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>"India had the world's largest GDP under the Mughals and had continued positive growth." Do you have a citation for this? For the entire 300 years of the Mugh

>"India had the world's largest GDP under the Mughals and had continued positive growth." Do you have a citation for this? For the entire 300 years of the Mughal Empire? How accurate would that information even have been in say the early part of 16th century?

adrianratnapala 8y ago
Something like this is a pretty standard and unsurprising result. Here is one quick google hit: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/ http://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-... No one should be surprised that that India and China were the big dogs for most of history. Perhaps more surprising are that: a) This continued well into the 19th century, and b) India was bigger than China in medieval times. I'd say that (b) is not a fair comparison, China is just one empire, India is a whole bunch. While (a) should not be a surprise that economic size lags behind whatever structural strengths might have made European powers famous and powerful for a while.
- sievebrain 8y ago
  How can you possibly describe a chart that your link admits is the opinion of one academic "pretty standard and unsurprising"? The idea that you can even estimate percentage of world GDP 2000 years ago is laughable.
- bogomipz 8y ago
  >"Something like this is a pretty standard and unsurprising result." No there's actually nothing standard unsurprising about it. GDP before the industrial revolution meant something entirely different than after it. That infographic was largely debunked when it came out. Most notably: "Before the Industrial Revolution, there wasn't really any such thing as lasting income growth from productivity. In the thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution, civilization was stuck in the Malthusian Trap. If lots of people died, incomes tended to go up, as fewer workers benefited from a stable supply of crops. If lots of people were born, however, incomes would fall, which often led to more deaths. That explains the "trap," and it also explains why populations so closely approximated GDP around the world. So, one way to read the graph, very broadly speaking, is that everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a demonstration of productivity divergences around the world" [1] >"a) This continued well into the 19th century, and" No India's economy in 19th century is very much the British economy the is was the time of the Raj. >"b) India was bigger than China in medieval times." This is also untrue. The Medieval era some 900 years(end of the beginning of the 5th until the 14th century.) India was not bigger than China during this millennium. India in the Medieval Era was ruled by many regional dynasties[2], while China was unified by the 3rd century BC [3]. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-last-2-000-years-in-1-little-graph/258676/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-eco... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_India [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification
sievebrain 8y ago
How exactly do you even measure the GDP of such an ancient empire? Economists can't accurately measure GDP of western economies today despite huge armies of statisticians, even China's true GDP is a mystery, so I'd have to assume any such claims about the GDP of the Mughal empire are nonsense.
- bogomipz 8y ago
  Indeed, this was my point as well. Additionally Mughal rule in South Asia stretched from what is modern Pakistan, to Kabul in Afghanistan and Bengal in the East. So the idea that there would been numbers specifically just India is kind of ridiculous.

adrianratnapala 8y ago

Something like this is a pretty standard and unsurprising result. Here is one quick google hit: http://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-one-chart/ http://www.visualcapitalist.com/2000-years-economic-history-... No one should be surprised that that India and China were the big dogs for most of history. Perhaps more surprising are that: a) This continued well into the 19th century, and b) India was bigger than China in medieval times. I'd say that (b) is not a fair comparison, China is just one empire, India is a whole bunch. While (a) should not be a surprise that economic size lags behind whatever structural strengths might have made European powers famous and powerful for a while.

sievebrain 8y ago
How can you possibly describe a chart that your link admits is the opinion of one academic "pretty standard and unsurprising"? The idea that you can even estimate percentage of world GDP 2000 years ago is laughable.
bogomipz 8y ago
>"Something like this is a pretty standard and unsurprising result." No there's actually nothing standard unsurprising about it. GDP before the industrial revolution meant something entirely different than after it. That infographic was largely debunked when it came out. Most notably: "Before the Industrial Revolution, there wasn't really any such thing as lasting income growth from productivity. In the thousands of years before the Industrial Revolution, civilization was stuck in the Malthusian Trap. If lots of people died, incomes tended to go up, as fewer workers benefited from a stable supply of crops. If lots of people were born, however, incomes would fall, which often led to more deaths. That explains the "trap," and it also explains why populations so closely approximated GDP around the world. So, one way to read the graph, very broadly speaking, is that everything to the left of 1800 is an approximation of population distribution around the world and everything to the right of 1800 is a demonstration of productivity divergences around the world" [1] >"a) This continued well into the 19th century, and" No India's economy in 19th century is very much the British economy the is was the time of the Raj. >"b) India was bigger than China in medieval times." This is also untrue. The Medieval era some 900 years(end of the beginning of the 5th until the 14th century.) India was not bigger than China during this millennium. India in the Medieval Era was ruled by many regional dynasties[2], while China was unified by the 3rd century BC [3]. [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-economic-history-of-the-last-2-000-years-in-1-little-graph/258676/ https://www.theatlantic.com/business/archive/2012/06/the-eco... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_India https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medieval_India [3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Qin%27s_wars_of_unification

sievebrain 8y ago

How exactly do you even measure the GDP of such an ancient empire? Economists can't accurately measure GDP of western economies today despite huge armies of statisticians, even China's true GDP is a mystery, so I'd have to assume any such claims about the GDP of the Mughal empire are nonsense.

bogomipz 8y ago
Indeed, this was my point as well. Additionally Mughal rule in South Asia stretched from what is modern Pakistan, to Kabul in Afghanistan and Bengal in the East. So the idea that there would been numbers specifically just India is kind of ridiculous.