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I never read any account from travellers (from Europe/China) describing India as poor before colonialism. So, i think this article does have some validity.

iguy 8y ago
If you mean ordinary people, then everywhere was poor, so travel authors would not have seen a shocking contrast. We actually have numbers on all this stuff, e.g. you can track a slow decline in day-labor wages, and IIRC (around Delhi maybe?) they decline slowly from about 1600 to 1800. There are comparable-sized rises and falls in other parts of the world, too. But all very low by modern standards. Only with industrialisation did this change, and it lagged a bit -- the first gains typically allowed a population boom, without dragging down income as would previously have occurred.
- pm90 8y ago
  Nope, this is typical of the crap that you see quite frequently. We're not comparing 1600's wages to today, we're comparing them to wages in that era. Of course this was a pre-industrialized society, but it wasn't a society mired in poverty as most people imagine it to be.
  - iguy 8y ago
    I don't know why you're insulting me when it sounds like you agree with me. You can compare different regions at the same time, and in the pre-industrial world, per-capita incomes didn't vary a whole lot -- maybe over a factor of 2. Whether you want to call this "mired in poverty" or not depends on your taste in adjectives, but India was not exceptional. The huge differences (factors of 10, even 100) arose only later, because of some pulling ahead.
- InGodsName 8y ago
  Everywhere wasn't same. "Taghaza was a commercial centre and awash with Malian gold, though Ibn Battuta did not form a favourable impression of the place, recording that it was plagued by flies and the water was brackish"[1] Read the account of Ibn Babuta, he criticized a town not in India But his extensive travel within India never made him write something similar about India. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta
- shripadk 8y ago
  > If you mean ordinary people, then everywhere was poor, so travel authors would not have seen a shocking contrast. Have you read the memoirs of Hiuen Tsang? India was exceptionally rich before the invasions of both the Moghuls and the British (and other Western powers). It is not to be taken lightly when the British regarded India as the "Jewel in the Crown"[1]. 1: https://sites.google.com/site/imperialismindia/home/economic-reasons https://sites.google.com/site/imperialismindia/home/economic...

iguy 8y ago

If you mean ordinary people, then everywhere was poor, so travel authors would not have seen a shocking contrast. We actually have numbers on all this stuff, e.g. you can track a slow decline in day-labor wages, and IIRC (around Delhi maybe?) they decline slowly from about 1600 to 1800. There are comparable-sized rises and falls in other parts of the world, too. But all very low by modern standards. Only with industrialisation did this change, and it lagged a bit -- the first gains typically allowed a population boom, without dragging down income as would previously have occurred.

pm90 8y ago
Nope, this is typical of the crap that you see quite frequently. We're not comparing 1600's wages to today, we're comparing them to wages in that era. Of course this was a pre-industrialized society, but it wasn't a society mired in poverty as most people imagine it to be.
- iguy 8y ago
  I don't know why you're insulting me when it sounds like you agree with me. You can compare different regions at the same time, and in the pre-industrial world, per-capita incomes didn't vary a whole lot -- maybe over a factor of 2. Whether you want to call this "mired in poverty" or not depends on your taste in adjectives, but India was not exceptional. The huge differences (factors of 10, even 100) arose only later, because of some pulling ahead.
InGodsName 8y ago
Everywhere wasn't same. "Taghaza was a commercial centre and awash with Malian gold, though Ibn Battuta did not form a favourable impression of the place, recording that it was plagued by flies and the water was brackish"[1] Read the account of Ibn Babuta, he criticized a town not in India But his extensive travel within India never made him write something similar about India. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ibn_Battuta
shripadk 8y ago
> If you mean ordinary people, then everywhere was poor, so travel authors would not have seen a shocking contrast. Have you read the memoirs of Hiuen Tsang? India was exceptionally rich before the invasions of both the Moghuls and the British (and other Western powers). It is not to be taken lightly when the British regarded India as the "Jewel in the Crown"[1]. 1: https://sites.google.com/site/imperialismindia/home/economic-reasons https://sites.google.com/site/imperialismindia/home/economic...