Was the Irsih Potato famine real.........................

[james armstrong]

Can we universalise the problem?

ALMOST ONE HUNDRED YEARS LATER , in 1942 the British Government of Indiabad harvests , in theperson of Viceroy Linlithgow, his relatives live in  Hopetoun House Queensferry near Edinburgh,  authorised
tehcontinued  export of  rice from Calcutta  to other parts of Indi when there was a localised food shortage in that area of Bengal.   Prof. Amarteus Sen, now at Cambridge, witnessed this as a child, and draws the lesson that bad harvests and  food shortages are as old as history but it takes human incompetence to turn them into famines.
I genuinely believe that Linlithgow was incompetent, but acting from good motives.
Someidiots still believe that there are such things as perfect markets and they shoud be worshipped, when experience tells that humankind plot daily to 'make a corner' and screw up the market. Monopolies used agaisnt thepublic interest are the universal reality, which justifies the most  pro-active,interventionist regulatory system. 
james