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New research on the cost of colonization to India

aljazeera.com

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Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#41

Post by c-smile »

In fact colonies were the engine that created Western Democracies. At ancient Greece time, where democracy as a term was coined, "demos kratos" meant power of voting citizens. Where the citizen is a "respectful person" - wealthy guy - slave owner at least.

Nothing have changed in principle since then, it just slave ownership became "remote".

How many African, South American, Indian gold coins lie under each stone of those beautiful European plazas?

Yes, without that cache flow the humanity might had no Enlightenment and Industrial Revolution as they were so all this is not that black and white. We just need to understand that.

Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#42

Post by diffoperator »

throwayasdf23 wrote: post #28

This is mostly nonsense. 1) The 5% return that produced the $45T figure is significantly higher than the expected return on capital for the vast majority of that period(which includes risk and is not comparable to modern returns). Furthermore, there would be no place to put that money to try to extract that return. The notion that the 18th century even had a safe positive return on capital for large periods of time f…

Why did you create a throwaway to post this?

Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#43

Post by pickdenis »

kolbe wrote: post #15
pickdenis wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

When the government buys things with tax money, the things are supposed to be used for the benefit of people who paid the taxes. It doesn't seem like the Company even pretended that this was the case.

Most tax dollars in most countries are not spent on goods and services for the benefit of the people who paid them.

But there's at least a pretense that it (goods purchased with tax money) will be, right? Forget about what actually happens for a moment and consider that the tax-collecting colonists didn't even seem to bother with such a pretense. The way I understand it, they just bought the goods, turned around, and sold them again (which does not align with any notion of "providing government"). Of course, I know very little about economics or history, but I just wanted to point out what I thought was a logical inconsistency in the root comment.

Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#44

Post by iguy »

pickdenis wrote: post #6
wjnc wrote: post #3

My government uses my taxes to buy goods and services in the local market. Is that defrauding or just the nature of providing government? This article is on somewhat loose economic grounds, I fear. People paid taxes, albeit to the coloniser, some people could sell their goods at market prices. Things we still find pretty reasonable. On top of that compounding at 5% for 250 yrs is not a good way to create current doll…

When the government buys things with tax money, the things are supposed to be used for the benefit of people who paid the taxes. It doesn't seem like the Company even pretended that this was the case.

> ... tax money ... used for the benefit of people who paid the taxes

This is a surprising recent notion. The Mughals sure didn't conquer territory to tax it for the peasant's benefit -- the entire purpose of conquering land was to extract taxes from these peasants, for yourself & your army.

Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#45

Post by a11r »

throwayasdf23 wrote: post #28

This is mostly nonsense. 1) The 5% return that produced the $45T figure is significantly higher than the expected return on capital for the vast majority of that period(which includes risk and is not comparable to modern returns). Furthermore, there would be no place to put that money to try to extract that return. The notion that the 18th century even had a safe positive return on capital for large periods of time f…

A simple statistic: Before the British showed up, Indian GDP was 15 to 20% of world GDP. When they left its was 1.5 to 3% of world GDP. Something tells me the colonial experience might have something to do with it.

Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#46

Post by kolbe »

throwayasdf23 wrote: post #28

This is mostly nonsense. 1) The 5% return that produced the $45T figure is significantly higher than the expected return on capital for the vast majority of that period(which includes risk and is not comparable to modern returns). Furthermore, there would be no place to put that money to try to extract that return. The notion that the 18th century even had a safe positive return on capital for large periods of time f…

re: (1)

I don't know why people try to use these crazy discount factors on such long time horizons. I feel like it should be pretty easy. The currency of the time was in precious metals. So, we can just revalue the gold and silver in kilos from 1700 in dollars for 2018.

Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#47

Post by iguy »

a11r wrote: post #45
throwayasdf23 wrote: post #28

This is mostly nonsense. 1) The 5% return that produced the $45T figure is significantly higher than the expected return on capital for the vast majority of that period(which includes risk and is not comparable to modern returns). Furthermore, there would be no place to put that money to try to extract that return. The notion that the 18th century even had a safe positive return on capital for large periods of time f…

A simple statistic: Before the British showed up, Indian GDP was 15 to 20% of world GDP. When they left its was 1.5 to 3% of world GDP. Something tells me the colonial experience might have something to do with it.

No this is nonsense. That relative decline was because the pie grew... and grew spectacularly, for the first time in history, for reasons that had next to nothing to do with some colonial adventure.

Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#48

Post by a11r »

Also, the population growth rate in India was significantly lower during the colonial period (1750 to 1950). This was primarily due to increased mortality from the famines created by the British. Over a 200 year period, the British colonialists performed the largest instance of genocide known to humanity.

Re: New research on the cost of colonization to India

#50

Post by alienreborn »

pm90 wrote: post #36
justboxing wrote: post #19

I was in India last month after being away for over 2 decades. Visited Calcutta for the very first time. Our Driver and Tour Guide at the Taj took us around the city and told us about a lot of history about the City. At one point he said that over 1 million people live on the sidewalks (called footpaths) in Calcutta. I have seen abject poverty in India while growing up there, but not to this level. There are generati…

Calcutta was a tiny village when the British arrived.

> In 1750, Calcutta had a population of 120,000

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Kolkata

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