> were the Nazis and the Soviets to unite they would have canned the Americans a few times over
Something about that analogy is off. In case we forgot, in the 1800s, the British were the guys advocating and initiating ethnic cleansing of "inferior races" via engineered famines. Various parts of British occupied East India lost a third or more of their population. It was only that regions good fortune of having virulent tropical diseases that kept the British out. The indigenous people in Australia, New Zealand, and other places were not so lucky. The world might have been a better place if the Marathas and the Tipus of the world had united to prevent the subsequent genocides and massive loss and waste of human potential in South Asia.
I'm not disagreeing, it's the first I've heard of it really.
There's plenty there to suggest capitalism was working as intended... extracting all the wealth created by others labour, leaving too little for good infrastructure.
Churchill: Personally, I am not greatly concerned about Russian development in China. I would rather have them develop in that way down south into India. I believe in the ultimate partition of China—I mean ultimate. I hope we shall not have to do it in our day. The Aryan stock is bound to triumph.
Churchill: I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place.
> I don't see details to indicate famine was engineered for ethnic cleansing
We have to be careful to view this from the broad system level perspective. We have individuals like Churchill who expressed a clear racial belief system. A belief system where they believed, and even directly stated it was their manifest destiny to extinguish inferior races. In their positions of power, through intentional actions (and alleged inactions), they caused large numbers of their prey/victims to die. Should we attribute that to "capitalism was working as intended" or should we actually call a spade a spade and recognize that these men had agency and did these things consciously or at best sub-consciously to achieve lebensraum for their preferred race.
You said in the 1800s that their was engineering of famines in order to carry out ethnic cleansing.
So neither "it was maybe subconscious", nor Churchill fits in there.
FWIW those quotes to me sound more like "I'm not going to apologise for what I consider natural selection". Perhaps it's the lack of context, could you cite the works those quotes are from?
There's a World of difference between being unapologetic that your "race" has won-out genetically and "we're going to systematically wipe out humans who lack what we consider to be ideal characteristics".
> Your example, while certainly a good one, is from 1943, rather late considering the empire would start shrinking and decolonizing in 45.
Again, as mentioned, I gave the 1943 example to point out how recent such colonial actions and attempts at ethnic cleansing were. There are people alive today who suffered through that.
There's ample examples of other genocides via famine performed by the English against ethnic groups they were subjugating at the time. For one closer to home, lets look at the English activity behind the Irish famine.
"The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people"
"Famine is an effective mechanism for reducing surplus population"
As usual, such individuals used all manner of tools to justify the genocide of any ethnic group they deemed "inferior". In this case, the Irish. It is telling that one of the major tools was that precise instrument of religion with Trevelyan even describing the famine and subsequent mass death as an instrument of God.
I'm not sure it really works to consider the Irish, my own recent ancestors, as ethnically differentiated from the British. The Tudors were seemingly descended from Irish Scots who conquered Gwynedd in the first millennium CE, for example. But I that doesn't matter, it's what the controlling forces at the time thought.
I'm not well versed in the Potato Famine but I understood it was primarily about rich landlords and wealthy Britons caring naught for any poor people. Confounded with "Catholic vs Protestant" tribalism.
Though Trevelyan appeared to believe strictly in hands-off pure Capitalism and didn't seemingly worry about religious affiliation ("Protestant and Catholic will freely fall and the land will be for the survivors.") which was a proxy for being "English" vs Irish.
We've switched to a different sort of evil perpetrated for different reasons on different people in a different time; the natural conclusion is that you erred in your initial claim and so are trying to bolster your conclusion with other information?
If you want to say British controlling powers have been involved in genocides, motivated at least in part by racial or xenophobic hate, then you'll get no opposition from me. But 'multiple generations coordinating to create conditions in which a famine can kill' as a mode of ethnic cleansing? I'm not seeing it in the argument you're making.
Something about that analogy is off. In case we forgot, in the 1800s, the British were the guys advocating and initiating ethnic cleansing of "inferior races" via engineered famines. Various parts of British occupied East India lost a third or more of their population. It was only that regions good fortune of having virulent tropical diseases that kept the British out. The indigenous people in Australia, New Zealand, and other places were not so lucky. The world might have been a better place if the Marathas and the Tipus of the world had united to prevent the subsequent genocides and massive loss and waste of human potential in South Asia.