I really enjoyed this! Thank you for featuring my work.
You did, however, miss the most important part of Cobbett's argument, which is the cost of fuel, despite that you mention my now living in an industrialized society with easy access to food etc, which makes the difference in our access to technology profoundly important to the argument. He most of all says it is fuel costs that makes the math not work.
Further, the time spent by women boiling potatoes, as well as the quality of life difference in living off of bread compared to boiled potatoes.
Thanks for reading and commenting! I skipped over the cost of fuel and the claim that potatoes are more work, it's true. I feel like I don't know enough about the logistics there. But I can sort-of-kind-of rebut it using a tactic Cobbett's critics were fond of even in his day:
"For, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the fuel for heating the oven costs very little. The hedgers, the copsers, the woodmen of all descriptions, have fuel for little or nothing."
Yes for the hedgers, copsers, and woodsman, ie people who work in that industry and bring it home from work. He makes it quite clear that the potato policy was primarily aimed at the growing proletariat who earn a wage and buy all of their supplies.
Also you’ll be happy to know I don’t get medical advice from William Cobbett, I get all of my medical advice from Old Cato.
That line about fuel costs being negligible is in the "why you should buy flour and bake bread at home" section, just one paragraph after the "don't eat potatoes" section, which in Cottage Economy doesn't mention fuel costs at all. (You can read this online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32863/32863-h/32863-h.htm). Cobbett is telling everyone not to eat potatoes, not just the (by his lights) 1% for whom fuel is expensive. It looks to me like he decided the fuel cost argument wasn't valid, some time in the ~2 years between his last anti-potato essay and this one. In this one, his argument is that potatoes are gross and require very little skill to prepare, which is bad for your childrens' work ethic, and somehow he also still argues that potatoes are too much work, overlooking the standard solution where you make your young kids do it.
The Cottage Economy is an advice book about running a small farmstead and only applies to people running a small farmstead (which he does generally recommend)
What you want is his “Letter to the Editor of the Agricultural Magazine”
William Cobbett opposed the policy widely promoted by the elites of switching the staple food of the poor from bread to potatoes, which every “very serious person” supported. He was radicalized against the potato generally because he received constant hate mail about it and everyone was retarded. He says directly if you choose to eat potatos because you like them that is your own issue but to not subject the poor to this on a nationwide scale out of ignorant do-gooding.
Sure, I've read that too, and his notes when he reprinted it in "A Year's Residence in the United States." He definitely advises everyone to avoid potatoes if they have any choice in the matter. In that letter, when he brings up fuel costs, he's explicitly talking about a farmhouse, but he also goes on to say that "the fuel...would cost, in any part of the kingdom, more than would keep a family, even in baker's bread." This was definitely not true in general. It might have been true for some corner of the kingdom or other, but I remain skeptical--if you're someone who can pay a baker to bake bread, surely you can also pay them to bake your potatoes and benefit from the same economies of scale. Even in the original letter, he acknowledges that "the chief ground of my antipathy to this root is, that it tends to debase the common people" by having them eat the same food as their livestock. The fuel cost thing is just one of many rationalizations he tried out, alongside potatoes being too much work, too little work, giving you scrofula, and making you stupider.
He refers to them as "labouring" men in the example and is explicit that they are buying all of their supplies, which includes endless unpaid labor for women and a large variety of risks, inconveniences, and safety hazards
Regardless it was obvious from the outset that you consider yourself among the class of very serious people who are well positioned to tell the poor how they should live their lives, so further conversation here is pointless.
I really enjoyed this! Thank you for featuring my work.
You did, however, miss the most important part of Cobbett's argument, which is the cost of fuel, despite that you mention my now living in an industrialized society with easy access to food etc, which makes the difference in our access to technology profoundly important to the argument. He most of all says it is fuel costs that makes the math not work.
Further, the time spent by women boiling potatoes, as well as the quality of life difference in living off of bread compared to boiled potatoes.
Thanks for reading and commenting! I skipped over the cost of fuel and the claim that potatoes are more work, it's true. I feel like I don't know enough about the logistics there. But I can sort-of-kind-of rebut it using a tactic Cobbett's critics were fond of even in his day:
"For, ninety-nine times out of a hundred, the fuel for heating the oven costs very little. The hedgers, the copsers, the woodmen of all descriptions, have fuel for little or nothing."
William Cobbett, Cottage Economy. 1821
Yes for the hedgers, copsers, and woodsman, ie people who work in that industry and bring it home from work. He makes it quite clear that the potato policy was primarily aimed at the growing proletariat who earn a wage and buy all of their supplies.
Also you’ll be happy to know I don’t get medical advice from William Cobbett, I get all of my medical advice from Old Cato.
That line about fuel costs being negligible is in the "why you should buy flour and bake bread at home" section, just one paragraph after the "don't eat potatoes" section, which in Cottage Economy doesn't mention fuel costs at all. (You can read this online at https://www.gutenberg.org/files/32863/32863-h/32863-h.htm). Cobbett is telling everyone not to eat potatoes, not just the (by his lights) 1% for whom fuel is expensive. It looks to me like he decided the fuel cost argument wasn't valid, some time in the ~2 years between his last anti-potato essay and this one. In this one, his argument is that potatoes are gross and require very little skill to prepare, which is bad for your childrens' work ethic, and somehow he also still argues that potatoes are too much work, overlooking the standard solution where you make your young kids do it.
The Cottage Economy is an advice book about running a small farmstead and only applies to people running a small farmstead (which he does generally recommend)
What you want is his “Letter to the Editor of the Agricultural Magazine”
William Cobbett opposed the policy widely promoted by the elites of switching the staple food of the poor from bread to potatoes, which every “very serious person” supported. He was radicalized against the potato generally because he received constant hate mail about it and everyone was retarded. He says directly if you choose to eat potatos because you like them that is your own issue but to not subject the poor to this on a nationwide scale out of ignorant do-gooding.
Sure, I've read that too, and his notes when he reprinted it in "A Year's Residence in the United States." He definitely advises everyone to avoid potatoes if they have any choice in the matter. In that letter, when he brings up fuel costs, he's explicitly talking about a farmhouse, but he also goes on to say that "the fuel...would cost, in any part of the kingdom, more than would keep a family, even in baker's bread." This was definitely not true in general. It might have been true for some corner of the kingdom or other, but I remain skeptical--if you're someone who can pay a baker to bake bread, surely you can also pay them to bake your potatoes and benefit from the same economies of scale. Even in the original letter, he acknowledges that "the chief ground of my antipathy to this root is, that it tends to debase the common people" by having them eat the same food as their livestock. The fuel cost thing is just one of many rationalizations he tried out, alongside potatoes being too much work, too little work, giving you scrofula, and making you stupider.
He refers to them as "labouring" men in the example and is explicit that they are buying all of their supplies, which includes endless unpaid labor for women and a large variety of risks, inconveniences, and safety hazards
Regardless it was obvious from the outset that you consider yourself among the class of very serious people who are well positioned to tell the poor how they should live their lives, so further conversation here is pointless.