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My wife is Chinese and she was taught in the 80s that the reason the UK is richer than China was that 100 earlier before we stole their best stuff. Yes these t

by simonh 5y ago

My wife is Chinese and she was taught in the 80s that the reason the UK is richer than China was that 100 earlier before we stole their best stuff. Yes these thefts did happen, our big trading companies were basically organised piracy and extortion. There is an argument that we're still benefiting from investments in infrastructure and social development back then. That's not why anyone in London today earns more for similar work than people in China or Africa though. You can't apply that argument to say Japan, South Korea or Taiwan for example, or to China today. 20 years ago the Chinese taxi driver would have earned 1/10th of the London taxi driver. Now it's 1/4. Britain burning down the Summer Palace in the 1860s is just not a factor in the reasons for why it used to be 1/10th in 2000 or is now 1/4.

sudosysgen 5y ago
Yeah, no. Being essentially a colonial slave does not help at all increase labour productivity, nor valorizing labour. Having no ownership of the capital your labour is used into doesn't help. From that on you can very easily get a 100 year setback economically. Then you have to play catch-up economically. That's where the social dysfunction, literal assasinations, and ethnic regimentation kick in :) Sure it's not 100% about colonialism, but that's the deciding factor.
selfhoster11 5y ago
It definitely is the reason why. Part of what sets compensation in London is the cost of real estate, and those prices have their origins in the stolen wealth.
- pjc50 5y ago
  To be fair, quite a lot of the London wealth more recently has been stolen by Russians, or is the rightful property of murderous feudal monarchs in the middle east. We're an equal opportunity laundry.
- simonh 5y ago
  Property values have risen 30x in the last century in PPP terms. Colonialism might have had an impact on the starting value back then, but the other 97% of the current value was accumulated since then and came from somewhere else. If you think the UK has an advanced economy due to 19th century colonialism you then need to explain the development of countries like Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Japan went from feudal backwater to major global power in 80 years, and it completed that transformation 80 years ago. If you don't believe the UK did anything worthwhile in the last century to earn it's way and is free riding on the profits from stolen Zimbabwean tobacco from 1910, ok fine, now explain Japan.
  - sangnoir 5y ago
    > but the other 97% of the current value came from somewhere else. It the value literally came from somewhere else (geographically), funneled through the financial district and spread to the local economy. London is the bay area, but for bankers. The City of London has been laundering money for centuries. Lately, there's a lot of Russian/former soviet oligarch money sloshing about, and the Square Mile doesn't ask too many questions about source of funds. Not too long ago, HSBC was slapped on the wrist for laundering cartel money.
    - simonh 5y ago
      "Lately, there's a lot of Russian/former soviet oligarch money sloshing about". This keeps getting brought up but it's inconsequential at the scale of the total economy. As I pointed out elsewhere already on this thread, total Russian inward flows to this country accounts for about 1% of foreign investment. Now yes absolutely, foreign investment is a significant factor in the UK economy, about 20%. That makes a big difference, but Russian oligarch funds are not a significant part of that, they're just a politically and socially highly visible one that gets talked about a lot. The reason London is a centre for laundering money is that it's a massive mainstream finance centre. So yes, you're on the right track, but you're obsessing over a small forest footpath and missing the mainstream economic motorway right next to it. US FDI into the UK is more than 30x that from Russia. That from the EU is even bigger. This is the stuff that moves the needle.
  - 5y ago
7sidedmarble 5y ago
All the countries doing well today either were historically imperial, ie., most of Europe, America, Japan, China, Russia, or were or are now connected to imperial countries as 'allies' like South Korea. Any remaining difference is explained by these imperial powers continuing to project power gained through violence by soft means: dominating culture and international trade. The calculus really is that simple. The case of Britain vs China isn't a particularly interesting one in this dynamic: it's just the dynamic great powers have always had within their group. The older state has more momentum but is sunsetting. Their wealth still comes from the exact same place, they just haven't quite equalized yet.
- simonh 5y ago
  Japan did have an empire for a few decades in the early 1900s but there's no way any benefits from that persisted into the post-war period. Anyway their industrialisation was a cause of their imperial success, knocking over their neighbours that had failed to develop, not a result of it. I see you avoided mention of South Korea or Taiwan. Israel is another example. I'm actually pretty bullish on Iran if they could kick out the clerics, that country has massive potential. I think it's fair to characterise China as an imperial power, but how much of their current economic power actually comes from controlling say Tibet or Xinjiang? Those are marginal backwaters. They get a bit of forced labour and cheap vegetables. Maybe some minerals, but nothing they couldn't have bought fairly cheaply from Australia. Do you actually, genuinely think not having their peripheral controlled territories would have prevented China developing? Seriously?

by simonh 5y ago

sudosysgen 5y ago

Yeah, no. Being essentially a colonial slave does not help at all increase labour productivity, nor valorizing labour. Having no ownership of the capital your labour is used into doesn't help. From that on you can very easily get a 100 year setback economically. Then you have to play catch-up economically. That's where the social dysfunction, literal assasinations, and ethnic regimentation kick in :) Sure it's not 100% about colonialism, but that's the deciding factor.

selfhoster11 5y ago

It definitely is the reason why. Part of what sets compensation in London is the cost of real estate, and those prices have their origins in the stolen wealth.

pjc50 5y ago
To be fair, quite a lot of the London wealth more recently has been stolen by Russians, or is the rightful property of murderous feudal monarchs in the middle east. We're an equal opportunity laundry.
simonh 5y ago
Property values have risen 30x in the last century in PPP terms. Colonialism might have had an impact on the starting value back then, but the other 97% of the current value was accumulated since then and came from somewhere else. If you think the UK has an advanced economy due to 19th century colonialism you then need to explain the development of countries like Taiwan, Japan and South Korea. Japan went from feudal backwater to major global power in 80 years, and it completed that transformation 80 years ago. If you don't believe the UK did anything worthwhile in the last century to earn it's way and is free riding on the profits from stolen Zimbabwean tobacco from 1910, ok fine, now explain Japan.
- sangnoir 5y ago
  > but the other 97% of the current value came from somewhere else. It the value literally came from somewhere else (geographically), funneled through the financial district and spread to the local economy. London is the bay area, but for bankers. The City of London has been laundering money for centuries. Lately, there's a lot of Russian/former soviet oligarch money sloshing about, and the Square Mile doesn't ask too many questions about source of funds. Not too long ago, HSBC was slapped on the wrist for laundering cartel money.
  - simonh 5y ago
    "Lately, there's a lot of Russian/former soviet oligarch money sloshing about". This keeps getting brought up but it's inconsequential at the scale of the total economy. As I pointed out elsewhere already on this thread, total Russian inward flows to this country accounts for about 1% of foreign investment. Now yes absolutely, foreign investment is a significant factor in the UK economy, about 20%. That makes a big difference, but Russian oligarch funds are not a significant part of that, they're just a politically and socially highly visible one that gets talked about a lot. The reason London is a centre for laundering money is that it's a massive mainstream finance centre. So yes, you're on the right track, but you're obsessing over a small forest footpath and missing the mainstream economic motorway right next to it. US FDI into the UK is more than 30x that from Russia. That from the EU is even bigger. This is the stuff that moves the needle.
- 5y ago

7sidedmarble 5y ago

All the countries doing well today either were historically imperial, ie., most of Europe, America, Japan, China, Russia, or were or are now connected to imperial countries as 'allies' like South Korea. Any remaining difference is explained by these imperial powers continuing to project power gained through violence by soft means: dominating culture and international trade. The calculus really is that simple. The case of Britain vs China isn't a particularly interesting one in this dynamic: it's just the dynamic great powers have always had within their group. The older state has more momentum but is sunsetting. Their wealth still comes from the exact same place, they just haven't quite equalized yet.

simonh 5y ago
Japan did have an empire for a few decades in the early 1900s but there's no way any benefits from that persisted into the post-war period. Anyway their industrialisation was a cause of their imperial success, knocking over their neighbours that had failed to develop, not a result of it. I see you avoided mention of South Korea or Taiwan. Israel is another example. I'm actually pretty bullish on Iran if they could kick out the clerics, that country has massive potential. I think it's fair to characterise China as an imperial power, but how much of their current economic power actually comes from controlling say Tibet or Xinjiang? Those are marginal backwaters. They get a bit of forced labour and cheap vegetables. Maybe some minerals, but nothing they couldn't have bought fairly cheaply from Australia. Do you actually, genuinely think not having their peripheral controlled territories would have prevented China developing? Seriously?