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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   31958 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of December 5, 2022

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their policies weren't nearly as egregious as the British Raj since their ultimate goal was to improve the condition of India rather than England; the British implemented all sorts of policies to benefit their own country.

If I plot the graphs of "median wealth of native Indians" under the Mughals vs. under the British, which one do you think will have a higher annual growth?

Also: how do you tell the difference between "this policy was for the benefit of Britain" and "this policy was for the benefit of Indian trade, the fact that Britain profited too just proves that trade is non-zero-sum"?

Spain adopting border and trade laws that were drafted in Strasbourg and enrich France, doesn't mean Spain is a colonial possession of France, it means Spain wants the benefits of smooth movement of goods and people from the EU. If it's not egregious when France does it to Spain, why is it egregious when Britain does it to India?

India was ultimately a net drain on the British Empire, though.

There's a popular position that Europe benefitted greatly from colonisation and therefore owes the world. There's a less popular take that colonialism was in many cases a lose-lose proposition just like any other bad economic system, but despite this Europe still thrived due to other factors.

In Ireland's case I think it was a matter of Britain securing a military weak point at great cost (Ireland gained its independence only after it stopped being considered a valid staging ground for an invasion of Britain), and the counterfactual where they both remain Catholic or both convert to Protestantism or achieve good relations some other way is one where both are much wealthier today.

In any case, I don't think the amount of profit derived from India really matters. The actions I listed were still taken to benefit Britain, even if the resulting profit wasn't huge.

Even if there was no profit I think you could just say it was misguided economic policy intended to benefit Britain, like mercentalism was.

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