They are better, did they do better? You need to control for the empire’s choice of targets! India accounted for a quarter of world GDP at the time of conquest- by independence it was barely one percent.
Although the industrial revolution was happening in Britain while India was under their rule and, as I understand it, cotton was being exported from colonies including India, processed in British factories, and shipped back to India as clothes to fuel it. All the way around the Cape of Good Hope. British rule may have had something to do with missing out on the Industrial Revolution.
On the other hand, China stayed independent and didn’t industrialize, and the Muslim states in the Middle East didn’t either (also Africa before colonial rule, but they were already far behind Eurasia and so it’s hard to compare them to India), so it’d be pretty silly to claim that former colonies would be on the First World level if not for colonialism.
An idea that might be more reasonable (although that’s not entirely the point of the thread) would be to recognize that historical colonialism was almost entirely guided by the selfish interests of the colonial powers, and to implement a new system of patronage by the first world on underdeveloped countries, designed from the ground up to try to prevent them from exploiting the lesser partners. If the system is based on the idea of actually giving first worlders control over decisions, I’m not sure how you could set it up to totally prevent exploitation, but you could definitely improve it over colonialism.
The Muslim states in the Middle East were not independent. They were just subject to Ottoman, rather than European, imperialism. Similarly, much of Africa “before colonial rule” was subject to colonial rule by non-European powers, such as Oman, Songhai, etc. And Imperial China was, you know, an empire. The notion that imperialism/colonialism somehow only counts as such when it’s done by Europeans is incredibly objectionable, and causes people to completely misunderstand history. It’s the worst kind of Orientalism.
The Raj was not about “Britain” exploiting “India,” or even “selfish interests of the colonial powers”—it doesn’t make sense to assign mass interests like that, particularly when India wasn’t even a united polity at the time. It was about individuals and groups within both countries. For example, the East India Company was at least as much an exploiter of Britain as it was of India.
They are better, did they do better? You need to control for the empire’s choice of targets! India accounted for a quarter of world GDP at the time of conquest- by independence it was barely one percent.
Yes, missing out on the industrial revolution does that to you.
Although the industrial revolution was happening in Britain while India was under their rule and, as I understand it, cotton was being exported from colonies including India, processed in British factories, and shipped back to India as clothes to fuel it. All the way around the Cape of Good Hope. British rule may have had something to do with missing out on the Industrial Revolution.
On the other hand, China stayed independent and didn’t industrialize, and the Muslim states in the Middle East didn’t either (also Africa before colonial rule, but they were already far behind Eurasia and so it’s hard to compare them to India), so it’d be pretty silly to claim that former colonies would be on the First World level if not for colonialism.
An idea that might be more reasonable (although that’s not entirely the point of the thread) would be to recognize that historical colonialism was almost entirely guided by the selfish interests of the colonial powers, and to implement a new system of patronage by the first world on underdeveloped countries, designed from the ground up to try to prevent them from exploiting the lesser partners. If the system is based on the idea of actually giving first worlders control over decisions, I’m not sure how you could set it up to totally prevent exploitation, but you could definitely improve it over colonialism.
I hate this kind of argument.
The Muslim states in the Middle East were not independent. They were just subject to Ottoman, rather than European, imperialism. Similarly, much of Africa “before colonial rule” was subject to colonial rule by non-European powers, such as Oman, Songhai, etc. And Imperial China was, you know, an empire. The notion that imperialism/colonialism somehow only counts as such when it’s done by Europeans is incredibly objectionable, and causes people to completely misunderstand history. It’s the worst kind of Orientalism.
The Raj was not about “Britain” exploiting “India,” or even “selfish interests of the colonial powers”—it doesn’t make sense to assign mass interests like that, particularly when India wasn’t even a united polity at the time. It was about individuals and groups within both countries. For example, the East India Company was at least as much an exploiter of Britain as it was of India.