The British are given too much credit for things they never did. As for doing good in India, even under the Mughal empire, India is estimated to have a share of 30% of world GDP until the 18th century. When the British left in 1947, that share was less than 1%. The Brits de-industrialized India, used Indian raw materials and taxes to fuel their own industrial revolution and used India as a captive market to hawk their finished goods under an absolute monopoly. I know, I know. You might point to the railways, English education, civil service etc. as the 'good ' they did. The railways were first added in the mid 19th century, and the Brits expanded them only when rail saved their arses in the first war of independence of 1857. The Education they imparted was a colonial project to wipe out and subjugate the local natives, and give them enough English to serve as clerks in running the Empire. Educational institutes of any lasting value were started by local Hindu & Muslim reformers and intellectuals. So please save this orientalist reading of history for yourself. We Indians don't have anything to be thankful to the British. Good riddance to them. Hope we never see their sorry faces again.

When it comes to world-spanning Empires, the British were one of the more benevolent -- and this especially applies for India. It's worth noting that the most powerful British Empire builders like Cecil Rhodes were planning for Indian swaraj decades before it became a popular idea among Indians.

Hindu culture was not going anywhere, it desperately needed an injection of rationality and a forced demonstration of good government. India is on a very good path now and it owes most of that to the British. The British used raw force to reform Indian culture away from degenerate, irrational religious fatalism toward a progressive, modern approach to life.

Anyway Indian culture today is unrecognizable compared to pre-British India. The most important part of culture is the approach to law, property, government, and individual rights, and these are the fruits of the British Empire in India. Underestimating these crucial factors is very easy now that you are reaping their benefits. India today would look like Somalia if it wasn't for the Empire.

In 19th century India the British really did reform the savages. They ended wife burning, vigilante decapitations, cannibalism, among other savage but accepted cultural norms. They significantly curtailed the systematic corruption, clarified property rights, introduced representative government, paved the way for social mobility, and are really solely responsible for the slow turning away from pernicious Hindu mysticism -- which is the bane of civilization. Hindu mysticism is really the most damaging kind of irrational religiosity on Earth and causes tremendous suffering and poverty.

The Brits were surprisingly generous given their global hegemony. It is easy to argue that the American Empire is more exploitative and uncaring with respect to their colonies: and the American Empire is less powerful today thanks to the liberalizing influence of the British who themselves foresaw independence for every colony, often before the colonies did. The positive effects of Rhodesian foreign policy should not be underestimated.

It's popular to hate Empires but there really is nothing romantic about cannibalism, institutionalized irrationality, rigid caste systems and all the other savage cultural features of many parts of the world before the age of sail. For all the faults of the British, we often forget just how good England and her colonies had life in comparison to the alternatives.

While it is true that India tolerated a variety of cultural norms amongst its many people before the British, practices like those you mention were fringe practices and by no means mainstream. It was Indian reformers like Ram Mohan Roy who asked for British for help in removing them. The British being the much stronger party do deserve credit for heeding these demands, but in relation to the widespread damage Indian industry suffered under them, these were things that made for good press rather than something that bought about a systematic positive change. It was only after the 1857 war/mutiny fought by the Indians which ended the 257 year old East India Company that Indians were given greater share and responsibility in self governance. Not doing that would have been a fundamentally unstable government system. This very limited civil governmant participation is what eventually grew to a movement which led to independance. You only need to read the writings of Lord Curzon to see that the British never intended to leave India and on the contrary wanted to expand their control over China and Japan as well.

The British don't deserve the sole or even major credit for the cultural changes you talk about. Reformers like Rajaram Mohan Roy, Vivekananda, Gandhi, Ambedkar deserve most of the credit. Cultural changes can not simply be forced by external forces. The British just wanted to organize the Indian society the way they idealized so that they could reap the surplus.

The India of today would be unrecognizable from British India. Many former British colonies in Africa continue to be only slightly better than Somalia. You are giving the Raj too much credit.

>As for doing good in India, even under the Mughal empire, India is estimated to have a share of 30% of world GDP until the 18th century.

Wiki doesn't agree:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_Raj#Technological_and_e...

>India's per capita GDP decreased from $550 in 1700 to $520 by 1857, although it had increased to $618 by 1947

I'm not sure whose dollars those are... but it certainly doesn't sound like the Mughal empire ever controlled anything remotely approaching 30% of world GDP. Here's how the British won India, for reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Plassey

750 European soldiers and 2100 sepoys defeating 53000 Indians speaks volumes about the latter's ability to organize.

25% is about right for indian gdp around mughal period. http://www.ritholtz.com/blog/2010/08/history-of-world-gdp/

these early wins were against muslim rulers who did not have that much support of their majority populace because of taxation issues and also suffered from lost revenues due to the new trade routes.

the hardest wars were against the hindu/sikh rulers - marattas, rajputs and sikhs who were not subdued until 1850s with great effort.

Ability to organize isn't really an indicator of the good or harm you do.

Do you know what another regime is that had a legendary ability to organize? NAZI GERMANY.

The difference is that the British, instead of killing the "lower races", sought to reform them with what history indicates was a genuine sense of altruism among British Empire-builders.

Hitler put the minorities in gas chambers.

England invited minorities to Oxford and taught them everything they knew.

If you believe England didn't gas minorities, then you should read up on what Churchill did to the Kurds during the 20's.

His treatment of the bengals was worse. Nevertheless my point stands

> The difference is that the British, instead of killing the "lower races", sought to reform them with what history indicates was a genuine sense of altruism among British Empire-builders.

The Empire understood that collaborative local elites were beneficial for the plundering of the colonies, and where necessary, it invested in them. That's all.

You can find cynical explanation for every act of altruism if you want to. Bottom line is there were plenty of powerful British idealists and humanists with a vision for the world who acted to help the colonies at Imperial expense.

>To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies.

Uh, okay, so... I'm bad at explaining things, because that is the point of what I wrote about the British. The British were successful not by being cutthroat but by being fair. The author characterizes such 'cooperative' strategies as ineffective, and says that they don't tend to succeed:

>The essence of how culture uses men depends on a basic social insecurity. This insecurity is in fact social, existential, and biological. Built into the male role is the danger of not being good enough to be accepted and respected and even the danger of not being able to do well enough to create offspring.

>The basic social insecurity of manhood is stressful for the men, and it is hardly surprising that so many men crack up or do evil or heroic things or die younger than women. But that insecurity is useful and productive for the culture, the system.

>Again, I’m not saying it’s right, or fair, or proper. But it has worked. The cultures that have succeeded have used this formula, and that is one reason that they have succeeded instead of their rivals.

The Empire had lots of 'morality' and 'fairness' provisions that the societies it conquered did not. It could be said that this sense of fairness led to the loss of the Empire -- but Britain is arguably better off now than 80 years ago, whereas Mongolia is... not rich.

But may be soon with all those natural resources!

Generally it seems natural resources only stunt the state of a country and benefit very few. Norway appears to be one of the only places with rich natural resources and a working society.

Australia? USA? Canada? There are many different resources besides simply oil (I am making an assumption that's what is in your mind because of the Norway example). Mongolia doesn't simply have oil (and they rank #92 in the world for oil production - so they don't even have much of it), they have richer mineral deposits.

Those examples don't necessarily refute grandparent's point.

See link below regarding "two speed economies" in which resource booms can actually have a negative structural impact on production.

http://www.treasury.gov.au/documents/1421/HTML/docshell.asp?...

I am aware that natural resources have caused trouble for a lot of countries. Just stating that it isn't an automatic death sentence to have them.

Australia, Canada and USA had reasonably well functioning economies to start with. And many of the resources were discovered outside the scope of globalization or colonialism, allowing much of it to feed back into the local ecosystem.

This wikipedia entry only very briefly touches on some of it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boer_Wars#Controversy_and_signi...

But saying only that To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic. No sentence describing the British empire should start with "To make a long story short".

> To make a long story really short, the British did ridiculous amounts of good in their colonies. is VERY simplistic.

No, it's not. By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history.

Plenty of bad, too. But overwhelmingly more good than bad. Much of the good is taken for granted until you realize all the mess they cleaned up that isn't talked about. In a number of their African wars, they were destroying cities that had altars of human sacrifice where the blood was made to keep wet - constant non-stop human sacrifice. I forget the chief's name and Wikipedia isn't helping me, but he claimed credit for over 180,000 sacrifices before losing to the Empire.

The Boers are interesting. I kind of sympathize with them a little philosophically as rough individualists, but they were nasty motherfuckers as well. Brutal slavedrivers and merciless during ambushes in wartime. Again, I've actually got quite a bit of admiration of their good points and they were tough as nails, but they could really be sick bastards sometimes. (I think most of their modern descendants would say that's a fair description, and might even smile at it.)

This is before even getting into all the science, culture, law, engineering, infrastructure, and technology that British culture fostered. Yes, they did more net good than anywhere else in history. That's not even a particularly bold statement to make.

As Assistant Secretary to the Treasury he was placed in charge of the administration of Government relief to the victims of the Irish Famine in the 1840s. In the middle of that crisis Trevelyan published his views on the matter. He saw the Famine as a "mechanism for reducing surplus population". He described the famine as "The judgement of God sent the calamity to teach the Irish a lesson, that calamity must not be too much mitigated. …The real evil with which we have to contend is not the physical evil of the Famine, but the moral evil of the selfish, perverse and turbulent character of the people".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sir_Charles_Trevelyan,_1st_Baro...

In Ireland this man was responsible for administering famine relief, and I respectfully disagree with your contention. Perhaps he felt he was doing net good. What he then felt he was doing and what he actually did are different things. He changed his mind later on, but his policies are believed to have lead to the death of over one million three hundred and eighty five thousand Irish.

Right, no-one was disagreeing that the British did many bad things in their colonies. But the point lionhearted is making is that they did more good, overall. Picking a specific example of bad doesn't counter that argument effectively.

sure, but what would counter that argument effectively? How would you do it? How do you say that all of the histories of all the other peoples touched by the British Empire would have actually been just fine, thank you very much. Many of lionhearted's plusses are assumed to have come from the Brits delivered as if into a vacuum. Who's to say that these plus' wouldn't've naturally developed, given enough time, or maybe in ways that don't end in millions of colonized peoples dying? All those other alternate histories are silent.

I would suggest that picking a specific example -- a whoppingly large example, in this case -- is a very good beginning of a counterargument.

Lionhearted saying "here is all the good that happened" needs to be weighed against a reasonable summation of all the good that would have happened. And a "here are all the bad things that happened" likewise should be totaled against the bad things that would have continued to happen.

They're both very, very hard positions to make briefly.

There are entire generations of british historians since WW2 dedicated to the PR propaganda of how good the british were for the colonies and until very recently the western opinion has been entirely shaped by this propaganda - almost any book written by a British historian of which you'll find countless in your library have the same basic point of view.

Opposing viewpoints are not hard to find if you actually take the time to look. See Mike Davis' Late victorian holocausts and the making of the third world which I think is the best explanation of why the differences between east and west are now so great.

Or R.C.Dutt's "Early economic history of the british empire". It's seriously astounding how much money was funnelled out of India and used to build modern Europe and America, while the native Indian industry was killed off.

All this makes the British PR effort entirely justified of course.

Indians came across the 3 monotheistic religions in reverse of order of their birth and their ethos being completely different from their own, did'nt realize their aggressive nature - India had become pacifist since the time of Buddha and Ashoka. By the time the british came, India had already been weakened by the Muslim rules which itself had fallen out of dominance because of new trade routes. So India was doubly weak and this allowed the British to use their resources to easily win and weaken India even further.

The fact that a few Indians were able to leverage the internal dissensions within Europe to their advantage gets very little coverage but was the real story of how the course of history was overturned.

> There are entire generations of british historians since WW2 dedicated to the PR propaganda of how good the british were for the colonies and until very recently the western opinion has been entirely shaped by this propaganda - almost any book written by a British historian of which you'll find countless in your library have the same basic point of view.

That's odd - I grew up in Scotland and our history lessons were mostly about how bad the British empire was and how evil our imperialistic ancestors were. We weren't taught anything about the instilled systems of law and governance, the ending of the slave trade, the breakthroughs in science and engineering, etc. - I've discovered all these things afterwards, by myself.

Generally speaking, I would say that the majority of the British public have a negative view of the empire and are pretty much blind to the fact that it did a lot of good as well as harm.

Ok, Islam and Christianity I'll buy, but exactly what harm do you figure Judaism has done to the people of India?

None at all.

But the whole fascination with idol and temple breaking which Indians can't fathom about Islam turns out to have its origins in the Judaic story of the golden calf.

The blame for that lies only on those who believe and act on the stories, not those who wrote them.

I deliberately picked that example, where they thought they were doing net good, but in fact they were not on further consideration. Some descendants think still that the Empire did net good, but they are ignorant of many of the details.

The example I gave shows starkly their attitude towards those they subjugated, and if you go to the wiki linked, you will see it was a popular viewpoint. It's an effective example exposing the views popularly maintained by those holding power in the Empire. How can people holding these views do more good than harm, overall?

A famine on the doorstep of a superpower is not forgiveable, no amount of scientific progress or engineering prowess can forgive it. Many of the things they credit themselves with improving they initially instigated and promoted, e.g. opium trade, slave trade, penal colonies, regional wars arising out of 'divide and conquer' tactics. They were not a civilising force.

Analyzing history through the lens of modern values is a foolish effort. At some point every person on the planet had ancestors who conquered, killed, and held slaves.

When discussing Alexander the Great we talk about how he spread Hellenistic culture and gave rise to western civilization. It doesn't turn into a flame war about how many Persians he killed, or how many slaves he owned.

If we judge historical cultures by modern standards none of them would come out smelling like roses.

> By pretty much any reasonable metric, the British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history.

From an utilitarian point of view, correct.

The greatest good for the smallest number ?

> By pretty much any reasonable metric

Name one.

>British Empire has contributed more net good to humanity than any other nation in history.

Thats complete bullshit

1)In 1650 the Indian per capita GDP was more than 80 per cent of the British level, by 1871 it had fallen to less than 15 per cent.They did this by completely destryoing the indian cottage industries by westernized machinery. http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=8007

2)So they were not just content with taking all the money....they also wanted to starve people to death. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Famine_in_India

3)The british rule was very racist too.Indians were not allowed to travel or dine in the same places as the British.They called us "dirty kaffirs".

4)Even when these motherfuckers were leaving coz they got fucked in WW2 and did not have any more money to rule India(by then the british had sucked all the money from India anyways) they seperated the country into India and Pakistan based on religion."Estimates of the number of deaths range around roughly 500,000, with low estimates at 200,000 and high estimates at 1,000,000" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Partition_of_India#Perspectives

Wow, are you angry.

1) The British GDP increased dramatically with the (British-led) industrial revolution, regardless of any effect the British had on India. Comparing the two and claiming that it is entirely due to Britain's involvement with India is ridiculous.

2) Famines have a long history in India. During the British-led period, they were particularly bad. However, the strong system of government instilled by the British did pave the way for an organised, united Indian government that heaped resources into agricultural research in the post-war period.

3) It's not just British people that are racist. That's a feature of almost every culture and society. This is pretty much beyond dispute - take a look at the Indian caste system, for example.

4) This was done pretty much at the insistence of contemporary Muslims and Hindus. That it was done poorly is not disputed - that it is entirely the fault of Brits is a ridiculous proposition. India and Pakistan have been free from British rule for decades - there doesn't seem to have been any increased tendency for detente and diplomatic relations now that the British are inconsequential, does there?

You are also completely ignoring any effect that British rule had outside of the Indian region, aren't you? British ships were instrumental in stopping the slave trade in Europe, and British rule brought all kinds of scientific, engineering and medical progress to countries that, at the time of arrival, were still practising human sacrifice and had life expectancies in their mid-30s or younger. I think that you have a rather one-sided view on the matter.

A few points

1. There is a much bigger correlation with India than you suppose.

You can a. build universities and schools to train people b. create favorable tax and corporate structures to foster industry c. capture markets to make a and b and c into a positive feedback loop that makes rapid advancement possible.

Guess which of these is the hardest. It is c - having a captive market. The british captured the Indian market through money and cunning and proceded to systematically weaken then denude native industry then force export their own goods under the pretext of governance. The ratio of manufactures turned from something like 4:1 in India's favor in 1800 to 1:4 by 1900. This entire period was the one of greatest growth for the industrial revolution and it was in fact financed by India. As a french guy wrote, even if the french lost the war to the brits, it was beneficial for europe as this arrangement reduced the cost of development for all of europe. There was no capitalism or industrialism in the west before the Brits came to India.

2. There is no simply comparison between famines under the British, where supplies were not sent out even though they had control of them, and instead levies on starving peasants were increased 10% year over year and famines before and after. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1770

3. It has become standard practice in the west to use the caste system to whitewash British exploitation. Fact is British rule made the situation for the poorest in India much worse than it had ever historically been economically. Poor people could'nt even buy salt which was monopolized by the British for almost 200 years. This salt tax which Gandhi nonviolently protested against was not repealed until the British were kicked out of the country.

4.There was a popular election in 1939 which Jinnah lost even in muslim majority provinces in India. When Nehru tried to pressure the British to leave, Jinnah took the opportunity to get the Queen's support to launch a party which never got even the Muslim popular vote for a new country in the name of Islam. Hindu-muslim is kind of a false label for what actually happened.

Nothing against the British really - they took advantage of history when it was in their favor. It's just the false propaganda that they were somehow hugely beneficial for India that needs to be called out, something which has become truth by sheer repetition.

I'm not for a second claiming that Britain didn't exploit India - I'm merely refuting the idea that all of the British acts were purely negative.

1. Well, I don't necessarily agree that your point c. is the most difficult and I would guess (without knowing) that in many countries the proportion of British-made goods increased dramatically during the 19th century. Is it possible to explain any of the growth in manufactured goods in terms of increased quality, reduced price, improved shipping and transportation and a large immigrant population with massive comparative economic power?

I also disagree with the implication that industrialism and capitalism in the west are purely due to GB's exploitation of India. I'm certain that the influx of money and goods from India to GB helped. I find it beyond reasonable to claim it the sole cause. Britain was already a strong (the strongest?) world power before it became dominant in India.

2. Yes, I agree. The British did the same thing in Ireland. However, as with slavery, the empire seemed to learn from its mistakes and had reversed this inhumane policy towards the end of its life. British rule did unite an historically divided country and thus set the course for a country that looks to ascertain status as an economic superpower today.

3. The fact is that all around the world, being a peasant during the 18th and 19th centuries was awful and that it is only in the last 20-30 years that we have come to understand and abhor racism - in fact, in most countries, that statement is still not true. Blaming the British Empire for racism is misleading - racism wasn't a particular trait of the empire. You'd as well blame the empire for female subjugation. It was specifically bad in India because India was in a unique situation as having a mix of ruling whites and a large population of native peoples, but it could have been worse. See, e.g., America of the same time period.

4. My point was that the division between India and Pakistan was not something that could be laid solely at the feet of the Brits as the OP seemed to do. I accept that it is simplistic to label the divide simply as Muslim-Hindu.

I wouldn't claim that the Brits were hugely beneficial for India. I would claim that they were not entirely negative and that there was some good to the empire as a whole. I'm not regularly exposed to points of view that see the empire as a positive anywhere - quite the opposite, actually. In my part of the world, the empire is viewed as a terribly shameful, hateful thing (something the OP seemed to claim) and I disagree with that.

1. yes it's not the sole cause. the bigger cause perhaps was the discovery of the americas - an entire continent almost the size of asia lying undiscovered right next to the europeans for 15000 years since the last ice age, until Islam's kick led the europeans to search for new routes to India, ultimately leading to the discovery of the Americas. with a discovery like that anyone can become powerful if they put their minds to it. it's amazing that despite such a discovery the British still had to resort to colonialism for centuries to build their way to modernity.

the other cause which you I'm sure you're thinking of is better systems of writing, publishing and central system of goveranance - I'd agree with you there that european systems were better at the time. having said that europe as a whole was'nt that far ahead of india/china before colonialism began.

2. India was politically united in 300BC, about a 1000 years before the UK was in 700A.D. Hugo Grotius in discussing international law around 1600 talked of India as a single entity. the muslim empire around 1600s still had India politically united. culturally and even linguistically India has always had great inherent unity - contrary to the image sometimes portrayed in the west. India was not united by the British - they divided into innumerable princely states and sundry other divisions. It was Sardar Patel who united India after its independance despite all the efforts of the British for the opposite effect and hopes of getting India again once they were out of bankruptcy dues to WW2. You cannot grasp this until you read history of that period very carefully. America helped a bit - basically out of its own selfish motive so that the markets that were captive by the British would open up for itself.

Anyways thanks to Nehru and Gandhi most Indians (at least middle/upper classes) don't have much sting left of the British period of history. Different parts of the world that used to be apart were joining together and there was upheavel that accompanied it which could be expected. But the continuing pain in the peasants and less fortunate classes is very real. Nehru in his biography penned the feeling of loss that Indians feel when they visit America and see how rich it is- and wondered if India would not today have had a sunnier disposition if the British had not turned things so much upside down once they gained political control. He also thought that the loss of American colonies made the British even more vengeful in India, which I think is true.

All that does make it hard to hear the narrative of how Indian success owes itself to British - I mean wow, that really takes the cake does'nt it.

1. The search for new routes to the Far East was as much due to political pressures in Europe as it was to any Islamic interference.

The British didn't 'resort to colonialism to build their way to modernity.' At that time, Britain defined modernity in a way to which no other country has come close since. Colonialism wasn't nice or good, but implying that the Brits alone relied on it to keep up with the rest of the world is nonsense.

Europe patently was pretty far ahead. Not necessarily in one particular area (although I would argue that, at the time, Europe was the world's hub of invention and innovation), but taken as a sum Europe was very far ahead of the rest of the contemporary world. Evidence for this can be seen in the influence Europe had over Africa, America, India and China at the time compared to the influence India and China had over it.

2. When the Brits found India, it was fragmented into several different princedoms and cities. To say that it was in any sense united is misleading - before the Brits got there and for a time while the Brits were there, wars between neighboring sultanates and empires were commonplace. When they left, they left a united India. Those are just cold hard facts that cannot be argued with - India may have been politically united in 300BC, but it sure as hell wasn't in 1700. At the bitter end, if the Brits had really, really wanted to leave India divided, it would not have been a difficult thing to accomplish. The will and attention simply was not there after Britain had bankrupted itself fighting the two largest wars the world had ever seen, right on its own doorstep.

Indians shouldn't feel any sense of loss when they visit America - those that do so are deluded, unless they believe that India (who had no united navy or army at that time) should have discovered it first (despite no history of exploration and settlement in the way of the Portuguese, Spanish, French, Dutch and Italians). If Indians should feel a sense of loss about any country, it should be Australia. It was on India's doorstep!

As for what-might-have-been-because-we-could-have-been-united: to say that Indians feel loss upon visiting America is similar to saying that Russians or Chinese should also.

If you want an objective viewpoint of history, you should refrain from choosing positions from an autobiography of one of the key players!

(Why is it that India's positives are due to certain men - Nehru and Ghandi are mentioned liberally throughout the arguments on this thread - but the downsides to British rule in India is due to 'the British', rather than Clive, Hastings or Mountbatten? Is that evidence of bias?)

I certainly haven't said that India owes its success to the British. I do think that some of modern India's plus points have their roots in the structures and technologies brought by the British - and conversely, a lot haven't. Both yourself and the OP seem very sensitive about that. The original point in the conversation to which I replied was that the British empire was an overwhelming force for evil.

Simply, it wasn't; as a matter of pure fact, it may have been the most benevolent imperial structure ever to have existed. It did bad things, but not all the things it did were bad and it can certainly be argued that, in balance and in net, it was a force for good.

It's not the discovery of america, it's the fact that India was actively deindustrialized by the British railways which had a negative feedback loop on Indian industry, whereas in America the railways had a positive feedback loop in manufacturing. It's not that America is ahead but that India was cut down. Also you can read up on internal tarrifs in India which were deliberate British policy to kill the market of goods produced in India, not the doing of one or two men like Clive or Hastings.

Let me close my argument by asking you to read a document that warned of British intentions to the Americans just before the American revolution - Common Sense by Thomas Paine. All the things he warned America about the British crown came true for India, whereas America which was also not united at the time - there were more loyalists than revolutionaries and many different colonies - got the warning in time and got its unity and independance early on. India was not so lucky and did not discern the threat or receive this kind of explicit warning and suffered for it.

There's no bias there, I am clearly stating facts from the Indian perspective not some utilitarian world good perspective. In case you believe in that perspective, the question to you is why America chose not to continue being a British colony.

As far as unity argument, like I said the history of the time has to be examined carefully and it turns out to be false as far as British intentions and actions went. Churchill said was no more a country than the equator for example. Also why UK been so opposed to EU and unification in its own backyard.

>2. When the Brits found India, it was fragmented into several different princedoms and cities. To say that it was in any sense united is misleading - before the Brits got there and for a time while the Brits were there, wars between neighboring sultanates and empires were commonplace.

What do you think happened between when they landed and when they left? They landed as traders; they took sides between the warring kingdoms and sultanates for access to markets. They just played on the differences for their own gains - divide and rule. Read about the Partition of Bengal. This was the modus operandi of the empire everywhere: hindu v muslims in India, catholics v protestants in Ireland, muslims v jews in Palestine.

>When they left, they left a united India. Those are just cold hard facts that cannot be argued with - India may have been politically united in 300BC, but it sure as hell wasn't in 1700. At the bitter end, if the Brits had really, really wanted to leave India divided, it would not have been a difficult thing to accomplish.

Well they did not try to leave it united. The British never had direct control over all of India. Many regions were under direct rule, many still under princes. It was the Indian political will, after independence (and after the India-Pakistan partition), which united India in to a whole. India did not become a Republic until 1950.

Re: most benevolent structure ever to have existed

here's a reference on internal tariffs from R.C.Dutt since it is very hard to locate online.

"The transit duties became more oppressive under the British Rule than they had been under the Nawabs. For the Company's power was more far- reaching, absolute, and undisputed, and each low- paid officer, at each Chowki or toll-house, had the means of exercising greater oppression. The evil grew without cessation for sixty years, and as late as 1825, Holt Mackenzie, then Territorial Secretary, condemned it in the strongest terms. " ..

"But Holt Mackenzie spoke to deaf ears. The East India Company would not willingly sacrifice even a re- venue of ;!{^2 2 0,000, or any portion of it, for the prosperity of the internal trade of India. Professing the utmost anxiety for the material welfare of the people of India, they were unwilling to sacrifice a shilling to promote that welfare. If the abolition of the Inland Duties had depended on the East India Company, the duties would never have been abolished under their administration. "

>Very soon they will pay for all this!!

Are you a Bond villain?

@samyzee Stack level went to deep so I'm replying to my own post. I agree that Asians are underrepresented in terms of global GDP, and with time their share of the pie will grow much larger in keeping with their share of the population.

However economics is not a zero sum game. I'm not adversely affected if Asia's economies grow. In fact, I'd love to see them succeed. More wealth anywhere is good for free people everywhere; it give's me more people to trade with.

>but standards of living and of most economies will definitely decline...the stuff that you bought from china for really cheap wont be so cheap anymore

You've completely forgotten about automation. Within a generation robotics will make low cost labor obsolete. We won't need factories of Chinese workers to build our products; We'll have factories full of robots.

Also, I don't really care who has the most power. I don't care if America has the largest military in the world. I only want our military to protect our borders and police shipping lanes.

If China becomes more powerful than the west and my standard of living increases thanks to technology, I don't care. The only thing to worry about is chinese military intervention, but even if they have a significantly more powerful military our nuclear deterrents will prevent them from directly harming us.

haha ....I got a little too emotional over there(edited) that part...but dont tell me you dont know about the gradual shift of power and revenue from the western to the asian markets....watch the documentary two million minutes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=niU1E3SSTAM

i agree tht it is not a zero sum game...the world economy is larger than it was 30 years ago....and yes you will be able to trade more since there will be more consumers....but standards of living and of most economies will definitely decline...the stuff that you bought from china for really cheap wont be so cheap anymore....which means tht the average westerner will be no better than the average asian in terms of healthcare,education,food cars etc....(the average asian right now lives on less than $1 a day)...so far so good...we are all happy rite...wrong!!....the asian countries still have a huge advantage in such a scenario...population!!...when everyone has the same standard of living ...it is population which will decide who has more power!!

Thanks for jumping in to pointlessly defend some giant institution. "they did good things too!" is so simplistic it makes me want to tear my hair out. Why spend time defending the Empire as some unquestionable whole? The point is to analyze institutional structure so you can tease out the rules that have positive consequences from the ones that have negative consequences.

Having a desire to spread sanitation and education: good. Binding the possibility of sanitation and education to an economic mode of production that leaves the newly sanitized and educated with underdeveloped infrastructure and in debt cycles: bad. I'm not interested in the illusion that they are inherently paired operations.

Oh, and we still have slave trade and the cult of england today, so your starry eyed tone is quite unearned.

> Thanks for jumping in to pointlessly defend some giant institution. ... your starry eyed tone is quite unearned.

First, up your civility a bit there. The snark is unnecessary and counterproductive to good discussion.

Second, my argument wasn't, "They did some good things too."

It was, "They were overwhelmingly the largest force for good in all of history."

Seriously, check out Heaven's Command. It's pretty balanced and covers every significant battle, controversy, and hypocrisy. And factoring all of that in, the Empire still comes out as the nation that's done more for humanity than anyone else.

I'm not asking you to continue to defend the Empire. I'm asking you to analyze the multitude of institutional forces that contributed to the structure Empire in a way that lets you causally analyze which forces produced which outcomes. This is a discussion of what the structure of our institutions ought to be. To answer that we need to be a little more subtle than evaluating the Empire as a singular, whole unit.