# Empire equals theft, how? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 26, 2020, 2:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990 "2020-01-26T14:06:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Chingon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chingon/32/17645_2.png) [@Chingon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chingon)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 1:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/41 "2020-01-28T01:37:52Z")
Seems like a lot of text for “might makes right”. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 2:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/42 "2020-01-28T02:01:02Z")
> [@am77494](#): > > 1. “In 1600, when the East India Company was established, Britain was producing just 1.8% of the world’s GDP, while India was generating some 23% (27% by 1700). By 1940, after nearly two centuries of the Raj, Britain accounted for nearly 10% of world GDP, while India had been reduced to a poor “third-world” country, destitute and starving, a global poster child of poverty and famine.” How much of that increase in Britain’s GDP was due to the Industrial Revolution, and would India have had a comparable Industrial Revolution during the same timeframe if the British had never come? > [@am77494](#): > > 1. “ How much money did Britain take away from India? About $45 trillion in 173 years, says top economist” > > Cite : [How much money did Britain take away from India? About $45 trillion in 173 years, says top economist - BusinessToday](https://m.businesstoday.in/story/this-economist-says-britain-took-away-usd-45-trillion-from-india-in-173-years/1/292352.html) That top economist goes on to say: > [@](#): > > “Between 1765 and 1938, the drain amounted to 9.2 trillion pounds ($45 trillion), taking India’s export surplus earnings as the measure, and compounding it at a 5 per cent rate of interest,” Patnaik said during an interview with Mint. Currently, 9.2 trillion pounds is not even close to $45 trillion (it’s about a quarter of that), and it hasn’t been in many years. How is she assigning value, and what rates of exchange is she using? Why did she choose 5%, instead of 4 or 6 or any other arbitrary value? Is it 9.2 trillion as of 1938, or 2018, or some other date? ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 2:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/43 "2020-01-28T02:12:18Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > No, I’m saying how if the empire, which is the government and has responsibility of the territory, stealing resources when a hypothetical ruling class native to that area would have done exactly the same thing, or the hypothetical ruling class would not have discovered the resources or lacked the capital or know how to exploit them themselves in the first place. I don’t think that’s the case with an empire. Empires are when a region is ruled by some outside country. So the imperial regime has no incentive to spend resources in the colony; they just want to ship wealth out of the colony and back to the home country. A native regime doesn’t have any reason to ship wealth away; it’s already there in the native regime’s home country. Even if the native regime is greedy and collects a lot of wealth from their population, they’re going to spend that wealth locally and essentially recycle it back into the local economy. And a native regime is going to have some concern for the country they’re ruling; the survival of the regime is tied to the country it’s ruling. So there are practical limits to how badly they can abuse the country. An outside imperial regime doesn’t face that concern. They can trash the colony with the knowledge that their power base is safe and secure back in their home country. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 6:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/44 "2020-01-28T06:07:07Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > That’s more to do with the Industrial revolution than anything else. There wouldn’t have been an Industrial Revolution centred on England without Indian cotton. You have cause and effect mixed up. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 7:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/45 "2020-01-28T07:05:04Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > There wouldn’t have been an Industrial Revolution centred on England without Indian cotton. You have cause and effect mixed up. No, Indian raw cotton didn’t hit the English market in quantity until later into the 19th century. When the Industrial Revolution began in the 1760s and 70s, three-quarters of the raw cotton imported into England came from the West Indies; later in the century, Brazil and, by 1800, the United States overtook them. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 7:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/46 "2020-01-28T07:25:26Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > No, Indian raw cotton didn’t hit the English market in quantity until later into the 19th century. Not the raw cotton. The quality manufactured cotton the English worked to replace. ---
**Author:** ![slash2k](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/439d5e/32.png) [@slash2k](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slash2k)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 8:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/47 "2020-01-28T08:10:40Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > Not the raw cotton. The quality manufactured cotton the English worked to replace. I don’t think I understand your argument. There wouldn’t have been an Industrial Revolution if England wasn’t working to replace Indian cotton? Then why didn’t India have an Industrial Revolution even earlier, to produce the cotton in the first place? ---
**Author:** ![am77494](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/d2c977/32.png) [@am77494](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/am77494)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 8:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/48 "2020-01-28T08:44:31Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > I don’t think I understand your argument. There wouldn’t have been an Industrial Revolution if England wasn’t working to replace Indian cotton? Then why didn’t India have an Industrial Revolution even earlier, to produce the cotton in the first place? Have you ever wondered why the British went first to East India and called them the East India Company ? The spices were in South India but the best cotton and fabrics were in East India viz-a-viz Bengal. I reproduce part of a page from: A Quiet Violence: View from a Bangladesh Village, By Betsy Hartmann (BA Yale and PhD from LSE) and James K. Boyce (Economist from U of Mass, Amherst) : (Bolding mine). "European traders — first the Portuguese in the 16th Century, and later the Dutch, French and English — were lured to eastern Bengal above all by its legendary cotton textile industry, which ranked among the greatest industries of the world. After the British East India Company wrested control of Bengal from its Muslim rulers in 1757, the line between trade and outright plunder faded. In the words of an English merchant, 'Various and innumerable are the methods of oppressing the poor weavers . such as by fines, imprisonments, floggings, forcing bonds from them, etc. ‘6 By means of ‘every conceivable form of roguery’, the Company’s merchants acquired the weavers’ cloth for a fraction of its value. \*\* Ironically, the profits from the lucrative trade in Bengali textiles helped to finance Britain’s industrial revolution.\*\* As their own mechanized textile industry developed, the British eliminated competition from Bengali textiles through an elaborate network of restrictions and prohibitive duties. Not only were Indian textiles effectively shut out of the British market, but even within India, taxes discriminated against local cloth. According to popular legend, the British cut off the thumbs of the weavers in order to destroy their craft. The decimation of local industry brought great hardship to the Bengali people. In 1835 the Governor- General of the East India Company reported to London: 'The misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones of the cotton-weavers are bleaching the plains of India. The population of eastern Bengal’s cities declined as the weavers were thrown back to the land. Sir Charles Trevelyan of the East India Com- pany filed this report in 1840: _The peculiar kind of silky cotton formerly grown in Bengal, from which the fine Dacca muslins used to be made, is hardly ever seen; the population of the town Of Dacca has fallen from 150,000 to 30,000 or 40,000, and the jungle and malaria are fast encroaching upon the town . . Dacca, which used to be the Manchester of India, has fallen off from a flourishing town to a very poor and small one._ ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 10:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/49 "2020-01-28T10:51:52Z")
> [@](#): > > **am77494** > Ironically, the profits from the lucrative trade in Bengali textiles helped to finance Britain’s industrial revolution. As their own mechanized textile industry developed, the British eliminated competition from Bengali textiles through an elaborate network of restrictions and prohibitive duties. Not only were Indian textiles effectively shut out of the British market, but even within India, taxes discriminated against local cloth. According to popular legend, the British cut off the thumbs of the weavers in order to destroy their craft. The decimation of local industry brought great hardship to the Bengali people. In 1835 the Governor- General of the East India Company reported to London: 'The misery hardly finds a parallel in the history of commerce. The bones of the cotton-weavers are bleaching the plains of India. So an early example of technological unemployment making people jobless and mercantilism, this wasn’t restricted to India. _Helped to finance_ isn’t the same as _creating_ the industrial revolution. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 10:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/50 "2020-01-28T10:54:02Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > I don’t think that’s the case with an empire. Empires are when a region is ruled by some outside country. So the imperial regime has no incentive to spend resources in the colony; they just want to ship wealth out of the colony and back to the home country. > > A native regime doesn’t have any reason to ship wealth away; it’s already there in the native regime’s home country. Even if the native regime is greedy and collects a lot of wealth from their population, they’re going to spend that wealth locally and essentially recycle it back into the local economy. > > And a native regime is going to have some concern for the country they’re ruling; the survival of the regime is tied to the country it’s ruling. So there are practical limits to how badly they can abuse the country. > > An outside imperial regime doesn’t face that concern. They can trash the colony with the knowledge that their power base is safe and secure back in their home country. So how do you account for places like Canada and Australia and New Zealand. There has to be a consideration that these places may be controlled in perpetuity, or that them having some measure of responsible self government would assauge local antagonisms whilst still exporting the good which the empire needs, so again, how is that theft? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 12:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/51 "2020-01-28T12:09:16Z")
> [@slash2k](#): > > Then why didn’t India have an Industrial Revolution even earlier, to produce the cotton in the first place? They didn’t _need_ to have one. They were producing an adequate supply of fabric for the existing domestic market (and an extensive trade network _on their own terms_) using artisanal and small-scale manufacturing methods. It wasn’t enough for the English demand, at the English preferred prices, though. Hence the EIC’s conquests and empire building. ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 12:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/52 "2020-01-28T12:16:12Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > this wasn’t restricted to India. No-one said it was. > [@](#): > > _Helped to finance_ isn’t the same as _creating_ the industrial revolution. The industrial revolution wouldn’t have happened as it did without the finance (or the competitive element). You’re not a believer in anything as silly as the inevitability of progress, are you? > [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > So how do you account for places like Canada and Australia and New Zealand. You mean all the places not as advanced or urbanized as India to start with, and where the native populations were mostly aggressively displaced by colonists? > [@](#): > > how is that theft? In what world is murdering the natives and taking their land or labour by force _not_ theft? ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 1:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/53 "2020-01-28T13:38:06Z")
I do have to wonder what different outcome the OP expects from this thread compared to every other one he’s started [along](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=872841) [the](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=763254) [same](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=518078) “Rah, Rah! Imperialism!” lines. ---
**Author:** ![Telemark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/telemark/32/372_2.png) [@Telemark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Telemark)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 4:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/54 "2020-01-28T16:02:26Z")
> [@MrDibble](#): > > I do have to wonder what different outcome the OP expects from this thread compared to every other one he’s started [along](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=872841) [the](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=763254) [same](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=518078) “Rah, Rah! Imperialism!” lines. Yeah, it does appear to be a pattern. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 5:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/55 "2020-01-28T17:23:56Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > So how do you account for places like Canada and Australia and New Zealand. There has to be a consideration that these places may be controlled in perpetuity, or that them having some measure of responsible self government would assauge local antagonisms whilst still exporting the good which the empire needs, so again, how is that theft? You could ask the descendants of the native populations of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand if they feel they benefited from being part of the British Empire. They could tell you plenty about how empire equals theft. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 10:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/56 "2020-01-28T22:07:33Z")
> [@](#): > > **MrDibble** > The industrial revolution wouldn’t have happened as it did without the finance (or the competitive element). So the industrial revolution happened because people were willing to put up money for it, gee, like every other progression, it doesn’t mean it was entirely financed by slavery or the EIC profits shipped [back.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Industrial_Revolution#Pre-mechanized_European_textile_production) _Although mechanization dramatically decreased the cost of cotton cloth, by the mid-19th century machine-woven cloth still could not equal the quality of hand-woven Indian cloth, in part due to the fineness of thread made possible by the type of cotton used in India, which allowed high thread counts. However, the high productivity of British textile manufacturing allowed coarser grades of British cloth to undersell hand-spun and woven fabric in low-wage India, eventually destroying the industry._ > [@](#): > > You’re not a believer in anything as silly as the inevitability of progress, are you? I’m a believer that British engineering and investment wasn’t wholly dependent on finance from India. > [@](#): > > You mean all the places not as advanced or urbanized as India to start with, and where the native populations were mostly aggressively displaced by colonists? Isn’t that just reducing the native populations to passive actors with no agency? It also ignores the fact that native groups often allied with various colonial powers to fight other native groups or the Royal proclamations creating native buffer states. This coinciding with the fall of the population due to their lack of immunity to diseases from Europe. > [@](#): > > I do have to wonder what different outcome the OP expects from this thread compared to every other one he’s started along the same “Rah, Rah! Imperialism!” lines. I’m looking for a more in-depth discussion, I know you’re quite sensitive about this, but I’m in great debates, and well, I wanted _to debate_ about it. > [@](#): > > In what world is murdering the natives and taking their land or labour by force not theft? When they have no immunity to the old world diseases the people carry and it depopulates entire areas? > [@](#): > > **Little Nemo** > You could ask the descendants of the native populations of Canada, Australia, and New Zealand if they feel they benefited from being part of the British Empire. They could tell you plenty about how empire equals theft. [You sure about that?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States#European_exploration_and_colonization) \* “During the American Revolution, the newly proclaimed United States competed with the British for the allegiance of Native American nations east of the Mississippi River.\*\* Most Native Americans who joined the struggle sided with the British, based both on their trading relationships and hopes that colonial defeat would result in a halt to further colonial expansion onto Native American land.\*\* The first native community to sign a treaty with the new United States Government was the Lenape.”\* ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/57 "2020-01-28T22:43:30Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > [You sure about that?](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Native_Americans_in_the_United_States#European_exploration_and_colonization) > \* > “During the American Revolution, the newly proclaimed United States competed with the British for the allegiance of Native American nations east of the Mississippi River.\*\* Most Native Americans who joined the struggle sided with the British, based both on their trading relationships and hopes that colonial defeat would result in a halt to further colonial expansion onto Native American land.\*\* The first native community to sign a treaty with the new United States Government was the Lenape.”\* Given the choice between English who were actively trying to steal their land, and English who weren’t, the Native Americans sided with the less imperialistic ones. Surely if imperialism was good for the Natives, they would have jumped at the chance to ally with the US, right? ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 11:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/58 "2020-01-28T23:13:08Z")
> [@](#): > > **Andy L** > Given the choice between English who were actively trying to steal their land, and English who weren’t, the Native Americans sided with the less imperialistic ones. Surely if imperialism was good for the Natives, they would have jumped at the chance to ally with the US, right? You’re making the presumption that I’m stating imperalism was good. ---
**Author:** ![Andy\_L](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/c67d28/32.png) [@Andy\_L](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Andy_L)\ **Post date:** [January 28, 2020, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/59 "2020-01-28T23:22:42Z")
> [@Ryan\_Liam](#): > > You’re making the presumption that I’m stating imperalism was good. Not at all. You seemed to be suggesting that Native American alliance with less-imperialistic forces indicated that Native Americans did not oppose imperialism - and I disagreed with that. Whether or not you feel imperialism is good isn’t relevant. ---
**Author:** ![Ryan\_Liam](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ryan_liam/32/3965_2.png) [@Ryan\_Liam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ryan_Liam)\ **Post date:** [January 29, 2020, 12:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990/60 "2020-01-29T00:34:31Z")
> [@](#): > > Not at all. You seemed to be suggesting that Native American alliance with less-imperialistic forces indicated that Native Americans did not oppose imperialism - and I disagreed with that. Again, this is another presumption on the basis the Native Americans were not imperialistic themselves. They just opposed one _form_ of imperialism. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/empire-equals-theft-how/846990.md?page=4)