UK Politics Thread IX: The Masses Against the Classes

[Ifreann]

I don't know which take I like less, "The British Empire did loads of crimes but it was all for the best" or "The British Empire did loads of crimes but who cares".

How about: let's use the British Empire as a scapegoat so we can loot our own people and they think our terrible management is due to something that happened 50 years ago.

I'm sure it'll all be for the best. Or maybe it won't, but who cares?

[The Nihilistic view]

How about: let's use the British Empire as a scapegoat so we can loot our own people and they think our terrible management is due to something that happened 50 years ago.

I'm sure it'll all be for the best. Or maybe it won't, but who cares?

I don't care what the British did for them. I'm just here for the wolf's nipple chips!

[Heloin]

Ireland received a similar amount proportionately.

Germany was not built through the Marshall Plan. That is a ridiculous characterisation (and not one that anyone believes either.)

Of course I'm over simplifying, you are asking questions that are unbelievable complicated but phrasing them like there a checkmate against anyone who rightly thinks that Imperialism and colonialism was bad for the regions and people it occurred to.

West Germany's infrastructure is largely rebuilt under the Marshall Plan. During this German industry and trade increased with the help of the British, French, and Americans. Finally best of all for the FRG they haven't had a major war or political crisis since WW2 in there borders.

[Senegalboy]

5.India did develop but slowly because pakistan had the majority of Punjab which is extremely fertile so in the 1960s Pakistan was the most developed of the two. But under Rajiv Gandhi, India started to develop and now has a GDP of 2.597 trillion nearly surpassing the UK.
7.Don't know to be honest

India is not a developed country lmfao.

Some countries go through very rapid industrialisation & development and emerge at the end of one, two, or even three generations as totally unrecognisable from before. Contrast Korea, totally oppressed by Japan, and New Zealand - a white settler dominion - with the subcontinent:
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explo ... &ind=false (yeah its nominal in USD but its still very indicative)

You can't answer the two most important questions.

They weren't questions that demanded direct responses. They form a point: looking at the political & economic processes after and before imperialism is way more useful than giving it moral judgments - especially because none of the people involved are alive today. Why is India's per capita GDP incredibly low whereas Korea or Taiwans is respectable?

Firstly,I already said that the answers were oversimplified.
New Zealand as you said was a White Settler Dominion specifically a British settler dominion.Because of this,The New Zealanders inherited stable political Institutions and political stability is linked to economic stability. Whilst the Indians did not inherit such systems as they were previously under a system which was not centred on democracy but on the Viceroy.The Indians also were disadvantaged due to the mass pillage that occurred under British rule. The British stole an estimated 45 trillion dollars from India during their time in India.Before Colonisation,India's economy made up 23% of the world's economy but by 1947 it only made up 4% of the world's economy.
The British introduced the Ideas of Entrepreneurship,Mercantile capitalism and Innovation.Another factor of New Zealand's high development was the influx of Scientists,Economists,Academics and other highly skilled and literate Migrants from the UK who contributed greatly to the New Zealand economy and the Business Acumen and ambition of Immigrants proved to be advantageous to New Zealand.

[Ostroeuropa]

India is not a developed country lmfao.

Some countries go through very rapid industrialisation & development and emerge at the end of one, two, or even three generations as totally unrecognisable from before. Contrast Korea, totally oppressed by Japan, and New Zealand - a white settler dominion - with the subcontinent:
https://www.google.com/publicdata/explo ... &ind=false (yeah its nominal in USD but its still very indicative)

You can't answer the two most important questions.

They weren't questions that demanded direct responses. They form a point: looking at the political & economic processes after and before imperialism is way more useful than giving it moral judgments - especially because none of the people involved are alive today. Why is India's per capita GDP incredibly low whereas Korea or Taiwans is respectable?

Firstly,I already said that the answers were oversimplified.
New Zealand as you said was a White Settler Dominion specifically a British settler dominion.Because of this,The New Zealanders inherited stable political Institutions and political stability is linked to economic stability. Whilst the Indians did not inherit such systems as they were previously under a system which was not centred on democracy but on the Viceroy.The Indians also were disadvantaged due to the mass pillage that occurred under British rule. The British stole an estimated 45 trillion dollars from India during their time in India.Before Colonisation,India's economy made up 23% of the world's economy but by 1947 it only made up 4% of the world's economy.
The British introduced the Ideas of Entrepreneurship,Mercantile capitalism and Innovation.Another factor of New Zealand's high development was the influx of Scientists,Economists,Academics and other highly skilled and literate Migrants from the UK who contributed greatly to the New Zealand economy and the Business Acumen and ambition of Immigrants proved to be advantageous to New Zealand.

We also fucked over Ireland repeatedly and harsly. You can't blame Britain for the state of the colonies by this point. The only reason people do is because those colonies keep electing hucksters who blame the west for their piss poor administration and corruption.

[Ostroeuropa]

Ireland received a similar amount proportionately.

Germany was not built through the Marshall Plan. That is a ridiculous characterisation (and not one that anyone believes either.)

Of course I'm over simplifying, you are asking questions that are unbelievable complicated but phrasing them like there a checkmate against anyone who rightly thinks that Imperialism and colonialism was bad for the regions and people it occurred to.

West Germany's infrastructure is largely rebuilt under the Marshall Plan. During this German industry and trade increased with the help of the British, French, and Americans. Finally best of all for the FRG they haven't had a major war or political crisis since WW2 in there borders.

We give billions in aid to former colonies, and probably trillions over the decades since decolonization, substantially more than the Marshall plan. Some colonies have done very well, some mediocre, some poorly.

[Novus America]

Ethiopia is a mess. Thailand is not great either. Sure they are better than some former colonies but worse off than others.

In fairness, Ethiopia wasn't much helped by the Italian occupation pre-WW2 and the subsequent Soviet backed takeover during the Cold War.

Sure. My point is that the situation is much more complicated than simply whether or not they were a colony.

[Senegalboy]

Firstly,I already said that the answers were oversimplified.
New Zealand as you said was a White Settler Dominion specifically a British settler dominion.Because of this,The New Zealanders inherited stable political Institutions and political stability is linked to economic stability. Whilst the Indians did not inherit such systems as they were previously under a system which was not centred on democracy but on the Viceroy.The Indians also were disadvantaged due to the mass pillage that occurred under British rule. The British stole an estimated 45 trillion dollars from India during their time in India.Before Colonisation,India's economy made up 23% of the world's economy but by 1947 it only made up 4% of the world's economy.
The British introduced the Ideas of Entrepreneurship,Mercantile capitalism and Innovation.Another factor of New Zealand's high development was the influx of Scientists,Economists,Academics and other highly skilled and literate Migrants from the UK who contributed greatly to the New Zealand economy and the Business Acumen and ambition of Immigrants proved to be advantageous to New Zealand.

We also fucked over Ireland repeatedly and harsly. You can't blame Britain for the state of the colonies by this point. The only reason people do is because those colonies keep electing hucksters who blame the west for their piss poor administration and corruption.

Every action has an effect.
Britain took 45 trillion dollars from India and the effect is that India became poorer and financially unstable leading to it's current state.You can't not blame Britain for the state of India because it's actions have negatively impacted India and has limited the growth of the Indian economy to such an extent that India hasn't recovered after 72 years of independence.

[Ostroeuropa]

We also fucked over Ireland repeatedly and harsly. You can't blame Britain for the state of the colonies by this point. The only reason people do is because those colonies keep electing hucksters who blame the west for their piss poor administration and corruption.

Every action has an effect.
Britain took 45 trillion dollars from India and the effect is that India became poorer and financially unstable leading to it's current state.You can't not blame Britain for the state of India because it's actions have negatively impacted India and has limited the growth of the Indian economy to such an extent that India hasn't recovered after 72 years of independence.

You can conclude that Britain has some responsibility, but so does India, and Britains responsibility is diminishing as time goes on.

Know what it is?

A permanent excuse like the EU was, but without the problem of it suddenly resulting in leaving.

Elites just blame their own mediocrity and failure on the EU and people just go "makes sense to me!", much like blaming a long dead empire.

[Senegalboy]

Every action has an effect.
Britain took 45 trillion dollars from India and the effect is that India became poorer and financially unstable leading to it's current state.You can't not blame Britain for the state of India because it's actions have negatively impacted India and has limited the growth of the Indian economy to such an extent that India hasn't recovered after 72 years of independence.

You can conclude that Britain has some responsibility, but so does India, and Britains responsibility is diminishing as time goes on.

Know what it is?

A permanent excuse like the EU was, but without the problem of it suddenly resulting in leaving.

Elites just blame their own mediocrity and failure on the EU and people just go "makes sense to me!", much like blaming a long dead empire.

But India isn't to blame for the loss of 45 trillion actually India's leaders have actually caused the country to grow from a poor nation with a GDP of 39.1 billion USD to a potential superpower with a GDP of 2.597 trillion USD.

[Ostroeuropa]

You can conclude that Britain has some responsibility, but so does India, and Britains responsibility is diminishing as time goes on.

Know what it is?

A permanent excuse like the EU was, but without the problem of it suddenly resulting in leaving.

Elites just blame their own mediocrity and failure on the EU and people just go "makes sense to me!", much like blaming a long dead empire.

But India isn't to blame for the loss of 45 trillion actually India's leaders have actually caused the country to grow from a poor nation with a GDP of 39.1 billion USD to a potential superpower with a GDP of 2.597 trillion USD.

The figure of 45 trillion is misleading. For one thing it includes money resulting from British technology and so on, and ignores the expenses involved in maintaining law and order, a standing army, and so on. If India were worth keeping occupied, we'd have kept it. Eventually, it turned a loss, so we left. The scale of the wealth the empire took was not sufficient to outweigh the scale of the costs to occupation. The costs of maintaining law and order and so on in India are lessened by local governance, but not eradicated.

[Vassenor]

Maybe we should be taking some notes from the Swiss - Court overturns referendum as voters were poorly informed

[The Nihilistic view]

You can conclude that Britain has some responsibility, but so does India, and Britains responsibility is diminishing as time goes on.

Know what it is?

A permanent excuse like the EU was, but without the problem of it suddenly resulting in leaving.

Elites just blame their own mediocrity and failure on the EU and people just go "makes sense to me!", much like blaming a long dead empire.

But India isn't to blame for the loss of 45 trillion actually India's leaders have actually caused the country to grow from a poor nation with a GDP of 39.1 billion USD to a potential superpower with a GDP of 2.597 trillion USD.

It's gone from a poor country to a slightly less poor country. Per capita it's what about $2000? I earned nearly double that for my Sunday job as a teen. I don't mean to rub it in to any Indians just trying to give some perspective. The overall output of a country means nothing without looking at it's size, population, whether it receives aid and what the aid is for both from governments or charities, does it give or recive more in its recent history. And many more things besides.

The median wage is even worse it's something like $500-600, which coincidentally is roughly the adjusted per capita GDP of the country under the British..... a few Indians have got super rich the rest are still as poor as they ever were.

[The Nihilistic view]

Maybe we should be taking some notes from the Swiss - Court overturns referendum as voters were poorly informed

Is this the remain supporting Cameron government's fault?

[Nimzonia]

Before Colonisation,India's economy made up 23% of the world's economy but by 1947 it only made up 4% of the world's economy.

The same thing happened to China, which was not colonised. India and China were still the world's largest economies up until the end of the 19th century when they were overtaken by the US. Basically, their share of global GDP fell when other countries industrialised and they didn't, due to having vast quantities of cheap labour. India only fell out of the world's top 5 economies due to Soviet industrialisation just before WWII.

[Valrifell]

Before Colonisation,India's economy made up 23% of the world's economy but by 1947 it only made up 4% of the world's economy.

The same thing happened to China, which was not colonised.

Hard asterix on that one. It was never directly colonized but it was absolutely fucked over at every corner by the colonial powers.

[Vassenor]

The same thing happened to China, which was not colonised.

Hard asterix on that one. It was never directly colonized but it was absolutely fucked over at every corner by the colonial powers.

Opium Wars are fake news.

[Mostrov]

And lead to the deaths of millions of people due to neglectful British policies that caused massive famines.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_ ... itish_rule

The Raj spent tremendous effort in combating famine; even during the period of company rule it was noted with considerable concern, as there is no gain to be had from the loss of taxation. China, which was governed by a 'native' dynasty (at least as native as the Mughals were to be regarded) had similar famines throughout the era contemporaneous with the Raj and yet the point is never made of their malevolence towards their own population.
Both were essentially medieval states whose means of transportation was likewise backwards—the cause of famines in almost all cases being poor transportation (and hence distribution of food. Often neighbouring provinces would have food surpluses that couldn't find their way to those starving; this very situation occurred in the Orissa famine of 1866.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doji_bara_famine

Note how the severest regions of the famine were those under native rule; not the British.

I find it a very difficult thing to believe that British rule was actively malevolent; if you read any histories of the period it is apparent there was tremendous thought put into how to govern well; an exemplar of this would be the Viceroy Dalhousie; but under what is a self-loathing strain of thought that has infected our country, such things are no longer brought up in polite society.

New Zealand as you said was a White Settler Dominion specifically a British settler dominion.Because of this,The New Zealanders inherited stable political Institutions and political stability is linked to economic stability. Whilst the Indians did not inherit such systems as they were previously under a system which was not centred on democracy but on the Viceroy.The Indians also were disadvantaged due to the mass pillage that occurred under British rule. The British stole an estimated 45 trillion dollars from India during their time in India.Before Colonisation,India's economy made up 23% of the world's economy but by 1947 it only made up 4% of the world's economy.
The British introduced the Ideas of Entrepreneurship,Mercantile capitalism and Innovation.Another factor of New Zealand's high development was the influx of Scientists,Economists,Academics and other highly skilled and literate Migrants from the UK who contributed greatly to the New Zealand economy and the Business Acumen and ambition of Immigrants proved to be advantageous to New Zealand.

This so-called stolen wealth is a mirage—the change in GDP is because of the massive growth in Europe due to the industrial revolution; China was likewise a huge portion of the worlds wealth before it too shrunk proportionally due to Europe's ascendancy.
The Raj was not a particularly profitable enterprise, especially after it was turned over to governmental rule; modernising a nation the size of Europe was a very difficult task, one which was scarcely helped by the Indians resistance to modernity and various viceroys' projects and expansion of imperial rule.
The 45 trillion figure is spurious and one solely conceived of for political purpose—finding a source of blame as to why India is not a wealthier society. From personal experience, almost all Indians I have met have a tremendous sense of self-loathing and resentment (which I must say seems an extremely unhelpful attitude to have), which I find quite sad given I am fond of India and its people.

The British actually tried to introduce democracy to India from the most basic level, slowly increasing the amount of authority and rights that the natives were allowed; in a way directly comparable to the status of the dominions. Despite having infrastructure and a sound government at the time of decolonization—something which Japan (having been bombed to utter ruin), China (having a civil war and having been the victim of a genocidal war) and Korea (being under oppressive rule, then bombed to ruin) all utterly overtook, shows that India has been an utter failure of a state.

[Hurdergaryp]

Ireland received a similar amount proportionately.

Germany was not built through the Marshall Plan. That is a ridiculous characterisation (and not one that anyone believes either.)

Of course I'm over simplifying, you are asking questions that are unbelievable complicated but phrasing them like there a checkmate against anyone who rightly thinks that Imperialism and colonialism was bad for the regions and people it occurred to.

West Germany's infrastructure is largely rebuilt under the Marshall Plan. During this German industry and trade increased with the help of the British, French, and Americans. Finally best of all for the FRG they haven't had a major war or political crisis since WW2 in there borders.

Without the Marshall Plan, it would only have been a matter of time before European countries not directly under control of the Soviet Union would have welcomed Soviet advisers as well in order to rebuild their shattered economies.

[Platypus Bureaucracy]

I thought the existence of the Indian wealth drain was pretty uncontroversial. I could be wrong, though.

Arch probably knows. Arch! Come do history!

[Ostroeuropa]

I thought the existence of the Indian wealth drain was pretty uncontroversial. I could be wrong, though.

Arch probably knows. Arch! Come do history!

It's also worth noting that the "wealth drain" relies on ignoring that a significant portion of The value is cash crops exported to Britain which the Indians weren't growing before the British arrived, and would instead be using the land to grow food. Modern farming methods freed up land for cash crops.


It relies on making you believe India would be 45 trillion better off if the British didn't arrive, which is laughable.

From independence until 1991, India was a planned economy and failed so miserably to do anything meaningful with that system that they abandoned that method. After abandoning a pseudo-soviet style system, they have rapidly modernized, but still have a long way to go.

The British kept Mughal tax rates and governed through local elites. All of this is just anti-western propaganda by the Indian elite who robbed their own country then blamed us for it, knowing most Indians would accept that as true and that the British left would run with it.

[Nimzonia]

The same thing happened to China, which was not colonised.

Hard asterix on that one. It was never directly colonized but it was absolutely fucked over at every corner by the colonial powers.

Before feeling too sorry for Imperial China, let's not forget that for most of its existence, it was an astoundingly arrogant hegemonic superpower that routinely bullied tribute out of its neighbours.

[Souseiseki]

it seems like pollsters are starting to settle on CHUK so that they don't have to say CUK. of course, the fact they're using something as unweildly and unnatural as CHUK only serves to remind people why they did this in the first place.

[Ostroeuropa]

Hard asterix on that one. It was never directly colonized but it was absolutely fucked over at every corner by the colonial powers.

Before feeling too sorry for Imperial China, let's not forget that for most of its existence, it was an astoundingly arrogant hegemonic superpower that routinely bullied tribute out of its neighbours.

And that this arrogance is almost directly responsible for the opium wars.

[Kowani]

Before feeling too sorry for Imperial China, let's not forget that for most of its existence, it was an astoundingly arrogant hegemonic superpower that routinely bullied tribute out of its neighbours.

And that this arrogance is almost directly responsible for the opium wars.

Historical revisionism at its finest.