Britain's Wealth was NOT Built on Slavery & Colonialism
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- čas přidán 11. 05. 2024
- On today's #NCFWhittle we speak with Dr. Kristian Niemietz, Head of Political Economy and author of several books at the Institute of Economic Affairs (IEA). He joins us to discuss his latest book "Imperial Measurement: A Cost-Benefit Analysis of Western Colonialism"
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Ohhhhh Brit are just misunderstood good guys, well feel free to google 1944 Brit-made Great Bengal Famine alone where 7 mil people went Tata bbye.. and ironically mass famines in Bharat stopped with Brits leaving... Argument is that it was industrialization, not colonialism? Who was the market for the Brit goods? Any guesses, the captive markets in the colonies were.... Also if colonialism had nothing to do with Brit wealth then how come just 50 years after Colonialism ended Brits are having so much trouble staying wealthy?
What about the Islamic world where slavery taught in the Quran and is carried out in the world today?
SSH! Not allowed to say that. They are the poor victims remember
The immams don't want their slaves to know that and just teach lies which their adherents just lap up like a dog lapping water from their bowls.
According to Google and the DNC, Muslims are victims even when conquering. Ruining other societies is called the "Golden Age of Islam."
I'm afraid what you said is totally unacceptable and constitutes hate speech........even though you're 100% correct.
You can also see it in the Old Testament. Leviticus for example.
So in the broad picture - the British gained little from the ancient practice of slavery, built a massive wealth generating Industrial Revolution instead that largely rendered the economic basis of slavery redundant, and then later made it illegal and dedicated considerable resources to putting an end to it wherever they could. And their reward? The usual going rate for good deeds.
You should go and read Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor. It'll fill in a lot of the blanks that you may have.
@@vin00ify I was largely talking to slavery - but yes it's big brutal brother 'empire' is an equally ancient human practice the British certainly did not invent. What they DID invent was representative democracy that slowly over the past 400 years or so has done more to improve the general lot of more people alive today than anything else.
Also - slavery (invented by POC) was never legal in Britain.
The wealth created by countries in Northern Europe was by the sweat of the working classes and the ingenuity of the middle classes. In the British case, there may have been a few that had exploited other lands- they lived in grand country houses, which by the 1960s were in rapid decline as the money was running out and their lives were in calamity and despair..Lord Lucan was perhaps an example of this?
A good deed never goes unpunished. Old English saying
France was already the richest country in Europe before it began to acquire colonies. Same with Germany. Sweden never had any colonies. Spain colonised half the world and ended up dirt poor...
Saying that the West became rich thanks to colonialism is a pathetic and erroneous simplification
France still has colony in Africa and the destruction these nations caused are well documented, these nations sucked blood from countries like india,china and Africa and now they are in decline because I'll gotten wealth never last long
Sweden did have colonies, not counting Norway. Wikipedia will reveal all
Funny how they never mention the Ottoman Empire.
here we go another attempt at distorting history .... blah blah blah
Sweden did indeed have colonies and colonial ambitions...incredible PR job that noone knows about it!
Congrats NCF on reaching 250,000 subs.
Thanks for pointing it out - I'd missed the milestone!
England was one of the richest countries in the world PRIOR to any creation of colonies, any establishment of an empire, or any involvement in the slave trade. France was the richest country in Europe during the medieval period, and was renowned for its military prowess, yet England fought a very successful war against France -- on French home ground -- for 100 years, winning most of the battles. You simply can't do that sort of thing without a strong economy. Armies cost a LOT of money.
Really? Is that why folks in Britain were throwing buckets of poo straight onto the streets of London in the 13th century?
England was Bankrupt when Charles II came to power, what are you talking about. Portugal gave the UK trading rights globally to save the country when Catherine of Braganza married Charles II...
Rich by what standard? Because you have a lot of what?
White people are so obsessed to call themselves rich and above others.
"England fought a very successful war against France -- on French home ground -- for 100 years, winning most of the battles" Now you KNOW what I'm going to say to you, don't you...? The HYW was one of a number of wars in which Britons celebrate their battle victories... yet actually lost the war. Like King William's War, the War of the Spanish Succession, the War of the Austrian Succession.... And England's victories in the HYW were all about shooting at someone who lacked shooting weapons, until the French corrected the imbalance and drove the English out of the Continent - Formigny and Castillon were far more impressive victories than those Los Angeles Gangsta Rapper Drive-by Shooting victories like Crecy and Agincourt.!!
But anyway, everything else you said was spot-on, cheers !!!
@@TomasFunes-rt8rd Drive by shooting ... lol... what a dickhead. The language you use says it all. Agincourt. Inferior forces used in spectacularly effective way tactically. Carefully thought out and ruthlessly executed.
Pathetic trolling. Another boring English hater based on jealousy.
In 1833 The Abolition of Slavery Act was passed. In that year so was another act passed. This act banned the employment of children under nine in the factories. Also they were not allowed to work more than nine hours. It was the people working in these industries which helped make Britain rich, as did my child ancestors, crawling under the looms to piece together broken threads. The rich got richer. Children in rags, sometimes with no shoes, sold watercress and flowers on the streets from dawn to dusk. In all weathers. If people became ill they ended up as victims of the draconian poor laws and had to enter the infamous workhouses of the time. I'd really like to see these people remembered, maybe on the fourth plinth in Trafalgar Square. Some chance. I'm sure some non native people think we were all prancing around in Regency and Victorian dress.
Jennifer - Industrialists found loop holes in child labour laws . What actually ended the use of child labour was the introduction of making schooling mandatory beginning in 1870 .
Also , Suggest checking out the Peterloo in Manchester and the Chartist Movement with their 6 points .
I'd post a link for a YT video but this post would be deleted .
.
Slavery was replaced by indentured labour system, which was another name of slavery.
We are not that stupid.
@@DipakBose-ge1hm We have wage slaves today 🤣
@@DipakBose-ge1hm That's all in the past. Be thankful that you didn't have to endure it.
You live a comfortable life and are prosperous enough to own a smartphone.
The cost of buying the freedom for all of the slaves in the Empire was only paid off after 182 years, in 2015.
That was war debt, silly man, owed mainly to the USA.
@@bernardedwards8461 No, it was paid to buy the freedom of all slaves from slave owners in the Empire in 1833, so the debt lasted 182 years. Are you really that ignorant? Do your own research for God's sake.
@bernardedwards8461 You are perhaps confusing the war debt we incurred, helping to save ourselves and Europe from the Nazis, with the debt acquired through paying off slave owners. Both were only finished with fairly recently.
@@banginghats2 You are the ignorant one, typical woke. War is a very expensive business, where do you think we got the money? Do some research for your own sake, not for God's.
Amazing that we paid off the slavery debt, & war debt only recently, yet remain nearly £2.75 trillion in debt........& they say we are a rich country so must welcome all comers???????
Excellent, a German has to explain rhis. He does it well.
His arguments are more compelling because nobody can accuse him of being a 'Little Englander'.
Incredible discussion! I do hope that this Gentleman’s book and extensive research could be read and understood by generations where history has been distorted to justify their aims.
In 1850 some 22% of the UK population worked in agriculture, it was higher in 1750, but I couldn't find the information. Now it is 1%. Those people moved off the land to better jobs in the factories, higher pay, with in many cases supplied housing. It was that shift from almost subsitance farming to industrial production that made the country rich.
Rinse and repeat for every other European country, sooner or later, followed by Japan, Korea, China, and others.
Likewise India under Britiish rule.
The tax cut from 50% under the Mughals to 6% under the British, and an end to religious repression helped.
@@DieFlabbergastAs china and Bangladesh, have and are doing now.
' better jobs in the factories'? Perhaps but certainly open to debate. Dickens would have had something to say, I wager.
'Better jobs in factories' ? Perhaps but certainly a contentious statement. Dickens would have had something to say, I wager.
Britain’s wealth originated from two guys at Glasgow Uni in the 1780s,- James Watt whose steam engine created the Industrial Revolution, and Prof Adam Smith’s recognition that Free Enterprise and small government was how to make GB very G. I would add the third factor,- brains. A generation later, also in then highly educated Scotland, Prof. Willie Thompson also at Glasgow, invented refrigeration, then put the cash proceeds into the first, ever, trans-oceanic telegraph, from London to New York. He was promoted to the House of Lords as Lord Kelvin, because the House of Lords was becoming the House of Excellence. In the late 1700s and early 1800s GB was the world centre of science and innovative technology because of Watt’s invention and Smith’s economics. It WAS THESE which enterprising Brits took to everywhere English was spoken,- N America, Australia, and so a massive economic Empire grew from technology and inter-imperial trade protected by a supreme navy. Just like Greece 2,500 years before. Read your history and see how it is done.
"Built on" is an interesting phrase. Before the British could colonize, they had to stop being invaded, stop murdering each other internally over religion (for extended periods of time at least), advance science enough to master navigation, master banking and finance enough for global trade to be possible, and the Spanish navy needed to be defeated.
Sounds like a game of Civilisation.
@@alanrobertson9790 I love that game. 😎
Yet 3rd world Islamic nations are still stuck in the dark stone ages, and killing each other internally over religious-political differences and ideology.
@@alanrobertson9790pretty much.
Excellent points.
And it was these systems which enabled GB to exploit resources from all their colonies.
Compensation should be given to the British, for the superb infrastructure it left behind, especially in India.
I think at this point Indians should just invade United Kingdom.
Empty the Thieves Market.
check out: How Britain stole $45 trillion from India and lied about it - Jason Hickel. So the narrative going around was that Britain didn't gain any economic benefits from administering India but did it out of benevolence and great cost to Britain. So I take it Robert Clive returned to Britain poor - not. According to the Guardian: The East India Company; the original corporate raiders - "he returned to Britain with a personal fortune - then valued at 234000 pounds - that made him the richest self-made man in Europe. After the Battle of Plassey - 2.5 million pounds - in today's currency - 23 million and the company 250 million. Then about 400000 pounds on top of the previous amount when he returned to Britain for the last time - the Corporation that changed the world - Nick Robins
@@sirfrozsomji3984 Your ignorance is exceeded only by your belief in the Guardian's Socialist propaganda.
Unbelievable. What a sad comment.
There is no way i believe that the current state of Africa is fault of British and French. Especially when I see how bad they integrate and how much worse they make every place they go to with some exceptions.
Self destructive genes!!
@@annapachaclarke2392 Plain stupid culture I would say
Africa has always had huge geographical disadvantages such as the lack of natural ports and few inland waterways that also lead to water scarcity. In Europe and North America all the big cities grew on rivers and the trade that came with that.
@hilarymiseroy not just that, but the environment of Africa itself is incredibly hostile to non-Africans.
"How bad they integrate"
With whom?
Britain's wealth burgeoned after the Dutch coup in 1688.
We got banking, a national debt, permanent war with France, better drainage, improved agriculture, canals, gin, better navigation, merger with Scotland and a new royal family.
Our progress was driven by debt, steam power, child labour and a farming revolution.
Not slavery.
and child labour is perfectly valid. One of the reasons why our societies collapsed is because we were convinced children should not be raised to become adults let alone help out with the family.
Heaven forbid. Bless their ignorant little minds.
And in any case, with all the inventions etc. that resulted, it was responsible for the modern world. Now if you dislike modernity, that is fair enough, but if not then there can be no sound case that we have not 'contributed' far more to it than we have 'taken away', and so any 'account' of the British must surely be in the black, not the red.
" Britain's wealth burgeoned after the Dutch coup in 1688. " Bingo !
James II ( VII ) thought he had the absolute right to rule , but was over thrown .
When William of Orange * and Mary II ascended the the thrown in 1689 , during their Coronation Oath , they swore to recognize the sovereignty of Parliament . This was followed by the 1689 English Bill of Rights .
However , at the time , only land owners had the vote .
So with the Acceptance of Enlightenment Values ( John Locke , Issac Newton , Adam Smith ) we see the rise in Democracy , Human Rights , Rule of Law , Commerce , Public and Social Programs , Public Health , Architecture , Science and Technology .
Key for commerce this was the development of a national transportation system ( railways ) and a national communication network ( mail and telegraph ) .
A number of Labour Acts tried to stop the use of Child Labour . But industrialists found ways around these laws - What actually ended child labour was making schooling mandatory beginning in 1870 .
.
.
* William of Orange went along with this because his real goal was to have the English support the Dutch to defeat the French .
@TheBelrick no, our societies are not collapsing because we decided that children shouldn't be chimney sweeps, getting cancerous lumps in the groin.
I mean there's one very big clue that this is true: Britain didn't immediately fall into economic ruin and decline when they lost the American colonies! In fact, without the burden of the 13 colonies, Britain grew larger than ever before!
They did colonize the Indian Sub-continent. That was huge
I’m so glad there are people like this gentleman who still bother to research the truth.
I bet it cost more than was ever made out of it , and now its costing big time. anyway what`s it got to do with todays English , the kindest country on the planet, to the point of insanity.
There was nothing kind about colonisation. Be real please. This German is implying the West murdered 100s of millions of non-white people for nothing. At least the original narrative makes sense.
Yes, but kind and generous to foreigners, not to its own people! Big mistake, as Rischi will soon find out.
Pathological altruism
Pathological altruism
@@uchenna127 Colonialism was a mix of good and bad.
The notion of 1 empire is a myth. What we had was multiple empires running as independent companies flying under a British flag.
'The East India Company' for example..
@@scotlandtheinsane3359 exactly. Any idiot who thinks we had some kind of Roman style empire is basically historically illiterate. The Chinese are following the British model in Africa right now. Go in, build infrastructure, provide a model for governance, make binding deals and reap the rewards- until the money roles in and the locals think they can do better
yes, they had their own private Armies too and they protected trade supplies from other interests taking them over by force. Be they a local warlord to a European agent.
No, you DID have an actual empire in the Victorian and Edwardian periods (and you should refuse to mourn over it, or to wear sackcloth and ashes, or to cough up unearned payments, over it !! ), but what IS mythical is the oft-heard Indian whinge that there were 300 years of British rule.... No, it was less than 90 - before the Indian Mutiny was defeated, it was A PRIVATE COMPANY conquering the various Indian potentates ( I don't say "India," because India is ANOTHER British invention...! )
@@scotlandtheinsane3359America's flag is modeled after theirs.
It was a "subtle" way to give the British Empire the middle finger 🤠
🇺🇲🇺🇲🇺🇲
What Dr. Kristian says was in my head all the years . I was confused then when all I've learn from media didn't match what I thought in my British's ex-colony city Hong Kong. British people must fight,clear your name .I love you.
Thank you. Getting to know some Hong Kong immigrants and liking them very much. So different from other immigrants.
Significantly all the most successful places economically in the Far East where of British foundation.
There were no more than 3000 British families who had slaves.
It was ingenuity and hard work which made is great.
Definitely and stupidity is what is undermining it today.The British produced the highest standards in consumer items..beauty craftsman ship & practicality and durability.
Britain was the leading manufacturing economy "in Europe" Union struggles pushing for more and more constantly put strain on industry. Britain was promised more expansion and open markets to Economically grow if they joined the European Economic Union. Heath the freakin lier. Instead the EEC put restrictions on the UK economy to " level up" its industries down to the other member States.That was your Judas
It's amazing when the facts come out. Thanks.
@@InvictusVirtus333 And, in the United States, although slave labor continued, the importation of slaves was outlawed in 1790.
@@InvictusVirtus333 True!
You failed to mention who owned the slaves
The Elites
The point about nostalgia for empire at 25:00 is interesting: I'm in my 60s, and there was no nostalgia for the empire in my childhood. But my parents' generation, born in the 1920s, was educated to celebrate the empire in the 1930s, and I think my parents - lower middle class, grammar-school educated - were brought up to regard the empire as beneficial, both economically and culturally, though clearly at the time, it was becoming an economic burden. My mother always remarked, when the 24th May came around, that it was Empire Day!
It’s a shame we aren’t more nostalgic about it. The story of how a small population of people on a tiny collection of rainy islands dominated more than a third of the globe and ruled over hundreds of millions of people is quite inspiring. The British Empire was one of the most benevolent empires that ever existed.
Very interesting talk from Dr Niemeitz. Could really do with him in our schools and Universities!
Like mass immigration, it doesn't really benefit the ordinary person.
Who were the colonialists in fact? Often Private companies such as the East India Company. And who owned and ran those companies in the autonomous way they were? What was their ethnicity? Were they the same group of movers and shakers whose origins can be found in Holland and later became very prominent in Italy for several centuries as the Medici Family? Were these the same types of financially and business oriented, skilled people whose ethnicity allowed banking to be an absolute necessity throughout the western world, the same ethnic group whose ambition for power and money had no limits? Did that ethnic group, have anything to do with the American revolution after establishing private ventures their which they felt were outside the controls of the British crown? Were they instrumental in the slave trade by owning the vessels that transported them? There is more hidden treasures to be unearthed on this topic.
What many people don't take into account is that while the British were occupying a particular place a lot of the money made in those areas would be pumped back in as new sewage systems, telegraph lines, postal systems, roads, schools, hospitals, etc. There really wasn't that much (comparatively speaking) money sent back to the UK. Places like India provided a lot of tea that was blended in the UK and sold around the world. That made a few individuals very rich but the taxes they paid in India paid for all the infrastructure projects mentioned above.
So THATS why India sewage system in non existent…. .? The invaders did things ONLY for the invaders, NOT the locals….
So British came to India to do charity 😅
@@msdolly6101981 Haha, in a manner of speaking but not really. When the British took over India the Indians all became Subjects of the Queen and so India was basically treated as a deprived area of the British Empire and money was spent there to bring it inline with the rest of the Empire. Basically what the EU does now!
@@davidsfoxes : how manynof the European " subjects " where shot especially unarmed women and children. How many did the crown starve to death. By the way , why is British museum holding so many things from India, some of them even religious things taken away from temples? Even heard of Bengal famine ? Few years ago, one of the archbishop, bowed down at the memorial in jalanwalabag, and apologized, why was that ?
@@msdolly6101981 and how is that relevant here???
Working class People in victorian England were always starving , there's like million different types of videos explaining that why living in victorian era sucked.
Maybe you should read history outside of your indian history textbooks.
We created the Industrial Revolution, and that's how we got rich..
And your welcome world, as we shared it all with you.
It's too bad if you weren't smart enough to catch up..
the industrial revolution, agricultural revolution, and the discovery of pencil (all from Britain) are widely accepted as being the three things that caused the global population to shoot up from under a billion to now over eight billion.
literally 90% of the global population are only alive because of the british
Yeah? Look at Britain's engineering industries today. They're all in the gutter. Most have either gone bankrupt or sold to Chinese or Indian engineering companies. And don't get me started on how Physics is a dying subject in British schools and has been for the last 13 years.
@vin00ify
Uhm, that wasn't what I was talking about, obviously.
And I certainly agree with your point.
It's even more shambolic up here as the SNP has destroyed our education system.
@@vin00ify ? Why is it the 5th largest economy in the world still then ?
@@luciusesox1luckysox570 Let's see how long you can hold onto that title, yeah. Destitution levels in Britain are rising, especially child poverty. The NHS and schools are getting poorer with staffing shortages. The "native" birthrate is plummeting and there's a rising birthrate from a particular ethno-religious group of migrants in Britain who are maneuvering towards political control of Britain. Looks like Britain has a bright future ahead of her.
The world's prosperity is built on Britain's success. Fact.
As a Canadian it is obvious to me that this is a fact!
I prefer to credit rome
@@trevormcdonald385 "What have the Romans ever done for us?!"
@@AsphodeliaD loads they gave britain modernity and civilisation
@trevormcdonald385 recent discoveries are starting to cast doubt on that narrative.
As a PS to my post, it was brains which created Empire. Watt was recognised as a child genius at his village school in Greenock where his father was the local post-master. At the time tiny Scotland had four universities, the youngest being Edinburgh. Birth was no block to any bright young Scot of that period. In the 1860s when Japan decided to join the modern world where did they send their bright young men to learn all about engineering and science? No prizes for the right guess. Maybe UK will rediscover the route to wealth and security. It is education and individual enterprise, not collective group-think politics which get you there.
A lot of them were sent to Germany.
Brilliant! Thank you for your research..
I wouldn't even care if it was, Songhai's (Mali) was, Egypt's was and to such an extent that when the two leaders met each other the number of slaves they owned became a pissing contest between the two. We are owed reparations for man and material lost in the policing of the entire African coast line, the liberation of slaves, and the resettlement of them either back in their homeland or elsewhere within the Empire, and we need a government with the spine to demand it once and for all.
This is very informative, just shame that the people who need to hear this won't give it a second glance, and that's the kind of ignorance we are up against.
We do not need the ignorant. We would be carrying them on our backs🙄
We just need those of us who care about this !!
Empire was equally brutal to the native English population..we had indentured servitude and transportation. On top of that they used to hang children for theft and finnished off the 19th century with the workhouse. If that wasn't slavery I don't know what is.
As for wealth, that was wasted fighting Germany in France during WW1 and WW2 was funded with credit.
My parents were born in the 20s and when they went to school the map of the World was a 1/4 pink. Their teachers told them they were part of the greatest empire ever known and a force for good. Growing up it was easy to see that much of the former empire had been better off under British rule. However, today it is hard to believe that anywhere would be better ruled by those currently running the UK or those that wish to replace them.
uk is no longer ruled by the locals.
😅 that's the "sins" of the " greatest empire" haunting now😅
I always sum it up like this:
The Empire enriched INDIVIDUALS.
The Industrial Revolution enriched the NATION - at TREMENDOUS cost to the lowest classes, with suffering and death working in the highly dangerous new fields that it brought about. The conditions and life expectancy in some places were abysmal.
The time has come for Africa and former Colonies to pay Compensation to the British, for the Magnificent infrastructure left behind. France did this.
France did what?
You are 100% correct! This is especially true for India.
@@yasinjafari9695 French Colonies agreed with France, that before they receive independence, the Colonies must compensate France for the Billions, France spent developing the Countries.
Thanks for the info 👍
If I may add, I was at the U.S. Command and General Staff College, ( a school for majors) in the 1980's where I got to know the officers from 26 countries. The ones from a British background were wonderful people whose country had a solid education system, a judicial system, an understanding of republican government, a professional competence, and a politeness that excelled all others (including us Americans). Wherever Britain was, that part of the world was improved. God bless the UK.
Britain already had twice the GDP/ capita of India when the first East India Company ships landed there. Also, Western European and Japanese economies actually boomed after decolonisation, after having come out of a destructive war. The gap between poor third World countries and Western Europe has actually widened enormously after decolonisation. The gap was smaller during European Empires.
Boomed? Really? So why have Britain's Engineering industries been slowly crumbling over the last 70 years? Why are the leftovers of Britain's automotive, steel and semiconductor businesses in the hands of Indian and Chinese companies?
@@vin00ify Because free international trade drains any wealth created from domestic production.
@@foundationofBritain You mean the GBP is too strong for Britain to compete with the likes of China and India in engineering and manufacturing?
It made some families extraordinarily rich and many buildings in cities like Bristol were built on tobacco & sugar, which was re-exported to Europe. The title should have read 'to a small extent'. People often forget the extraordinary amount of indentured white servants that paid for all these things with their life & hardly lasted more than a month in the West Indies.
As a New Zealander of Māori and European descent I believe we were the luckiest people in the world. Taking our Stone Age existence to the forefront of the industrial world in a generation. Not bad!
As an Australian I agree, though it took a little longer.
Taking GDP per capita as a reasonably good measure of a country's prosperity, taking a look at a list of European countries in rank order of GDP per capita, it is obvious that there is no correlation between present day prosperity and whether the country had colonies.
Also, Britain already had twice the GDP/ capita of India when the first East India Company ships landed there. Also, Western European and Japanese economies actually boomed after decolonisation, after having come out of a destructive war. The gap between poor third World countries and Europe has actually widened enormously after decolonisation. The gap was smaller during European Empires.
In the celtic days Britain was exporting grain to Rome (the market) it was the noticeable fruitfulness of these "islands on the edge" that got the Romans interested in moving in on the territory just like the USA now are trying to move in on the ukraine land,in order to appropriate all the valuable commodities there. After the Romans left,it took a few hundred years but the Saxons developed a rich culture with grain exports and so another foreign power decided this was a land worth appropriating. Then through the long medieval era Englands riches came from sheep/wool and cod. Many of our "deserted villages" came about as landowners turfed out the people in favour of grazing sheep. We kept the sheep and then sold the wool to places like Antwerp where they wove it into fine fabrics. The businessmen of Bristol knew about the newfoundland coast for at least 100 years before Columbus as that was where their rich harvests of cod came from that they sold,as dried salted fish,to all the hot Mediterranean Catholic countries for fridays. We were Catholic too of course. Britain was already rich from these trades when english mariner John Hawkins came across the thousand year old pre-existing and well organised trade in people to the Arab world. So conpanies like the Merchant Venturers of Bristol already had the wealth to invest in the ships and equipment needed for this trade
It reflects badly on those African Kings (whose descendants are still the local aristocracy) that they would sell PEOPLE for worthless glass beads, cheap copper pots,and other gew gaws.
Very interesting discussion. I just ordered two of Dr. Niemietz's books.
Ive grown up and lived my whole life in New Zealand. To us the idea that Britain exploited its colonies and grew rich out impoverishing them sounds totally ridiculous. We had a mutually beneficial relationship with Britain that allowed us to prosper and develop our nation.
NZ is rich because of the empire and in spite of the natives.
100% true.
That is why people are trying get into Australia, Canada and New Zealand (plus the U.S. naughty colonists): They adapted British ideas about law and commerce. Britain has given up on these bedrock ideas and look what happened.
@@barrylarking8986 hey mate, all nations are under hostileandforeign rule. There is no where to flee to . And if done so it is in ignorance. The world fell.
Your clearly not a Maori
According to some nitwit, we owe India 44 trillion..😂
According to a Marxist theorist called Usta Patnaik who made up questionable assumptions and then compounded the amount with 5 percent interest every year for couple of centuries. 😂😂😂
There wasn't any India until we created it! In those days British India included Pakistan,and we colonised it with about 30,000 Brits. That was bad. In retaliation we are now being colonised by about 2 million people from the sub-continent. That is good, or so we are told.
@mudra5114
Even now, no country has 44 trillion..
I mean, where did it all go?
How many tandoori would that be?!
If only we stiffed them for that 😆
@@mudra5114The same Marxist inspired historians who, while constantly berating the British colonisation of what became India, totally ignore the Moghols. They, unlike Britain, took control of the nation through war, killing thousands in the process, and then ruled over it, exploiting and enriching themselves, for almost twice as long as the British. Apparently that particular history is overlooked, but then no chance of either encouraging white guilt or making ridiculous demands for reparations.
@scotlandtheinsane3359
I was wondering when someone was going to mention that lie. And it's 45 trillion apparently. Utter bunkum!
People forget the poor little children who worked cleaning chimneys and down mines. The poor working in the factories and the owners with excellent ideas and inventions.
We made this country great with a minimum of help from outside.
Wow didn't know cleaning chimney can make your country a super power! Thank for the tip😂
Wrong again. You’ve forgotten about Post war Britain.
This is refreshing. A German defending Britain. Sehr gut.
One of the biggest boosts to British success (that's rarely acknowledged) was the meritocracy that was a feature of the British navy from the late 18th century onwards. The navy (directly and indirectly) was a vast employer at that time and facilitated (still small compared to a century later but) significant social mobility that was absent in other countries around that time. This meant power became less concentrated within an elite that had never mixed with less affluent individuals, and so more egalitarian views had greater chance of taking root - this (together with geology, geography and educational factors etc) was helpful in providing the conditions for the industrial revolution.
It is anti White not anti capitalist
They pretty much go hand in hand.
The Empire never died it was just transferred across the Atlantic to the US and we became colonies.
Good: Roman colonies did better under the Empire than they had previously as independent ethnic groups. The same applied to the Persian Empire before it. The idea that an empire is automatically a bad thing would have been incomprehensible to most people prior to the 19th century.
@@DieFlabbergast but ultimately this Empire has hollowed us out and demographically destroyed us.
The US didn't take on responsibility for the colonies, it just took the money
USA is a continuation of the British empire. It was templated
Exactly the indigenous in this country have always been thought of as a colony by the elites
I used to be one of those people who thought Africa was hardly done by by us terrible Brits when I was young. I had African friends from more than one country, although they weren't hard on us. It was black Americans in the 60s and seventies. I read lots of black authors and really got into our badness. I supported anti apartheid stuff. I went to stay, not as a tourist, in Sierra Leone and Nigeria. At some point the series Roots came out and went down a storm. By then I knew it was crap. Reality and my own experiences gave me quite a different picture. In recent years I gave a researched talk on slavery to a group that was as popular as a fart and never mentioned again. I've been going against the grain ever since.
Production is wealth, the more productive a nation is the more wealthier they are. With wealth comes power, and with power comes the ability to project that power overseas. Mercantile trade is what made England wealth and powerful, and when we became free trading, we lost our relative economic power and then are political and military power and then our Empire and now our domestic industries have gone, we are a nation of consumers and not producers.
Our Mercantile trade became with Edward III, our wool trade and the Flemish textile trade. To put it simple, we basically created our own textile industries by encouraging domestic production of woollen textiles by increasing tax on imported Flemish textiles and exported English wool, we then exported English woollen textiles to Flanders (for next to nothing) and out competed the Flemish textile industries which eventually despaired. So we English dominated the Flemish textile market in the middle ages because we practiced *Mercantile trade* and the Flemish practiced *Free trade* and this was way before colonies in the new world.
The reason the Chanellor sits on the Wool Sack-the source of England's wealth.
Looting Raw Materials thus creating Famines starving 10's of millions is Fair game?
Another interesting book noted. Basic easy to understand. WHAT SELLS FAST ?
1 English Tea Clear Cough 2 Herbs Rich English Agriculture for healthy ointments 3 simple communication languages 4 Infusion encapsulate new health pills 5. Thank You.
Computers are not selling because of major security risks so I am in and out on it.
A nation's success or failure is primarily a function of the socioeconomic expectations (aka the culture) of its population.
FINALLY!!! 👍 Shout this from the rooftops! 🙌👏🇬🇧
Not determined by institutions because we left those in Zimbabwe etc but when the White population left the institutions began to crumble....
But that's a good thing ... right?
@@ron88303
What is good? That the black population is ruled by Blacks in which case Obama and David Lammy, Diane Abbott should not rule here? Or is it good that Zimbabwe is failing? I don't understand
@@user-pj7bs5qs7k it was sarcasm.
Thankyou for giving me my pride back. So it seems colonies don't make you rich, but you have colonies BECAUSE your rich.
Before WW I, Germany and Britain were the most important trading pardners to each other and since then have always been ( with short interferences). So it wasn´t India that made Britain rich, but exporting their products to Europe. Didn´t the Brexit people know that ?
David Livingstone’s travels through what are now Malawi and Zambia had nothing to do with slavery, in fact the absolute opposite. Britain stamped out Arab slavery. That is why GB took control of Zanzibar. The liberation of what was Tanganyika from Germany in 1917 was also a great event for Africans. We have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of. I have lived there.
Take an actual historical factual look at west Africa, and a Nigerian bank note with Mary Slessor on it. She was a fellow-Scot, who spread truth and wisdom where superstition and evil ruled before. The uplifting culture of Christianity is what lifted what are now Nigeria, Ghana. Sierra Leone?? Yes, established by Britain from American’s African slaves who joined the British Army to fight for their freedom against the slave-owning Americans. That is why the capital of Sierra Leone in called Freetown.
I have lived in ‘colonial’ Africa. We have absolutely nothing to be ashamed of, and everything to be proud of, in Africa. Modern medicine, education, peace, economic development for ALL Africans,- native and expatriate. There were tears in the faces of Africans when I left.
Important work. The slander (which is what it is) needs to be corrected.
PS. As one who has lived and worked in ‘colonial’ Africa, I can assure every reader that only the brightest uni grads, not only from GB but also from other developed Empire countries (Australia, Canada, NZ, Sth Africa,) were recruited to administer that massive and largely benevolent Empire. No African then lacked for peace, education, and modern medicine applied also by some great and dedicated doctors and nurses while the engineers built the roads, dams and railways. Is that slavery?
As an Australian we were largely self governing from the early Victorian era. In the very early years Britain sent doctors to tend convicts and guards, but as a largely British population, with some from western Europe and North America, we had the skills to build, roads dams and railways, and train doctors and nurses. As a seventh generation Australian I don't feel my family were ever enslaved.
Great talk. Just what the doctor ordered. Will likely get the book and am in locals.
Thank you for presenting this . Under Colonialism & Mercantilism , raw resources ( Cotton , Lumber , Tobacco , Sugar ,Tea , Spices ) were imported , which made the Industrialists and Upper Class rich . But public money was spent on supporting this - which was an overall loss to the Wealth of Britain .
The same thing is occurring to today . Public money is being spent on subsidizing Corporations - otherwise they will move to cheaper labour markets .
.
Didn't the building of an Empire entail gaining control of commodities such as sugar from the Caribbean, and valuable spices from India? Spices have enriched Empires for thousands of years. Slavery in the Caribbean meant low labour costs, leading to greater profits, or am I totally missing something? Even today cheap clothing is produced in ex Colonies in Bangladesh, for instance. No labour protection laws there, or what?
1 x waterwheel == 100 workers 1 x steam engine == 1,000 workers. In the Sheffield museum they have a working 12,000 Horsepower steam engine.
Christian should take a leaf out of the book used by Government Economists and include 'wider social benefits'.
The Empire has directly led to many immigrants from the colonial countries moving to the UK and imposing massive disbenefits upon the country.
The return of diseases previously on the wane, congenital disorders amongst certain ethnic groups, psychotic disorders amongst others. High crime and large scale fraud associated with various cultures. And so on.
Had Britain not had an empire we would not have experienced these social ills to the extent that we have.
And I think this question should be returned to in many decade's time. We may well fing out that the main impact upon Britain is that Britain no longer exists as we fragment into a balkanised multi-cultural dystopia with no real borders, governance or identity and therefore not a real country.
At many times the Empire was an Albatross around our necks. Military spending to protect the Empire from the French, Portuguese, Spanish, Dutch etc. was horrendous in ships, men and money!
Is it true that the British giving independence to Eric Williams and Trinidad and Tobago 🇹🇹 was a cost saving measure ?
The British did not go broke defending the Empire, they did so defending Europe in two world wars with the help of the Dominions and colonies. The Empire also provided prestige and allowed the British to claim that they were still a global power until well into the 1960s when Harold Wilson withdrew from East of Suez.
Free traders like Churchill strongly opposed Imperial trade preference to the extent that he changed parties over it in 1904. He changed his mind in 1932 when it became apparent that Imperial/Commonwealth trade preference benefited the UK during the Great Depression and it lasted until the 1960s when MacMillan and Wilson both applied to join the EEC.
The British put their own interests first throughout the 20th century.
it was built on wool. and then on factories. Colonizing the world needs ships, it needs armies, it needs huge investment. Britain was already rich when it started the empire and using slave labour
Britains wealth is down to strong monarchy ( Elizabeth 1 , Henry VIII and Victoria ) and courageous explorers ( Drake Raleigh Frobisher Cook Livingstone and Scott.) plus heroes such as Nelson Wellington Clive of India and Cromwell.
Great guest!
Interesting to note that as an Englishman, I'm not as bad as the Left would paint me.
I love the pimpeli pom at the beginning!
The Issue is never the issue, the issue is always the revolution.
In South Africa : Britain waged war, initiated concentration camps against women and children, and slaughtered people black and white. Stole gold and diamonds and left Apartheid behind ... ... 1948 ... the year of my birth ...
Now shall we look at the Indian sub continent ?
You talking about my country ...Nothing to steal - neither the ANC and EFF 's ancestors had any claim whatsoever to the gold and diamonds. SA can be summed up in one line: 50 million beneficiaries of Colonialism masquerading as victims thereof.
Built on manufacturing for 150years, leaders of the world with engineering and technology.
😅 just landed on moon and mars😅
Totally agree. However if our schools don't teach this then it's a moot point.
Acknowledging that the economic value of the British Empire significantly declined from the 1850s onwards is a viewpoint I can understand. I recall reading that in the 1920s, Britain derived financial benefits only from two of its colonies, namely Singapore and Palestine. However, what about earlier periods in the history of the British Empire?
There are several reasons the United Kingdom became the world’s only superpower, both economically and militarily, however it did not start with the Industrial Revolution but by the leadership of one woman, Queen Elizabeth the first. Following the defeat of the Spanish Armada, Spain which was the world superpower beckoned and England gained control of the seas which allowed England to explore and foster trade and form colonies in the Carribian and North America, not to plunder as the Portuguese and Spanish had but to initially farm and explore and then to barter with the indigenous populations. It was exploration and trade that brought wealth to England and the unification with Scotland to form the United Kingdom. Then came the Industrial Revolution, Britains natural wealth of coal and iron oar in close proximity, coulple with education and political stability that fostered both innovation and consequence wealth. Slavery was not introduces by the British Government but by the land owners who at first used convicts to do the work and then slaves, slavery was rife around the world and seen as a fact of life. It was because of that wealth and military power, coupled with wider education that Britain chose to end slavery in its colonies and to a large extent around the world. Britain has only recently repaid the debt it incurred by its anti slavery policy, Billions of pounds in todays terms. I feel no shame in Britains actions, in fact I am proud of Britain. It is only recently that I have felt shame in being Britis, the Woke left, clambering for a Marksist state sicken me, as Jesus said “Forgive them Lord, for they know not what they have done”
Colonial or empirical does make riches
Very interesting
Aren't all humans colonisers?? Haven't we all migrated out of the cradle of life and set up colonies. Im from Australia and when the indigenous population talk about colonisation, i ask them what they consider the 100s of "nations" they established throughout the land mass. Are the territories that these tribes occupied and went to war with each overnot considered colonies?
Britain in the past: look how much wealth we can create by taking resources and labor from everywhere
Some guy: nuh uh!
This is what used to be taught in American school's !
Until the Woke Left didn't like and then removed it.
What did the Romans ever do for us?
"New research by the renowned economist Utsa Patnaik - just published by Columbia University Press - deals a crushing blow to this narrative. Drawing on nearly two centuries of detailed data on tax and trade, Patnaik calculated that Britain drained a total of nearly $45 trillion from India during the period 1765 to 1938. "
At the arrival of the first British in India, the global portion to world wealth contributed by India was 14%.
By 1947 that number was 4%.
And your point is??
You know that could just mean that global wealth grew and India´s share stagnated?
@@vatsal7640 British looted India.
@@webdevelopmeny8999 the loot was very little in comparison.
Britain lost more money on colonies than it got in return
@@vatsal7640 That is nonsense.
Where is the Newspeak episode this week? I miss it
Suppose the conference took priority rightly.
@@jumblestiltskin1365fair point, a shame though. It's my Sunday morning watch.
Engineering and banking created the majority of our wealth.
2020? Where was this guy in 2014?
It was Britain’s wealth as the first manufacturing nation and status as “the workshop of the world” that allowed it to become so powerful. At least that’s what Adam Smith reckoned.
A large portion of it was made possible by colonialism, because that was the basic methodology of Empire. Granted, they eventually became much better at it than Spain or the Romans or the Dutch or the Portuguese. They were also generally better at science and technology and civic administration and making laws for the administration of business and accounting than those other empires. Slavery or serfdom or similar institutions did not produce wealthy civilizations in the post 1700 era, though they did produce wealthy individuals
Sorry r say NCF is being shadow banned. I have to search weekly for your new uploads!
That's a new one on me.
The assertion of imperial profiteering was central to Lenin's "Imperialism", 1902. It recycles a lot of counter-Whig arguments which would have been familiar to Edmund Burke. Doesn't make it a robust thesis, just another polemic.
Britain - and Europe - benefited from NOT squandering money on war from 1814. The returns to capital domestically are enormous, so reallocation from repaying wartime bonds and gilts is high, and compounds... for 100 years. THAT's where the wealth is generated - trade and investment in and with the continent, and huge funds looking for spec projects in England, especially rail, steam industries, and all the supporting infrastructure. If there's enough capital for spec investments and South Sea Bubbles, there is a significant surplus.
The modern anti-capitalists would have us believe that imperial economics were a successful extractive industry. Try this:
- The Opium War was a mistake, a consequence of throwing Crown cover over private sector trade, a desperate hail mary
- Why was this trade so important? Because there was vast amounts of opium being produced in West Bengal.
- Why was West Bengal doing this? It was compulsory, because there was very little revenue there, govt was bust
- Why was there so little revenue? Mismanaged land reform, see also Cornwallis Code
- Why was it urgent? Risk of revolt in West Bengal, drives up costs of rule, Company license at risk
So the incompetence in the East India Company in land reform led to forced production of opium to sell to willing Canton traders until the Qing court changed their mind but were too weak to enforce their will. The Qing were already weak, ignorant, and poor.
How's that for calculated brilliance?
There are a dozen similar examples. At the time of the Opium War there was a fight between the Exchequer and the Admiralty about whether any news territories could feasibly be taken on. Re New Zealand, the Exchequer said no. But lost.
Nothing so telling or boring for most people as a company audit.
TO START WITH UK IS OT RICH, SOME PEOPLE ARE RICH, MAY BE SOME GOVT DEPTS HAVE HIDDEN FUNDS SO MAY BE CALLED RICH... EXACTLY LIKE SYRIA WHERE US IS OCCUPYING ONE-THIRD OF THE COUNTRY, ESPECIALLY ALL THE OIL PRODUCING AREAS... IN FACT OIL IS EXTRACTED EVERY DAY BUT THOSE PROFITS GO TO THE COMPANY WHICH DOES THE EXTRACTION, NOT THE GOVT WHICH IS BEARING ALL COSTS OF OCCUPATION...
preach!!!