Key Arguments

• Ireland suffered massive depopulation (millions dead or emigrated)
• Despite this, the relative surplus population and misery remained or increased
• The 'equilibrium' was not re-established; instead, the rich accumulated more

Source Quotes

And, however small its absolute increase, its relative growth, in proportion to the diminishing population, was tremendous. Here then, under our own eyes, and on a large scale, there emerges a process which perfectly corresponds to the requirements of orthodox economics for the confirmation of its dogma, the dogma that misery springs from an absolute surplus of population, and that equilibrium is re-established by depopulation. This is a far more important experiment than the mid-fourteenth-century plague so celebrated by the Malthusians.

On this side of the Channel, the plague and the decimation that accompanied it was followed by the enfranchisement and enrichment of the agricultural population; whereas on the other side, in France, it was followed by a greater degree of enslavement and an increase in misery. The Irish famine of 1846 killed more than 1,000,000 people, but it killed poor devils only. It did not do the slightest damage to the

Key Concepts

• process which perfectly corresponds to the requirements of orthodox economics for the confirmation of its dogma
• dogma that misery springs from an absolute surplus of population
• Irish famine of 1846 killed more than 1,000,000 people, but it killed poor devils only

Context

Marx using the Irish case study to attack Malthusian population theory