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> ... tax money ... used for the benefit of people who paid the taxes This is a surprising recent notion. The Mughals sure didn't conquer territory to tax it f

• notahacker 8y ago
  Yep. This is also a weakness of the original article, with its "If India had been able to invest its own tax revenues and foreign exchange earnings in development" which seems to rather ignore the fundamental reason the East India Company was able to take over the subcontinent in the first place is that the various Indian empires and fiefdoms had ploughed rather more into conflict and ceremony than exploiting India's headstart in areas like steel working. Indian economist Amartya Sen is fond of pointing out that although India has no shortage of hungry people, it hasn't had a famine since the departure of the British. But he's also keen to point out that the significant difference is that the average Indian person now gets to vote governments in and out of power. This wasn't the case under the British, but it also wasn't the case when Shah Jahan dedicated more tax revenue to monumental architecture and unsuccessfully attempting to conquer Qandahar than resolving the Deccan Famine.