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| ▲ | philipallstar 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > The British involvement, then, was more catalytic than anything else. They didn't own the rubber plantations. They merely bought the rubber on an open market from Chinese brokers who in turn bought it from producers of various ethnicities. The market was just a few square blocks of George Town where British law was enforced, i.e. where businessmen could rely on a few basics like property rights, contracts, and a currency. In 2026 this is a surprisingly non-pearl clutching take on British influence abroad. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 2 days ago | parent [-] | | Sure, it's easy enough to write in such a manner. Two notes of interest, it only covers "British influence abroad" at one specific location for a relatively short interval of time, and it neatly avoids looking too deeply into a classic of British colonialism; the divide and conquer approach of strategically favouring some over others to push any resulting unrest at arms length away from the actual British. | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar 2 days ago | parent [-] | | But it does mention the most classic classic: the outcomes of post-British colonies are incredible compared to either no colonialism or another power colonising. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | > the outcomes of post-British colonies are incredible By what metric? Recall that not all people value the same things. The outcome of British colonialism in Tasmania was 100% extinction of locals - I mean sure, you can call that incredible as you did, but that was never a word used by Truganini Jamaica, sure, greatest Winter Olympic team ever .. but hardly the poster child for colonialism and impossible to claim as "better off" than sans or alt colonialism. Uganda, well, ... enough said. We can likely agree that the expanding British Empire had a tremendous eye for real estate, resources, and location. The bulk of places colonised by the British had plenty of potential for exploitation and exploited they largely were. The arc of such colonies once the sun set and the Empire retracted was varied, the lucky ones were able to reclaim local control of their own resources and relations, a good many were largely stripped and left to flounder locked into ongoing situations not of their making. | | |
| ▲ | testdelacc1 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I’d say India has done really well, and that’s partly in credit to the British. A lot of the infrastructure that India used to succeed was inherited from the Raj, such as a professional Army that has never interfered in politics, a competent Civil Service, a Parliamentary style system where minorities have had a reasonable say. Most important of all, and directly attributable to British influence was getting rid of princely states that owed their allegiance to the British crown. Britain made it clear that they would not accept independent states and every princely state would have to accede to India or Pakistan. Britain really tried to help India (and Pakistan) succeed. The blame for some of the failures and mistakes can’t be attributed to the British (Indian economic policy before 1991, Pakistani policy towards Bengali speakers), but they deserve partial credit for the political and economic success of India. People who aren’t Indian can’t understand how remarkable it is that India has stayed united and functional. Even Indians who haven’t lived outside India underestimate it. Indians have diversity within similar to Europe, but the country remains united. A big part of that is that the current Indian state is a successor to the British Raj, which in turn was a successor to the Mughal Raj. The longer India is ruled from Delhi, the more normal it feels. This unity is the source of Indian success. Without it India would resemble Africa more than Europe. More resources would have been wasted fighting wars within India and all of India would still be struggling with poverty, famine and starvation instead of manufacturing iPhones. People often caricature this argument by saying sO wHaT iF tHeY bUiLt RaIlWaYs. The Railways don’t matter, they could have been built earlier or later. But once a polity fractures and blood has been spilt, there’s no fixing that. |
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| ▲ | badpun 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | Most notable examples of both are China and India, where China outperforms India even despite decades of violent Communist rule. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 2 days ago | parent | next [-] | | China, the country was never a colony under British rule - perhaps you're thinking of the island leased to Britain, Hong Kong. China did have interactions with Britain, disputes over trade, access, addictive drug running, gunboat diplomacy et al. but these usually fall under British Imperialism rather than British Colonialism. | | |
| ▲ | cycomanic 2 days ago | parent [-] | | I think that's the previous posters point. The OP argued that countries were better off in the long run with British colonialism than without. I think China vs India is the counter example. | | |
| ▲ | defrost a day ago | parent [-] | | Well spotted, poor reading on my part, it was late (local time) and I took meaning likely not intended. |
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| ▲ | philipallstar a day ago | parent | prev [-] | | I wouldn't count China as a third world country to compare to, so that's fair enough, but also China is only doing well because it coccooned some capitalism based on English common law and its derivatives, and a limited imitation of the liberal tradition thereof. Of course it's a facade, but it works well enough to lift them out of poverty. India you should compare to India's trajectory had British rule not occurred. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > India you should compare to India's trajectory had British rule not occurred. How? Fantasize? You do seem to make a lot of unsupported statements that seem more akin to belief than observable facts. | | |
| ▲ | philipallstar 32 minutes ago | parent [-] | | Given generally we measure poverty by how many things Western countries have invented and built, and not look to India as the leading edge of development, it's not hard to deduce India's trajectory had it never met the West. Overwhelming caste system, low tech. Hitting a local maximum and never getting out of it. A bit like what the UK might've been had the Romans never colonised it. |
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| ▲ | mett36 2 days ago | parent | prev [-] | | thank you! |
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