. You like keep them and
Speaker 1: let them kind of chill in a cool, dry place
Speaker 1: so that they you can plant them next year. Um
Speaker 1: and generally the broadly a lot of factors can affect this,
Speaker 1: but broadly speaking, for one pound of potatoes you plant,
Speaker 1: you can get between five and ten pounds of yield
Speaker 1: right at pends on a lot of factors. But that
Speaker 1: that's kind of back of the envelope math. So usually
Speaker 1: you might set aside like a third a quarter of
Speaker 1: your harvests something like that as seed potatoes. Well, if
Speaker 1: people are losing a third of the harvest, and we
Speaker 1: as we have established, Irish farmers do not have extra
Speaker 1: of anything, so you lose. And as a side note,
Speaker 1: city boy here checking in first time caller on time listener, Um,
Speaker 1: what's a potato seed? It's like a potato You could
Speaker 1: just like if you were a potato, right, if you
Speaker 1: were to have a bag You've had a bag of potatoes,
Speaker 1: and like you leave rotting on the bottom of the Yeah,
Speaker 1: if they start rotting and get all like goopy, then
Speaker 1: that's not good. But if they just start to usually
Speaker 1: first what they'll do and it kind of depends on
Speaker 1: how you store then, but they'll they'll sprout, right, You'll see,
Speaker 1: like the ear, if you play those under like an
Speaker 1: inch or two or so a dirt with like you know,
Speaker 1: four or five inches underneath it, Um, it'll grow into
Speaker 1: more potatoes. Um. Not an incredible crop, it's pretty cool. Now,
Speaker 1: the one the potatoes you do buy in the grocery store,
Speaker 1: they don't tend to your best off buying generally buying
Speaker 1: seed potatoes because they're meant to actually grow. Whereas like
Speaker 1: there's a bunch of compliment as a general rule, Yeah,
Speaker 1: you plant that if you if your potatoes start to
Speaker 1: sprout and you throw them in the dirt, you'll get
Speaker 1: some more potatoes. Um. But so part of part of
Speaker 1: how they people survive in Ireland is you know, you
Speaker 1: set aside this chunk of your crop for seed for
Speaker 1: the next harvest season or for the next planting season.
Speaker 1: But when they lose a third of their crop to
Speaker 1: this plague, they have the same coloric needs they had
Speaker 1: the year before, but they have less potatoes. And at
Speaker 1: some point, when you start to get hungry, you're going
Speaker 1: to dip into those seed potatoes, which are just as
Speaker 1: they're fine. If they're normal potatoes, you can eat them.
Speaker 1: But when you eat your seed potatoes, what are you
Speaker 1: gonna do next year? You have no exact tato, or
Speaker 1: at least you have It's yeah, and there's another problem.
Speaker 1: Some of these seed potatoes get infected with the blight
Speaker 1: and people don't realize it until they like go like
Speaker 1: unseal it to go plant and they realize that, like
Speaker 1: they don't have as much to plant, or they don't
Speaker 1: have anything to plant. Um. But as a result of
Speaker 1: all this, like the first year of the so called
Speaker 1: of the so called potato famine, right, Um, the first
Speaker 1: year of it is the least devastating, right because it
Speaker 1: hasn't killed as much of the crop yet, and people
Speaker 1: have because of these kind of seed potato stalks, they
Speaker 1: have a little bit of like um, a little bit
Speaker 1: of like wiggle room. The other thing they have is
Speaker 1: the English government at this point is headed by a
Speaker 1: guy named Robert peel Um and peel is not the
Speaker 1: worst guy that there's going to be running the English
Speaker 1: government in this period. There's a lot of criticisms of
Speaker 1: what he did too, but he's he's we'll talk about
Speaker 1: him in a second. Here. It is important that I
Speaker 1: reiterate here as we talk about this famine, as we
Speaker 1: talk about what's happening to these farmers in the desperation
Speaker 1: they're entering. In Ireland has plenty of food to feed
Speaker 1: everyone living in Ireland. The famine is not caused by
Speaker 1: a lack of things that to eat that are being
Speaker 1: grown on the island. It is caused by the failure
Speaker 1: of a crop that causes a surge in food prices,
Speaker 1: which puts avoiding starvation outside of the budget of most
Speaker 1: Irish families. It is not that there isn't food, it's
Speaker 1: that they can't afford not to starve. That is an
Speaker 1: important distinction. Um At the time the famine started, one
Speaker 1: quarter of all Irish grain crops were being exported. Three
Speaker 1: fifths of the island's total agricultural output is being sold
Speaker 1: outside of Ireland, So six of the food produced in
Speaker 1: Ireland does not stay there. Yeah, yes, so yeah. During
Speaker 1: the years of the famine, the population of Ireland at
Speaker 1: the start is about nine million, and Ireland is growing
Speaker 1: enough food to fill an estimate to feed an estimated
Speaker 1: eighteen million people. So again, when people say you shouldn't
Speaker 1: call it a potato famine, that's because there shouldn't have
Speaker 1: been a famine. Shouldn't have been There's plenty of food,
Speaker 1: There's ample food. There's plenty of food. Yeah, when like,
Speaker 1: so I'm working on I just did it, recorded two
Speaker 1: of them. Uh, sort of like for politics, kind of
Speaker 1: like an economic version of hood politics. I'm kind of
Speaker 1: just calling it like how much of dollar cost and
Speaker 1: really just this idea of how inflation and commodities, goods
Speaker 1: and service, like how that stuff kind of works like
Speaker 1: and and and what you're explaining right now, to where
Speaker 1: it's like essentially like my caloric intake, which is the
Speaker 1: equivalent of like my cost of living, like it hasn't changed.
Speaker 1: There's just not enough stuff anymore that is available for
Speaker 1: me to consume because all the stuff that I have,
Speaker 1: I don't really own. I gotta give it to somebody else.
Speaker 1: So it makes for a situation to where it's like
Speaker 1: if I can only if I only have thirty of
Speaker 1: what I'm producing to work with. But my thirty percent
Speaker 1: just became fifteen percent. I don't I don't end up
Speaker 1: being less hungry. Nope, you know what I'm saying. I
Speaker 1: just have to make less last longer. But that's impossible
Speaker 1: because it costs more than it did when I had more. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's that's what's happening here, kind of in in broad
Speaker 1: um And and most of the food that is being
Speaker 1: grown in Ireland. Then while there is this famine developing,
Speaker 1: most of the food being produced in Ireland is being
Speaker 1: shipped out of the island as soon as it's harvested.
Speaker 1: One observer at the time noted a ship sailing into
Speaker 1: an Irish port during the famine years with a cargo
Speaker 1: of grain was sure to meet six ships sailing out
Speaker 1: with a similar cargo. So like ships bringing in food
Speaker 1: aid are seeing larger amounts of food leave the island
Speaker 1: for export. It's got to be maddening, Yes, it is.
Speaker 1: It is maddening. This will become part of the justification
Speaker 1: for decades of insurgency and rebellion. It really does piss
Speaker 1: some people off. Um So, the obvious at question you're
Speaker 1: probably asking here is couldn't they have just stopped or
Speaker 1: reduced exports and thus kept food prices low enough that
Speaker 1: people wouldn't have starved to death. And the answer to
Speaker 1: that question is yes, it would have been extremely easy
Speaker 1: to do that. It had been fine, it would have
Speaker 1: been very easy. But food exports were how Irish farmers
Speaker 1: paid their rent. So if you stop food from being exported,
Speaker 1: you would have to stop evictions too, because otherwise you
Speaker 1: would have people who could not pay their rent and
Speaker 1: landlords who weren't allowed to kick them off their land,
Speaker 1: and that would be violating the rights of the landlords.
Speaker 1: So nothing new. There's nothing new. Bro. Since the English
Speaker 1: government is not willing to do that, they decide the
Speaker 1: next best option is to bring more food into the country,
Speaker 1: which is producing enough food, but bring in worse food,
Speaker 1: cheaper and lower quality food, and put enough of it
Speaker 1: onto the market. Again, they're not trying to they don't
Speaker 1: when they're importing food aid. It's not that they need
Speaker 1: to bring in enough food to feed people. It's that
Speaker 1: they need to bring in enough food to reduce the
Speaker 1: price of food that people can afford it, you know,
Speaker 1: and that aid organizations stuff can afford it, and whatnot,
Speaker 1: Like a lot of a lot of the way people
Speaker 1: get aid food is like the Catholic organizations will buy
Speaker 1: up a bunch and then distribute it and stuff and
Speaker 1: like one of the things we're not really going to
Speaker 1: get into it a lot. But like the Catholic clergy
Speaker 1: in Ireland. And there's a lot of criticisms to make
Speaker 1: of the church in Rome, but in Ireland the Catholic
Speaker 1: Church clergy is supported by the people who live there, um,
Speaker 1: and they do. The Catholic clergy in Ireland do a
Speaker 1: tremendous amount of aid work to try to deal with this,
Speaker 1: whereas the Protestant clergy, who are paid for by like
Speaker 1: Irish taxes essentially right, the Irish is supposed to are
Speaker 1: paying for the Protestant faith to an extent, are not
Speaker 1: doing that. Um. Not to say that none of them do,
Speaker 1: because there are in fact Protestant ministers who do quite
Speaker 1: a bit. But like in broad this is one of
Speaker 1: the things that seems happened. It contributes to like a
Speaker 1: lot of the anger and hatred that's building in this
Speaker 1: period between Catholic and Protestant. Right. Um, So the peel
Speaker 1: offerment decides, all right, we can't forgive rent and stop exports.
Speaker 1: So let's just bring in shitty food, right kind of
Speaker 1: that's the idea. It just seems like like, Okay, if
Speaker 1: this you're your purposefully choosing the hardest way to do this,
Speaker 1: ye like just well, but even if guys like they
Speaker 1: it's the hardest way for the people who have to
Speaker 1: live on the island, it is the easiest way for
Speaker 1: British politicians who then do not have to fight a
Speaker 1: politically powerful class of landlords as much as much as
Speaker 1: much so. The thing that the food that they, specifically
Speaker 1: the people government brings in is what they call Indian corn,
Speaker 1: and this is corn grown in the United States. Obviously,
Speaker 1: the Irish are growing corn to the Indian coin they're
Speaker 1: importing is a course, is a courser and harsher grade
Speaker 1: of corn than the Irish are used to. It has
Speaker 1: to be milled in order to make it edible. You
Speaker 1: have to mill it in ways that they had not
Speaker 1: been They didn't need to mill the corn the corn
Speaker 1: that was grown on the island that they couldn't easily
Speaker 1: do with the existing equipment. A lot of workarounds have
Speaker 1: to be found in order to make this corn they're
Speaker 1: importing edible for Irish people. Um, they have to soak
Speaker 1: it for like days to make it soft enough. Like.
Speaker 1: One of the problems is that when people start really starving,
Speaker 1: they won't soak this stuff enough and it'll tear up
Speaker 1: their stomach. Some people die because like their bodies can't
Speaker 1: handle how how coarse and harsh this corn is while
Speaker 1: they're starving, right, Um, but still importing this Indian corn.
Speaker 1: When when the Peel government does this and they sell
Speaker 1: it cheap, they don't give it away, but they sell
Speaker 1: it very cheap and fairly small quantities. This does enough
Speaker 1: to lower prices that a lot. It stops mass death
Speaker 1: in the first year or so of famine. This is
Speaker 1: broadly speaking Tim pat Coogan, and there's some historians that
Speaker 1: disagree with him. There are people who are a lot
Speaker 1: more critical of Peele. Cougan's attitude is that by doing this,
Speaker 1: Peel stops a lot of people from dying right away.
Speaker 1: That this is a broadly effective aid strategy. Um and
Speaker 1: I yeah, we'll talk little bit more about that later. Um.
Speaker 1: But yeah, this starts. This is not popular within English politics,
Speaker 1: and in fact that kicks off what is maybe at
Speaker 1: the time the most vicious political fight in like modern
Speaker 1: English parliamentary history. Um, it was perfectly legal for government,
Speaker 1: for the government to buy corn and sell it in Ireland,
Speaker 1: but selling it cheaply enough that the Irish could afford
Speaker 1: to consume it could be seen as a violation of
Speaker 1: what are called the Corn Laws. Now, these are first
Speaker 1: put in place in eighteen fifteen. There are a set
Speaker 1: of tariffs meant to protect English farmers from being ruined
Speaker 1: by cheap foreign grain. And the effect of these laws
Speaker 1: it's not just about corn. It's about the price of corn, barley,
Speaker 1: wheat and other grains. But the purposes too. So it
Speaker 1: ensures that grain only gets more expensive in Ireland in
Speaker 1: order to protect English farmers from being ruined by imports
Speaker 1: of cheap Irish grain, right or cheap foreign grain. Right. Like,
Speaker 1: that's the purpose of these corn laws. They are they
Speaker 1: keep food very expensive in Ireland, but they ensure profits
Speaker 1: for the English are kept at a certain level. Um.
Speaker 1: To me, this again, this goes back to being like
Speaker 1: you choosing the most complicated way to solve this problem,
Speaker 1: because I'm like you, just oh now I can't get okay,
Speaker 1: so we gotta okay. So you won't let me, you
Speaker 1: won't let them eat what they grow, so I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to take what they grow and then give them
Speaker 1: worse versions. They're gonna have to do all this other
Speaker 1: stuff to eat. But then you're mad that I'm lowering
Speaker 1: the price because you can't sell yours like this is
Speaker 1: so listen uh. When but my daughter was younger, she
Speaker 1: did not want her door to be shut to her bedroom.
Speaker 1: But she also didn't want our door to be shut
Speaker 1: to our bedroom. But she didn't like the light coming
Speaker 1: out of our bedroom, nor did she the temperature from
Speaker 1: the living room changing. So her solution was everyone like
Speaker 1: the temperature in her room wasn't happy. She wouldn't happy
Speaker 1: temperature in the room. So her solution was, everyone else
Speaker 1: shut the door, and I can leave mine open where
Speaker 1: I'm like, here's a simple solution, baby, shut your door
Speaker 1: and all the problems are solved. You don't have to
Speaker 1: see our light, you don't have to experience the temperature
Speaker 1: in the living room, you don't have to hear the
Speaker 1: sounds coming from outside. Just shut your door. And her
Speaker 1: solution was, how about everybody shut? Everybody else shut their doors.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, well, baby, we're not gonna all We're
Speaker 1: not gonna do that just because you won't shut your
Speaker 1: just shut your door. It'll be fine. So to me,
Speaker 1: I'm like, this is what this is what I'm picturing.
Speaker 1: I'm just like, fam, lower your rent, just lower your rent,
Speaker 1: and the problem is solved. We'll talk about We're about
Speaker 1: to talk about why they don't do that, but it
Speaker 1: is worth noting that like one of the reasons why
Speaker 1: they opt for this coarser kind of seen as like
Speaker 1: worst grade of corn is that maze is not being
Speaker 1: which is the kind of corn that like they're they're bringing,
Speaker 1: because there's types of corn, but like the kind of
Speaker 1: corn that they call Indian corn is not being sold
Speaker 1: by English farmers and so it's not it doesn't fall
Speaker 1: under these corn laws. That's why Peels. Yeah, that's why
Speaker 1: Peel is able to get away with it. Um. But
Speaker 1: again he also wants to Peel wants to get rid
Speaker 1: of these corn laws in order to make it easier
Speaker 1: to bring food aid into Ireland, which pistoles is drives
Speaker 1: people insane. There is vicious resistance to them. And to
Speaker 1: understand the resistance to this plan, we have to talk
Speaker 1: about Lazai fair capitalism. Um. You do because people that
Speaker 1: are mad that you can't sell at a certain price.
Speaker 1: But hey, numbnuts, you're selling to your no one can
Speaker 1: afford your price point. Well, so I don't understand. What
Speaker 1: the hell, why what are you talking about? Anyway, Yeah,
Speaker 1: we're about to get into that. So the most foundational
Speaker 1: mind of this school of thought is an economist named
Speaker 1: Adam Smith. UM and Smith believed that, in short, that
Speaker 1: healthy economies are made up of individuals who are working
Speaker 1: for their own self interest, and that this benefit society
Speaker 1: by creating competition in the free market. Right, we're all
Speaker 1: broadly familiar with these, Yeah, yeah, we all. Smith's most
Speaker 1: influential work, The Wealth of Nations, is published in seventeen
Speaker 1: seventy six. His work is very influential to the people
Speaker 1: generally generally referred to as the founding fathers of the
Speaker 1: United States, and he was very much beloved by English politicians.
Speaker 1: UM in eighteen twenty one, a group of them formed
Speaker 1: the Political Economy Club to discuss his ideas and to
Speaker 1: try to come to more conclusions about the principles of
Speaker 1: political economy. Right, people are in this period starting to
Speaker 1: think about economics and kind of a more scientific sense,
Speaker 1: and the Political Economy Club it's actually today is the
Speaker 1: oldest economics association in the world. Um, so this is
Speaker 1: one of the first places where people are really trying
Speaker 1: to like put together organized theories of how economic life
Speaker 1: and policy works. In eighteen forty five, when all this
Speaker 1: starts to happen, um, this is where some of the
Speaker 1: most influential parliamentarians and government officials in the British Empire
Speaker 1: would go to like shoot the ship out of what
Speaker 1: should be done in terms of economic policy. And these
Speaker 1: guys are all in very strong agreement that England should
Speaker 1: not intervene directly in the famine in a way that
Speaker 1: would allow people to get Irish people to get food
Speaker 1: without paying. Right, you cannot funk with the free market,
Speaker 1: that's their attitude. You cannot make any do anything that
Speaker 1: you do that interferes with the free market. It would
Speaker 1: be worse than just letting people start to death. That's
Speaker 1: the i That is the conclusion, broadly speaking, that these
Speaker 1: folks all come to. As Club member Jeremy Bentham wrote,
Speaker 1: quote lazy fair in short, should be the general practice.
Speaker 1: Every departure, unless required by some great good, is a
Speaker 1: certain evil. Now you might take from that that, like,
Speaker 1: while stopping a lot of people from starving is a
Speaker 1: great good, but he does not feel that way, and
Speaker 1: that's what we're about to get into. Tim pat Coogan
Speaker 1: writes a central figure in the debate was a classical economist,
Speaker 1: Nassau Williams, Sr. The first professor of political economy at
Speaker 1: Oxford University, preached, among other things, that it was not
Speaker 1: the duty of the state to alleviate poverty that came
Speaker 1: through the fault of the individual. English poor law owed
Speaker 1: a great deal to his theories, and during the famine,
Speaker 1: wig apologists would see to it that the idea of
Speaker 1: Irish culpability for Irish poverty would become widespread among the
Speaker 1: British public. Lazy beds was used as a term of
Speaker 1: derision to indicate that the Irish even brought their laziness
Speaker 1: to bear on their potato cultivation. Nassau Senior criticized Irish
Speaker 1: landlords for neglecting the duty for the performance of which
Speaker 1: Providence created them, the keeping down population. So Nasa was
Speaker 1: like this number one, we can't do anything. We shouldn't
Speaker 1: do anything here. But also this is only a problem
Speaker 1: because these landlords did not do enough to make it
Speaker 1: impossible for Irish people to breed. Yes, so listen like
Speaker 1: I am. Like when we started the first episode of this,
Speaker 1: I was like, I'm ready to be triggered, and now
Speaker 1: I'm at this trigger because we're still to this day
Speaker 1: trying to explain to people how dumb they saying when
Speaker 1: they say this um because I, like I say all
Speaker 1: the time. In my credentialing program as becoming a California
Speaker 1: high school teacher, the third part was you have to
Speaker 1: take you have to pass this test on economic experience
Speaker 1: e high school and I failed it three times one
Speaker 1: three times because I understood the principles, but I didn't
Speaker 1: understand the the vocabulary, Like I just didn't know the words,
Speaker 1: you know what I'm saying, which was again some of
Speaker 1: the genesis of the politics where it's like I know
Speaker 1: what I'm talking about, I just don't know how to
Speaker 1: talk about what I'm talking about. But but some of
Speaker 1: it was because your theory is absurd to me, and
Speaker 1: I'm like the idea that because because look at and
Speaker 1: what you just read. The founding principle is the government
Speaker 1: shouldn't solve a problem created by the individual the but
Speaker 1: the individual didn't create the problem. The government did. And
Speaker 1: that's and That's that's why I'm like, I don't understand
Speaker 1: your principle. You made the problem, So how are you
Speaker 1: your free market? Ain't all is already not free in
Speaker 1: the first place you created? Like, so I'm just like,
Speaker 1: I don't understand how this is a prince. How is
Speaker 1: this a four three hundred year old principle when the
Speaker 1: foundation axiom of it don't exist. So I'm always like,
Speaker 1: I don't that. So I think whenever I had to
Speaker 1: like answer questions about this in school, I would be like,
Speaker 1: but it don't make no what you're saying don't make sense,
Speaker 1: you know. I'm like, just here's the thing though, Like, yes,
Speaker 1: we can say obviously, the problems that people are saying
Speaker 1: or is the fall to the Irish people are like
Speaker 1: problems as the result of the policies the state has
Speaker 1: enacted in this imperial government has enacted uh, And it's
Speaker 1: not their fault that they are suffering. That is not
Speaker 1: the attitude of these intellectuals who are This is way
Speaker 1: prior to the development of like prosperity Gospel and that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. The same idea is feed into it.
Speaker 1: This idea. It's like the same if you have money,
Speaker 1: if you're doing well, it's because God wants you to be.
Speaker 1: And if you're impoverished and you're suffering, it's because you
Speaker 1: have done something in morals that has caused God to
Speaker 1: and which is like even even with the prosperity Ship,
Speaker 1: It's like, I mean, the the oldest manuscript in the
Speaker 1: in the in the Bible is Job, and Job is
Speaker 1: shooting down that. The whole point of that that book
Speaker 1: is to shoot down that idea. I mean, I can't
Speaker 1: think of anything that matters less in terms of public
Speaker 1: religion than what's actually in the Bible. It seems as though,
Speaker 1: why would that matter reading what I read, because even
Speaker 1: like this book is basically saying the principle you just
Speaker 1: said is wrong. It seems like it seems like Jesus
Speaker 1: of Nazareth probably would not have been a big lazy
Speaker 1: fair economics to I don't think you would like me
Speaker 1: back into the past. But I'm saying, it's just it
Speaker 1: just and it's like this you feel like, I mean,
Speaker 1: I always felt like even in discussing this stuff, it's
Speaker 1: just like you made the comparison to like the plight
Speaker 1: of black and brown people in indigenous people in the
Speaker 1: in in America saying that like, well, y'all lazy y'all
Speaker 1: can't get this stuff that you got the same opportunities
Speaker 1: where And it's like, are y'all serious, Do y'all remember
Speaker 1: the law y'all made? Like what do you you understand?
Speaker 1: You you understand you made those laws. So how are
Speaker 1: you saying, like, I don't God made about principle? You know?
Speaker 1: And if I if I know one thing about Jesus
Speaker 1: of Nazareth, it's that he would never have given free
Speaker 1: food to people. Apparently that's what I'm saying he did
Speaker 1: repeatedly in the Bible. That's not a part of the gospels. Yeah,
Speaker 1: she happened. Jesus set up of a fish stand where
Speaker 1: he sold fish and chips for you know, a tidy
Speaker 1: pro that everybody there was legal citizens, and then he
Speaker 1: reinvested the profits into purchasing apartment houses, which he used
Speaker 1: in order to fund the startup of blood testing company
Speaker 1: called I don't know why I took this to the
Speaker 1: thorns direction. Um, that's an amazing spin anyway, it's fun.
Speaker 1: So as ho, Senior, this this guy who is this
Speaker 1: major proponent of las A fair economics in this in
Speaker 1: this economics club, Um was in agreement. Like one of
Speaker 1: the other dudes who was prominent in this club is
Speaker 1: a fellow you've probably heard of named Thomas Malthus. Um,
Speaker 1: we should probably talk about malthas someday he he deserves
Speaker 1: an episode of his own. But but Malthus is the
Speaker 1: first intellectual um who really expounds upon the idea that
Speaker 1: overpopulation causes famine. Right. Thus, if a famine occurs anywhere,
Speaker 1: it is because of overpopulation, and if you take steps
Speaker 1: to alleviate that famine, all you will be doing is
Speaker 1: ensuring that overpopulation gets worse. And so you should not
Speaker 1: take steps. You should let the famine run its course, right,
Speaker 1: otherwise you're just gonna make the problem worse. Now, as
Speaker 1: we have established the famine, this is not the result
Speaker 1: of overpopulation right at all. Um. Because again, as the
Speaker 1: Irish population does triple over the course about a century.
Speaker 1: But economic they're they're they're the the amount of food
Speaker 1: they are producing also increases pretty massively, right, they are
Speaker 1: growing plenty of food. Um. But mauth Is his idea
Speaker 1: is that the work, it is the responsibility, the moral
Speaker 1: responsibility of the working class to not breed too quickly,
Speaker 1: and if they breed too quickly. It's nobody's job to
Speaker 1: take care of them. Right. Mauth Is famously said this
Speaker 1: when discussing the plight of poor men. Quote. If he
Speaker 1: cannot get subsistence from his parents, on whom he has
Speaker 1: a just demand, has no claim of right, He has
Speaker 1: no claim of right to the smallest portion of food,
Speaker 1: and in fact, has no business to be where he is.
Speaker 1: And what Mauthis is saying here is that, like the
Speaker 1: only people who owe you anything of your parents, right,
Speaker 1: and you can ask them for food and they've got
Speaker 1: to give it to you, but you have no right
Speaker 1: to exist inherently, and you certainly have no right to food.
Speaker 1: Yeah now now, now gone hand met him cucumbers you
Speaker 1: just grew for me, Not that exactly. And this is
Speaker 1: part of what makes it so messed up, Like it
Speaker 1: would be messed up if he was just saying this
Speaker 1: to like starving refugees, but he is saying this to
Speaker 1: the people growing the food as he's much as he's
Speaker 1: much Yeah, as he's h tell you, bro, you shouldn't
Speaker 1: had autumn kids. Let me get that tomato. Oh that
Speaker 1: looks good. Yeah, yeah, that the tomato you just grew for.
Speaker 1: But that's my land though, so like I mean and
Speaker 1: Malthi's there's this other because he's he's also very specifically
Speaker 1: anti Irish. UM. He argues that because of how close
Speaker 1: Ireland and England are, England is always a threat of
Speaker 1: poor Irish people like flooding into England and draining the
Speaker 1: economy by driving down wages and fucking up trade. Right.
Speaker 1: Just history, so many historical experts are just there's the
Speaker 1: same kind of yeah, like you've got a million people
Speaker 1: saying the same thing today about different groups of people,
Speaker 1: but it's always the same adult welfare about It's just
Speaker 1: just the same argument. And alpis maintained quote, the land
Speaker 1: in Ireland is infinitely more people than in England, and
Speaker 1: to give full effect to the natural resources of the country,
Speaker 1: a great part of the population should be swept from
Speaker 1: the soil. So you you see these people there, it's
Speaker 1: not just that like they've built a system that is
Speaker 1: leading to famine. There's a conscious understanding that they want
Speaker 1: to depopulate Ireland through policy. Um. Another big advocate of
Speaker 1: this UH is a fellow named um Edmund Burke um
Speaker 1: and and and Edmund Burke is an irish Man now
Speaker 1: he's a he's a wealthy Irish person, um. But he
Speaker 1: he's also against government intervention in this this growing famine, um.
Speaker 1: And his basic attitude is that, like, you shouldn't intervene,
Speaker 1: have the government intervened when there's a problem. Quote, it
Speaker 1: is not by breaking the laws of commerce, which are
Speaker 1: the laws of nature and consequently the laws of God,
Speaker 1: that we are to place our hope of softening the
Speaker 1: divine displeasure to remove any calamity under which we suffer.
Speaker 1: So Burke's attitude is, if there's a famine, if there's
Speaker 1: any kind of problem that a population is suffering under
Speaker 1: our economy, that is the will of God. And if
Speaker 1: the government steps into help people, that is a violation
Speaker 1: of Like you are, you are sitting against God. You're
Speaker 1: sitting against the God of the universe. I just I
Speaker 1: just don't understand what God wanted them to eat. They've beaten,
Speaker 1: you know, I just don't. Yeah, I'm just like, what
Speaker 1: what pages? What page? Alone? You know what I'm saying, YEA,
Speaker 1: where did you find that one? What page? We are?
Speaker 1: I know, I thought we was all yeah, yeah, I
Speaker 1: don't know what chapter is this? Edmund Burke. By the way,
Speaker 1: is the dude commonly credited with the quote you'll you'll
Speaker 1: see this on like every Holocaust movie or something that
Speaker 1: came out in like the nineties. The only thing necessary
Speaker 1: for the triumph of evil is for goodman to do nothing. Um. Now,
Speaker 1: he never said that. It was probably from John Stewart Mill,
Speaker 1: although he never said exactly those words. It's one of those,
Speaker 1: you know how, like nine of the things that Thomas
Speaker 1: Jefferson gets quoted for saying, We're never said by Thomas Jefferson. Whatever,
Speaker 1: It's one of those. It's one of those quotes. Um.
Speaker 1: But anyway, he kind of sucked. Um. Not not a
Speaker 1: cool dude in my opinion, Edmund Burke. Another guy who
Speaker 1: sucked and loved himself some lazi fair economics was Charles Travellion. Now, okay,
Speaker 1: this is probably the single most famous name associated with
Speaker 1: the Great Hunger in Ireland. Um. There is a song
Speaker 1: called the Fields of ath and Ride that is today
Speaker 1: it's for whatever reason, it's become like popular with a
Speaker 1: couple of different football teams. But it's a song about
Speaker 1: the Great Hunger. It's a song about like a dude
Speaker 1: who tries to steal um food. Basically that's owned by
Speaker 1: the government in order defeat his starling, starving family, and
Speaker 1: he gets forced into transportation. He gets shipped away to Australia. Um.
Speaker 1: It's very sad song, but it mentions Travali in specifically,
Speaker 1: and he is kind of he is the face of
Speaker 1: the English causes of the famine in Ireland in a
Speaker 1: lot of ways. Now this is not entirely fair, not
Speaker 1: because Trevalion deserves less shipped than he gets, but because
Speaker 1: a lot more people had to come together to make this.
Speaker 1: But like he's all he's absolutely a monster here, don't
Speaker 1: get me wrong. Um. So again, Um, he's a central
Speaker 1: enough figure that I think we should peel back a
Speaker 1: little bit and I'm gonna give you an overview of
Speaker 1: his life before we continue. So, Sir Charles Edward Trevellion,
Speaker 1: first Baronet was born on April two, eighteen o seven,
Speaker 1: in Ponton, England, which is probably pronounced something like Terry
Speaker 1: or whatever, but like fuck it. His father was a
Speaker 1: clergyman um, and his family had ancient noble origins in Cornwall.
Speaker 1: His mother was also from a fancy family. They were
Speaker 1: very very rich. Um. They did not get this because
Speaker 1: his dad was in the clergy. Their family money comes
Speaker 1: from slave dealing in Granada. Um yeah, good stuff, good stuff,
Speaker 1: chuckie chuckie t um. So he was educated locally before
Speaker 1: his family used some of them slave dollars to send
Speaker 1: his ask to charter House School in central London. He
Speaker 1: did well enough there that he gets admission to Haileybury,
Speaker 1: which is the East India Company's training college. So the
Speaker 1: British East India Company has like a college which I
Speaker 1: think Amazon dot Com is like four months away from
Speaker 1: doing that. Um yeah. And while Travalian is at hailey
Speaker 1: Berry learning how to work for the East India Company,
Speaker 1: one of his teachers is Thomas Malthus. So he graduates
Speaker 1: or I don't know if he's graduated, but he leaves
Speaker 1: hailey Berry at eighteen and he gets sent to India
Speaker 1: to study at another company college where he learns And
Speaker 1: this is one of those things that's interesting about him
Speaker 1: as as British administrators in India go, he's actually like
Speaker 1: pretty plugged into the culture. He learns several he's fluent
Speaker 1: in several dialects of Hindi um, which is impressive, not
Speaker 1: an easy thing to do. Um. And he's given a
Speaker 1: post in Delhi in eighteen seven. I found a right
Speaker 1: up on him for the Irish news agency RTE, which
Speaker 1: notes Trevillian had a very successful career in India, including
Speaker 1: famously denouncing one of his superiors for bribery, a case
Speaker 1: which was held and led to the subsequent dismissal of
Speaker 1: Sir Edward Colebrook in eighteen twenty nine. This event established
Speaker 1: his credentials as a fearless and opinionated public servant who
Speaker 1: was not afraid to challenge his master's He was later
Speaker 1: appointed to the Political Department of the Government of India,
Speaker 1: working closely with the reformist Lord Bentwick, the Governor General
Speaker 1: of India, who later said of him that man is
Speaker 1: almost always on the right side and every question. And
Speaker 1: it is well that he is so, for he gives
Speaker 1: a most confounded deal of trouble when he happens to
Speaker 1: take the wrong one. So he is a principal man.
Speaker 1: He is very anti corruption, but he is also kind
Speaker 1: of incapable of seeing himself as being wrong. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: was like, what a what an interesting quote about a person.
Speaker 1: You want him to be more of like a goblin
Speaker 1: than he is in his earlier life, But he's not there,
Speaker 1: he's actually probably more understanding of Indian people and like
Speaker 1: injustices being done to them than he is to what's
Speaker 1: going to happen to the Irish, which is not a
Speaker 1: unique story. Weirdly enough, it happens sometimes. It's bizarre. Just yeah,
Speaker 1: it's like it's it's so yeah, it's it's like there's
Speaker 1: racism in both cases, right, There's they're races against Indians,
Speaker 1: but they're different kinds of racism, and there's kind of
Speaker 1: more of a like the the the Indians are like,
Speaker 1: are are kind of like our children, and like we
Speaker 1: have to take care of them, and they're they're like
Speaker 1: our beloved little like kids basically white man's whereas the
Speaker 1: Irish or these like violent quarrel quarrelsome like uh monsters
Speaker 1: kind of at least that's not entirely accurate. Like there's
Speaker 1: like there's different kinds of racism at work, right, and
Speaker 1: so a guy like Travelli In is probably a lot
Speaker 1: more understanding of problems that that Indian people are encountering. Right,
Speaker 1: That's why he's so anti corruption within the company that
Speaker 1: he will be about what's happening in Ireland. Um, but
Speaker 1: you know who's not racist. No, I don't. Actually we
Speaker 1: don't know who at all who's not racist? I mean
Speaker 1: you mean YouTube. I think it's a good safe safe
Speaker 1: I would say, really, if you want to be safe
Speaker 1: the products and services that support this podcast, because as
Speaker 1: as as products, they have no minds of their own
Speaker 1: and are thus incapable of the intentionality necessary for racism.
Speaker 1: You know, they do not have the institutional power to
Speaker 1: act any forces upon based upon their prejudice. It's fair
Speaker 1: to say that a mattress cannot be racist. But the
Speaker 1: Washington State Patrol, the Washington now that said, is a
Speaker 1: Washington State Highway patrol of the authority to enact on
Speaker 1: their thoughts. But if it's a mattress, you can feel
Speaker 1: confident knowing that that mattress will never commit a hate crime.
Speaker 1: Probably safe. Maybe I'm not going to say the same
Speaker 1: about oh we're back, so um yeah. The perfect example
Speaker 1: of like how two things too opposing things can be
Speaker 1: true about a person, you know what I'm saying, Like
Speaker 1: that which I'm finding so much more the more that
Speaker 1: I understand, like grow up and just become a more
Speaker 1: mature adult, just like this idea of like you can
Speaker 1: in in one part of your life, be understanding, welcoming,
Speaker 1: you know what I mean, and kind and at the
Speaker 1: same time of vicious monster. And it's like it's not
Speaker 1: it's not that you're protecting it hiding one side of you.
Speaker 1: It's just you're both. And it's like, like you say,
Speaker 1: like this the type of like racism that shows up
Speaker 1: in a person like that, which is difficult when you
Speaker 1: want to do when you want to make history be
Speaker 1: like comic books where you're One of the best examples
Speaker 1: of this is if you look at like if you
Speaker 1: you can find quotes from some of the Americans, and
Speaker 1: I'm assuming the same thing exist in some of the
Speaker 1: Russi and sources of people who liberated concentration camps. And
Speaker 1: we're also pretty anti Semitic, at least prior to that point.
Speaker 1: And like there was like a peard like Patton wrote
Speaker 1: some like weird because he was like had some real
Speaker 1: regressive attitudes towards Jewish people. But it also people could
Speaker 1: be capable of being racist and also look at Auschwitz
Speaker 1: and go what the fun But but that right, like
Speaker 1: because human beings contained multitudes anyway. Um, So Charles Travalli
Speaker 1: in um broadly speaking, one of the better employees of
Speaker 1: the British East India Company, probably from the perspective of
Speaker 1: a lot of people who are indigenous Indians. Not to
Speaker 1: again we're summing up a lot of history here, but
Speaker 1: but broadly speaking, not like not corrupt or anything like that. Certainly,
Speaker 1: So he marries this this broad Hannah McCauley, who was
Speaker 1: the daughter of one of the men who had helped
Speaker 1: to abolish slavery in the British Empire, which is like,
Speaker 1: if your family money comes from slave money, that's a
Speaker 1: nice way of of morally divvying up your inheritance, right,
Speaker 1: you know, marry somebody who helped en slavery. That's good. Um.
Speaker 1: And the two seem to love living on the subcontinent,
Speaker 1: so I I you get the feeling they probably would
Speaker 1: have been happy staying there for the rest of their careers.
Speaker 1: But in eighteen thirty eight they go back to have
Speaker 1: a vacation in England. And like, when you do that
Speaker 1: working for the company, it's like you're you're gone for
Speaker 1: a couple of years, right, because it ain't it's not
Speaker 1: easy to get to England in the eighteen forties. You
Speaker 1: don't like pop back for a holiday. Um, So they
Speaker 1: go back in eighteen thirty eight, and actually in eighteen forty,
Speaker 1: rather than go back to India, he gets a job
Speaker 1: as the Assistant Secretary to the Treasury Um so again
Speaker 1: eighteen forty, not long before the potato blight's kind ahead.
Speaker 1: So he does a bunch of stuff while he's in
Speaker 1: that job. In those first kind of like five years,
Speaker 1: he reduces corruption. He one of the things he does
Speaker 1: is he creates some reforms government. Civil service jobs before
Speaker 1: travalion are heavily based on like who knows who, and
Speaker 1: who your family is and who your friends are, and
Speaker 1: he's a big part of actually changing that so that
Speaker 1: there's legitimate competition for civil service jobs, which is probably good. Um. Again,
Speaker 1: the civil service in this case is a ministering a
Speaker 1: British empire, so you could argue he's just making this
Speaker 1: horrible engine of blood work a bit better, which is
Speaker 1: fair to say to um. But the thing obviously that
Speaker 1: he's going to go down in history for doing is
Speaker 1: the fact that because he's the Assistant Treasury Secretary or whatever,
Speaker 1: he is effectively the management the guy in charge of
Speaker 1: the government's purse strict for any kind of relief efforts
Speaker 1: in Ireland. He's going to be the dude in charge
Speaker 1: of of of that. He's going to basically be the
Speaker 1: point man for Irish relief UM, even though there is
Speaker 1: like there's a relief agency and he's not heading that,
Speaker 1: but he's like, you know, he's the money man essentially. UM.
Speaker 1: His primary concerns then when it came, when this, when this,
Speaker 1: when the potato crops start to fail, when people start
Speaker 1: to go hungry. His primary concern when he's looking at
Speaker 1: AID is to limit British financial exposure in funding relief
Speaker 1: for starving people. UM. He also wants to be the
Speaker 1: fact that he's anti corruption. He's really obsessed with the
Speaker 1: fact that people might get AID that they don't deserve. UM.
Speaker 1: That like government funds might go to people who are
Speaker 1: like conning the government out of it. UM, which is
Speaker 1: like not a non issue, right, like a lot of
Speaker 1: COVID money like got Condata people like yeah, yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you should care about that. But him carrying it is
Speaker 1: part of what leads him to adopt this really lazi
Speaker 1: fair economic policy UM towards famine relief, because the safest
Speaker 1: way to make sure nobody scams AID money is for
Speaker 1: them to not be aid money. Yeah, yeah, it's the
Speaker 1: it's the same, Robert, it's all the same. That's the yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: And like we're not going to get into this a lot,
Speaker 1: but like one of the characteristics of this period is
Speaker 1: like they pass work schemes because you can't just give
Speaker 1: people money to take care of themselves. They have to
Speaker 1: work for it, and so they have. But for a
Speaker 1: variety of complex reasons, having people do things that would
Speaker 1: actually have improved life or infrastructure in Ireland is not popular.
Speaker 1: So a lot of the aid schemes take the form
Speaker 1: of paying people to build roads to nowhere. A lot
Speaker 1: of dumb ship gets done. Do that, Yeah, let's build
Speaker 1: a road. We don't need a road, no one needs
Speaker 1: in the middle of nowhere. A bunch of dumb sh
Speaker 1: it happens like that. Um so because of men like these,
Speaker 1: like all of these guys, we've gone over Peel again.
Speaker 1: This Prime Minister who does the Indian corn deal, he
Speaker 1: has to be really careful with all this stuff. So
Speaker 1: again he's able to avoid running a foul of the
Speaker 1: corn laws. With this initial he imports a hundred thousand
Speaker 1: pounds sterling worth of corn, and he's able to avoid
Speaker 1: running a foul of the corn laws um, and it's
Speaker 1: worth noting in terms of how easy it would have
Speaker 1: been to stop massive starvation and death. The loss of
Speaker 1: the potato crop in Etive is estimated at three and
Speaker 1: a half million pounds. A hundred thousand pounds worth of
Speaker 1: imported corn is able to stop mass famine that year.
Speaker 1: It does not take a lot, like it does not
Speaker 1: take a ton um. But Peel's actions cause outrage among
Speaker 1: his fellow Conservatives. He had himps to repeal the corn
Speaker 1: laws because again he's like, this isn't going to stop
Speaker 1: after a year. We we have to like take some
Speaker 1: more proactive steps. And the resistance to this is so
Speaker 1: titanic that he retires in December of eighteen forty five.
Speaker 1: He's like, I can't, I can't get anywhere with this,
Speaker 1: Like this is nuts. The Duke of Wellington, who's the
Speaker 1: guy who beats Napoleon and is his friend, says I
Speaker 1: have never witnessed such agony as what he sees Peele
Speaker 1: go through trying to get these corn laws repealed. He
Speaker 1: is sort of successful. They do kind of repeal these laws,
Speaker 1: but it's debatable as to how much it helps, because
Speaker 1: a bunch of other ship gets done that like kind
Speaker 1: of minimizes whatever. You know, it doesn't work as well
Speaker 1: as it should have worked. Um. So when Peel quits,
Speaker 1: he's like, funk this ship. I'm I'm out. Queen Queen
Speaker 1: Victoria brings in a member of the opposition, Lord John Russell,
Speaker 1: and she asks him to form an administration and I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna English parliamentary politics are always very frustrating. It
Speaker 1: doesn't work, and Peel gets brought in for six months
Speaker 1: or so before Russell finally does succeed informing a government.
Speaker 1: For most of the famine that follows, Russell's government is
Speaker 1: the one that's in charge. Um. And so guys like
Speaker 1: Coogan will generally say that, like Peel did all right
Speaker 1: at famine relief, um, but Russell is where things really
Speaker 1: got nasty. Now, other analogies I found will point out
Speaker 1: that like a lot of the economic policies that were
Speaker 1: that were used with such disaster in responding to the
Speaker 1: famine were things that Peel had helped to set up
Speaker 1: prior to the famine, and that he actually deserves a
Speaker 1: lot of blame for why it. It's just that once
Speaker 1: it started he was more reasonable. But he did lay
Speaker 1: a lot of the groundwork for why it got so bad.
Speaker 1: So I don't want to be like pretending he was
Speaker 1: just purely a positive figure the past, you know, But
Speaker 1: I'm like, this was a solvable problem, Like every time
Speaker 1: I hear someone like it really was. It was not
Speaker 1: beyond their meats, would not this would not have been
Speaker 1: a blip in history, like it it's an easy problem.
Speaker 1: You hear about stuff like the bubonic play right, which
Speaker 1: kills just this nightmarish chunk of the population, and it's like, yeah,
Speaker 1: looking back in history, we can say, well, if this
Speaker 1: had been seen to that everything, it wouldn't have been
Speaker 1: as bad. But based on their knowledge at the time
Speaker 1: and the level of resources, it's like, I can't I'm
Speaker 1: not like, you can't really be like someone engineered this
Speaker 1: to be so bad, Like no, it was just like
Speaker 1: a thing. It was a it was a thing that
Speaker 1: hit that they were not they were not ever going
Speaker 1: to deal with well, you know, because there just was
Speaker 1: not possible. It's just a plagues happen, you know, um
Speaker 1: and there have been in the past. Again, part of
Speaker 1: why a lot of Irish people get really angry at
Speaker 1: calling it the potato famine. Is that like there have
Speaker 1: been real famines in the fast there's just no food.
Speaker 1: You know. This is not that there was plenty of
Speaker 1: food being made, you know. Um So yeah, um So,
Speaker 1: during this kind of interregnum period almost where Peel quits,
Speaker 1: but then he's back because Russell can't form a government
Speaker 1: during this period of time. Um how to deal with
Speaker 1: the famine becomes the chief question acts of English leaders
Speaker 1: because from eighteen forty six, the plague, the blight only
Speaker 1: gets worse and it becomes clear that like we have
Speaker 1: to figure out a longer term solution to this, like
Speaker 1: we're we're this is not going to get better anytime soon.
Speaker 1: Um So. Travellion travels to Ireland himself during this period
Speaker 1: to like see what's going on. Um and he kind of,
Speaker 1: you know, he does this thing that you see shitty
Speaker 1: journalists do where he like goes to the place where
Speaker 1: the bad thing is happening, and then he only hangs
Speaker 1: around rich people and just kind of writes down whatever
Speaker 1: they say about what's happening to poor people in Ireland.
Speaker 1: Um And he's very pleased that when he goes to
Speaker 1: Ireland he does not encounter anything that makes him feel
Speaker 1: differently about the plague or about the famine. So his
Speaker 1: conclusion is that, um, we shouldn't do anything right. That
Speaker 1: there's there's there's this is like the Irish people's fault
Speaker 1: and you've just got to kind of let this run
Speaker 1: his course. Um. And while this is happening, that guy
Speaker 1: O'Connell we talked about, right, O'Connell still in Parliament. He
Speaker 1: is old and kind of sick at this point, he's
Speaker 1: passed his prime. He's not capable of like really working
Speaker 1: to the same extent that he had, but he's desperately
Speaker 1: trying to get Parliament to do something right. It is
Speaker 1: not the case that everyone in Parliament is just like
Speaker 1: asleep at the wheel. And he's part of like a
Speaker 1: coalition in Parliament who's like, we've got to do something
Speaker 1: and TRAVELI in rites this basically open letter type thing, um,
Speaker 1: where he's like, uh, O'Connell is a demagogue who's trying
Speaker 1: to stir up trouble and it's going to be fine.
Speaker 1: Just just don't we don't got to deal with this ship. Um.
Speaker 1: Near the end of eighteen forty five, O'Connell gets together
Speaker 1: a group of nobles and parliamentarians to suggest that the
Speaker 1: government adopt emergency measures. These included stopping the export of
Speaker 1: food and allowing food to be imported to free of taxes. Right,
Speaker 1: pretty reasonable seeming solution. Um. O'Connell also wants a tax
Speaker 1: on landlords to fund a public works program that will
Speaker 1: give people jobs so they can afford food. Right, he's
Speaker 1: he's like, Okay, you don't want people getting shipped for free.
Speaker 1: What if we tax landlords to fund the public works
Speaker 1: program and then they and buy food and pay their rent. Um.
Speaker 1: This pisses off an awful lot of people. So the
Speaker 1: guy they have to go to for whatever reason of
Speaker 1: parliamentary ship, there's a dude they have to bring this
Speaker 1: proposal to to try to get him to introduce it
Speaker 1: in parliament. He's a he's a motherfucker named Lord Hatesbury.
Speaker 1: Yeah it's hyeah, but like hates Burry, I'm assuming yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is Lord racism. It's done. Um, you've got this
Speaker 1: moment prop where you the this this guy O'Connell. You
Speaker 1: know this this kind of near the end of his
Speaker 1: life when he's sort of fading in his powers as
Speaker 1: a politician, but he's still got like all of this.
Speaker 1: He's kind of the he's the only he's really like
Speaker 1: the only Catholic Irish person with any kind of power,
Speaker 1: right um. And he gets together this group of nobles
Speaker 1: and parliamentarians to try to push this raft of emergency
Speaker 1: measures um, including like stopping the export of food. Allowing
Speaker 1: food to be imported to Ireland free of tacks is
Speaker 1: like really basic ship right again, He's if you wanted
Speaker 1: to kind of put this in modern terms, he's not
Speaker 1: like a far left revolutionary. He's like one of those
Speaker 1: like progressive kinds of democrat type dudes where he's like
Speaker 1: he doesn't want to end he's not trying to end
Speaker 1: the system of landlord I mean, and O'Connell is personally
Speaker 1: more radical than that. But these moves are not super radical.
Speaker 1: Like he's not saying we should up end the landlording
Speaker 1: system and give everyone the land that they live on
Speaker 1: and like change this. He's saying, like what if we
Speaker 1: did these very basic things to stop them from starving
Speaker 1: to death? Right? Like, these are not radical change minimum
Speaker 1: that there needs to be a term called that very
Speaker 1: and I think honestly O'Connell is more of one, um.
Speaker 1: But but he's he's also very pragmatic, right, and he's
Speaker 1: old too. He has tried the more radical ship. He
Speaker 1: did try to like separate Ireland from England. That ship failed.
Speaker 1: So now he's just like, can we tax the landlords
Speaker 1: to fund a public works program so people can afford
Speaker 1: to buy food? Right? Like you know, which is fair enough?
Speaker 1: Like what it like? It's not like anything did work
Speaker 1: in this period of the rich. Yeah, I'm not gonna
Speaker 1: blame the guy for trying more moderate. There's a fun
Speaker 1: moment with this dude O'Connell. Fun not the the right word,
Speaker 1: but if I'm remembering correctly, this is just something I read.
Speaker 1: It's not in the script, but like there's a moment
Speaker 1: when he's talking about trying to end the Act of
Speaker 1: Union and separate Ireland in the UK, and some some
Speaker 1: like poor peasant Farmer sees him and like calls him
Speaker 1: the liberator and he's like, is this what you do
Speaker 1: for a living? And the guy's like yeah, and he's like,
Speaker 1: then why do you care? Like your life's not going
Speaker 1: to change at all if we there're still going to
Speaker 1: be rich people lording over you and stuff. So I
Speaker 1: think he is he is personally like he's pretty aware
Speaker 1: of things, but he's also very much let's see what
Speaker 1: we can do within the confines of this system kind
Speaker 1: of dude. So, for whatever reason, British Parliamentary Ship, neither
Speaker 1: of us are experts on that, and it's not really important.
Speaker 1: The guy who has to make the suggestions in Parliament
Speaker 1: or whatever to try and get this this series of
Speaker 1: emergency measures together is a dude named Lord hate Spury. Um. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: and I know that, yeah h E y t E s.
Speaker 1: But it is it is funny because he's pretty hateful,
Speaker 1: um my lord. So he yeah, they send this like
Speaker 1: very modest list of requests to him, and he's like
Speaker 1: the absolutely the funk not. Um, yes, yeah, of course.
Speaker 1: And his justification is and this will sound familiar to
Speaker 1: anyone who's lived through a plague in the last couple
Speaker 1: of years. Um. I don't know who that applies to,
Speaker 1: but I'm sure a couple of people. He's like, look, yeah,
Speaker 1: some of the information about this famine sounds really bad,
Speaker 1: but some people like Travellion are saying it's fine. So
Speaker 1: we can't know whether or not it's a problem, and
Speaker 1: we shouldn't do anything until we get more information. Listen, listen,
Speaker 1: I can see out my window because Ireland is a
Speaker 1: mile and a half away. Yeah, it is thirty ft
Speaker 1: to the left. Yes, but this fool saying is not that.
Speaker 1: So there's no way of knowing. It's not like any
Speaker 1: of us could just go to Ireland. Yeah we couldn't.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, no Travallion went to Ireland, he says,
Speaker 1: it's all right. Oh yeah, the hommy win he said
Speaker 1: it was cool. Yeah, oh my lord, it's very it's
Speaker 1: not funny, but it's you know, yeah, we can't know.
Speaker 1: We gotta, we gotta, we gotta hold up, we gotta
Speaker 1: hold up's wait for some more info. Is ron Bergen
Speaker 1: so in the well the direct translation has been lost
Speaker 1: in time. It means Saint diego. Yeah, so eighteen forty six, um,
Speaker 1: you know, you have eighteen forty five, you lose like
Speaker 1: a third of the crop thereabouts, and then people have
Speaker 1: to eat a lot of their seed potatoes and stuff,
Speaker 1: and so eighteen forty six they plant what little they have.
Speaker 1: But the potato bug moves in again right that where
Speaker 1: it's not really a bug, it's a fungus, but like
Speaker 1: it hits again, and it hits really hard this time,
Speaker 1: and that year the harvest fails pretty much entirely. Basically,
Speaker 1: a lot of people get nothing right, a lot of
Speaker 1: folks get absolutely meaningfully nothing um, and a lot of
Speaker 1: because they're starving. So one of the fund up things
Speaker 1: about this, if you've ever seen like potatoes that have
Speaker 1: gotten affected by this, they often you could like pull
Speaker 1: them out of the ground and they'll look fine, like
Speaker 1: they look like a normal potato, and then you like
Speaker 1: grab them and they'll just like mush apart in your hands,
Speaker 1: and it it's this reeking, filthy, rotting goop soup of
Speaker 1: potato stuff. It's nasty and it's no nutritional value in this,
Speaker 1: but people are so desperate that they eat them that there,
Speaker 1: and of course that gets people sick when some people
Speaker 1: guy as a result of that and stuff. But like
Speaker 1: that's the level of desperation they are, where like there's
Speaker 1: this rotting, massive potato and you're like, fuck it, let's
Speaker 1: try um, or maybe we can try and cut a
Speaker 1: piece off and maybe that'll be a little bit you know. Um.
Speaker 1: People are very desperate. And of course this is so
Speaker 1: bad that like last year, people have to eat their
Speaker 1: seed potatoes right in order to like make ends meat
Speaker 1: and get something in their bellies this year, so little
Speaker 1: gets harvested at all that there's just not seed potatoes
Speaker 1: for a lot of people. Right, Um, so there's not
Speaker 1: only did the crop fail, but people are like, what
Speaker 1: the funk are we gonna plan next year? You know.
Speaker 1: Even so, even as desperate as the situation is, the
Speaker 1: government holds against the idea of of stopping the export
Speaker 1: of food, right, and their justification is that the Irish grain,
Speaker 1: so the grain that these people who are starving grew,
Speaker 1: is more expensive than they can afford. They can't afford
Speaker 1: to pay for the grain that they grew, they just
Speaker 1: grew that they grew, They can't afford that. So if
Speaker 1: it's kept in country, the government's going to have to
Speaker 1: have to subsidize its purchase in order for people Irish
Speaker 1: people to afford the grain that again they grew, that
Speaker 1: wetzel like this just the oh gosh, this is again.
Speaker 1: This is why Irish people get so pissed when it
Speaker 1: is referred to as a potato famine, because there's no
Speaker 1: fucking famine. Really, like there's a famine and like, yes,
Speaker 1: people are starving to death, but like there shouldn't have been,
Speaker 1: Like it wasn't that all of the food failed, you know, dog? Yeah,
Speaker 1: it just yeah, how are you? Yeah? Man, just the
Speaker 1: getting the getting the words out of your brain with
Speaker 1: a straight face to be like, well, I mean they
Speaker 1: can't afford they can't afford it, so we can't get Yeah,
Speaker 1: what do we what are we gonna do? We're gonna
Speaker 1: do dogs, I can't afford it. And it's like I
Speaker 1: can't afford what what they just gave us? What are
Speaker 1: we gonna do? Pay people to stay home so the
Speaker 1: plague doesn't spread? Absolutely not not, it doesn't. You know.
Speaker 1: Elite logic is similar in all times. It's just the same.
Speaker 1: And again I'm like, you're this is the longest, most
Speaker 1: horrible route to a very simple solution. It's just over
Speaker 1: why you can just be like, hey, look tell you
Speaker 1: what next month, just keep just just keep the grain. Okay,
Speaker 1: just keep the grain and we'll we'll we'll build back
Speaker 1: next month. Okay, just keep the grain. Is month will
Speaker 1: be cool. Well that's the thing, like O'Connell suggesting there's
Speaker 1: a way to deal with this that keeps the elites
Speaker 1: in power. If that's your concern, where you're like, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, government's going to pay your rent un
Speaker 1: till this thing's over. You know, we got you that way.
Speaker 1: Your landlords are still in charge. We're not sucking up
Speaker 1: the system. They get to stay. But that it would
Speaker 1: be too much, and it's so stupid because I'm just like,
Speaker 1: what the hell you care? Whose name on the check?
Speaker 1: Don't you just want? One of the people who really
Speaker 1: cares is Charles Travelli in Um and he is firm
Speaker 1: that you cannot subsident you can't prohibit exports, and you
Speaker 1: can't subsidize the purchase of the grain that was grown
Speaker 1: in Ireland. He writes, do not encourage the idea of
Speaker 1: prohibiting exports. Perfect free trade is the right course. I'm
Speaker 1: just like, okay, why like why just like tell tell
Speaker 1: me why? So just okay. It's because anytime you hear
Speaker 1: people talking about lazi, fair economics, free market ship, Adam Smith,
Speaker 1: it's a religion, you know, it is a religion. It's
Speaker 1: a religion. Everything is. But when you when you say okay,
Speaker 1: when you look at like this is another reason why
Speaker 1: like I had I had such a hard time like
Speaker 1: like passing these exams, because when you say, when you
Speaker 1: build an economic model, you build it on you know
Speaker 1: that the mythical average man. Yeah, so this is the
Speaker 1: average man. So who is the average man? He's thirty
Speaker 1: two point one years old, he's got two point five
Speaker 1: children and three and a half like pets, and and
Speaker 1: I'm like, the person you're modeling your whole model off
Speaker 1: doesn't exist. That's not no one has two point five kids.
Speaker 1: So I'm like, how are you setting? How is this?
Speaker 1: I don't understand how you can think any of this
Speaker 1: makes any sense if you building your model off a
Speaker 1: person that will never be. But you're but you're setting everybody.
Speaker 1: And I'm like, I get what you're saying, well when
Speaker 1: you average all this stuff out, but but listen to yourself,
Speaker 1: like you're what do you mean average that your model
Speaker 1: is for? It is for a made up person that
Speaker 1: could never exist in real life because nobody again I
Speaker 1: can't swess this, and this is nobody got two and
Speaker 1: a half kids. This is the thing where it it is,
Speaker 1: It gets to it's it's not rational, right. These people
Speaker 1: are very obsessed with the idea of like rationality and
Speaker 1: that this is a science, but it's not because when
Speaker 1: problems of reality can conflict with what they believe about economics,
Speaker 1: they are incapable of adapting to that change your model. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not everyone is same thing with like anything, Like with
Speaker 1: a normal religion, there are some people who like are
Speaker 1: raised believing something and then like they reached something conflicts
Speaker 1: and they managed to without losing their faith. Adapted Peel
Speaker 1: might be a good example, that first Prime Minister who
Speaker 1: is very much in with this Lasa fair stuff, but
Speaker 1: when the disaster hits, he makes alterations because he sees that, like,
Speaker 1: not everyone is this way, but a lot of these
Speaker 1: guys like Travalian are. They cannot countants violating some of
Speaker 1: these economic principles that they believe in um And maybe
Speaker 1: you could argue that they just really hate Irish people
Speaker 1: and want to get rid of them, and that's the justification, right.
Speaker 1: And I'm like you prexellent, all this ridiculous stuff just
Speaker 1: to say what we already know about you. And I'm
Speaker 1: just like you, Okay, you just hate them. You don't
Speaker 1: think they humans, and you frustrated that they actually need
Speaker 1: food to give you what you need, and you ain't
Speaker 1: health them motive, you just you hate them. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: just you doing all this stuff that you and I
Speaker 1: both know sitting across here, what the hell you say?
Speaker 1: And don't make no sense? You know it, don't you know?
Speaker 1: A don't so just but you're gonna keep making it
Speaker 1: makes sense rather than just saying oh yeah yeah. And
Speaker 1: that's that's where we're gonna leave for part two. And
Speaker 1: when part three starts up, things are gonna get real unpleasant,
Speaker 1: real quick. But prop, yes, before we hit that that
Speaker 1: moment you want to plug some plug doubles, I do, man, Uh,
Speaker 1: I am all my all my socials. I am PROP
Speaker 1: hip hop. Although I've been called before prop e hop
Speaker 1: and I'm like they're putting the P with the H.
Speaker 1: So they're prop because you're the professor of of of
Speaker 1: of hip hip hop apparently. Uh, I don't know how, y'all.
Speaker 1: I don't know how, y'all? What or whatever? Prop hip
Speaker 1: hop dot com And again at there's a Music and
Speaker 1: Books and hood politics pod. Uh yeah, I saw that,
Speaker 1: saw things all right. We'll check that out and uh
Speaker 1: check out Ireland when it's possible to go places without
Speaker 1: the plague. It's it's pretty nice, pretty nice spot. I am,
Speaker 1: oh Galway, good Town and trim Coast, lovely, A lot
Speaker 1: of good stuff in Ireland. Fast oh I do like
Speaker 1: Belfast it is. It is the city. I've been there twice,
Speaker 1: and both times I have been to Belfast, there just
Speaker 1: happened to be riots for different unrelated reasons. I love
Speaker 1: Belfast it is. It is a thing that happens a
Speaker 1: lot in Belfast. Love it like I've never met nobody. Yes,
Speaker 1: we're supposed to be closing this show, but I can't
Speaker 1: say it is like the way I've always felt like.
Speaker 1: It's very simple, Like Belfast remind me of Long Beach
Speaker 1: in a sense that I've never met somebody from that
Speaker 1: city that I didn't like. Well, I was just like,
Speaker 1: I don't know what it is about your city, but
Speaker 1: you just make very likable people. You're dangerous, say it
Speaker 1: like you you are. I know that you could somewhere
Speaker 1: in that smile. It's into humor is a old blood
Speaker 1: and murder. Yeah, there's there's a town. As a town.
Speaker 1: You are good at making Molotov cocktails. That's what I'm
Speaker 1: trying to say. People. A lot of people with experience
Speaker 1: melting British armored vehicles anyway. Podcast