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Konkvistador comments on I've had it with those dark rumours about our culture rigorously suppressing opinions - Less Wrong Discussion
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I must admit as much as I disagree with some components of the cultural and ideological influence of the British Empire, it is hard to argue with its results. The British Empire seems to have generally produced superior outcomes in terms of quality of life for inhabitants and general development than nearly any other government be it native or colonial. Considering the gains created by this I can't help but wonder if Cecile Rhodes had a point when he said:
Indeed if I found myself magically transported to 19th century Europe with considerable wealth and influence I may yet decide that there is no nobler and benevolent enterprise than to support the expansion and growth of the British Empire. In this light the success of the American revolution may actually plausibly be one of the great tragedies of human history.
Now that I've dumped all these warm fuzzies we may as well enjoy a happy death spiral around it.
Rule, Britannia!
While one can applaud the cultural influence of the British empire on its colonial holdings, allow me to disagree with "it is hard to argue with its results".
Timeline of major famines in India during British rule
Note that Britain was forcibly exporting Indian grain for its own benefit during some of these famines.
I fail to see why this is somehow horrible or surprising by historical standards. I can hardly think of an empire that would do otherwise. One might quickly argue that native government unlike an empire would have not done this, but seriously, does anyone expect economic growth and development of infrastructure to have grown at a comparable rate? Even rapid population growth that was sometimes the cause of such famines, is in itself an indicator that deaths from disease and violence have likley fallen.
Big sad events like famines grab more attention than say a faster than otherwise increases in GDP growth by 2% or 1% or 0.5%. But the latter sort amounts to far more over the years. Inclusion in the British Empire in itself lifted millions worldwide from the Malthusian margin.
The salt tax (imposed by Britain, eliminated with independence) contributed to the death rate.
This being said, I agree that ex-British colonies have generally done better than places that were colonized by other countries.
All the places Britain has owned, even briefly. I may have been suffering from availability bias. The US, Canada, Australia, Hong Kong, and India are doing better than a lot of other places, but what about Afghanistan? Nigeria? Syria?
The British may have had more successful ex-colonies than other empires, but this doesn't mean all, or even a majority of their ex-colonies were successful.
Not to mention Zimbabwe.
There's a selection effect, too. If Britain holds places that are geographically valuable (harbors in trade lanes, natural resources, etc), and geographically valuable places tend to do better, then Britain can wind up having their former colonies do better without causing it. In other words, what caused the former colony to do well made Britain colonize them, and not vice versa.
By analogy, Harvard graduates better students without providing a commensurate level of education by the simple application of strict entry requirements.
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.
Do we, by any chance, have a timeline of major famines in India during non-British rule?
Why yes, we do.
I attribute it to increased food production.
A quick look at the wikipedia page says that only has explanatory power for less famine after ~1970 - not after 1943.