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> And even then you’re comparing an empire that was quite openly exploiting who they viewed as lesser people, versus governments who devastated their own popula

by hnbad 4y ago

> And even then you’re comparing an empire that was quite openly exploiting who they viewed as lesser people, versus governments who devastated their own populations through good intentions. Funny. That's exactly how most people who keep talking about the Holodomor say the Soviet Union viewed the Kulaks. > I also find it funny to see the top response criticizing the obviously Indian author for failing to talk about something other than war and famine. He's not talking about "something other than war and famine", he's romanticizing a company that literally killed and oppressed millions of people in the history of his own country. He can simply not do that, without having to only talk about victimhood. Black Americans can talk about other things than how cotton plantations were a great business model actually without talking about how slavery was bad. It's just very odd to focus so much on the supposed positives of an overall extremely bad thing. This is very much a "I just want the trains to run on time" kind of situation.

rayiner 4y ago
> bad. It's just very odd to focus so much on the supposed positives of an overall extremely bad thing. This is very much a "I just want the trains to run on time" kind of situation. I for one want to know how the East India Company managed to colonize a vastly more populous and historically wealthier civilization. There’s certainly lessons in there. After all, you can’t undo those things, but you can make the trains run on time. And the lives of Indians in the present would be better if the trains ran on time.
- exBarrelSpoiler 4y ago
  The article does provide interesting, educational details, but it also engages in a lot of gratuitous cheerleading of the BEIC and makes comparisons to modern day startups. Wonks celebrating imperialism for business lessons. It’s ghoulish and absurdly tasteless. You can expect something like that from say the War Nerd, but the style and framing of this article is just wildly inappropriate.
  - rayiner 4y ago
    > Wonks celebrating imperialism for business lessons First, the article does plenty of throat clearing about those issues. Second, empires are impressive. Can the French or British find things to admire about the Romans?
    - exBarrelSpoiler 4y ago
      > Can the French or British find things to admire about the Romans? The statute of limitations have passed on those crimes since they took place in Antiquity. > First, the article does plenty of throat clearing about those issues. Please, he's practically drooling: > While not quite Google cafeteria, the lunches and dinners served were exquisite! Free breakfasts in London, and on-site cooks (English, Portuguese and Indian) in factories, with plenty of alcohol to go around. > If that’s not enough, if you were a senior officer you got a pretty great stipend to spend on entertaining others. > Also, they had an incredibly sexy headquarter to work in (marble bas-reliefs, pipe organ of a tiger devouring a European and jewel-encrusted gold throne of the Sultan of Mysore Tipu). Even the warehouses were elegant and stylish in the City.
      - hnbad 4y ago
        To satisfy Godwin's law: Nazi concentration camps had amenities like swimming pools for the guards. I'm sure plenty of thought went into how to make the job comfortable given its gruesome reality. That doesn't mean we should be writing salivating opeds about management lessons to take away from that.
      - rayiner 4y ago
        > The statute of limitations have passed on those crimes since they took place in Antiquity. Europeans got over it even way back in antiquity. The Franks adopted the Roman language, religion (by then Christianity), and civil law and institutions. They didn’t seek to distance themselves from Roman empirical history.
        exBarrelSpoiler 4y ago
- hnbad 4y ago
  To be abundantly clear, the trains did not run on time: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/stop-saying-mussolini-made-the-trains-run-on-time https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/stop-sayi... There's a difference between looking at the BEIC to figure out how it managed to exist this long and looking at it to find "some things to learn" from it and using it as a model for building a successful business.

by hnbad 4y ago

rayiner 4y ago

> bad. It's just very odd to focus so much on the supposed positives of an overall extremely bad thing. This is very much a "I just want the trains to run on time" kind of situation. I for one want to know how the East India Company managed to colonize a vastly more populous and historically wealthier civilization. There’s certainly lessons in there. After all, you can’t undo those things, but you can make the trains run on time. And the lives of Indians in the present would be better if the trains ran on time.

exBarrelSpoiler 4y ago
The article does provide interesting, educational details, but it also engages in a lot of gratuitous cheerleading of the BEIC and makes comparisons to modern day startups. Wonks celebrating imperialism for business lessons. It’s ghoulish and absurdly tasteless. You can expect something like that from say the War Nerd, but the style and framing of this article is just wildly inappropriate.
- rayiner 4y ago
  > Wonks celebrating imperialism for business lessons First, the article does plenty of throat clearing about those issues. Second, empires are impressive. Can the French or British find things to admire about the Romans?
  - exBarrelSpoiler 4y ago
    > Can the French or British find things to admire about the Romans? The statute of limitations have passed on those crimes since they took place in Antiquity. > First, the article does plenty of throat clearing about those issues. Please, he's practically drooling: > While not quite Google cafeteria, the lunches and dinners served were exquisite! Free breakfasts in London, and on-site cooks (English, Portuguese and Indian) in factories, with plenty of alcohol to go around. > If that’s not enough, if you were a senior officer you got a pretty great stipend to spend on entertaining others. > Also, they had an incredibly sexy headquarter to work in (marble bas-reliefs, pipe organ of a tiger devouring a European and jewel-encrusted gold throne of the Sultan of Mysore Tipu). Even the warehouses were elegant and stylish in the City.
    - hnbad 4y ago
      To satisfy Godwin's law: Nazi concentration camps had amenities like swimming pools for the guards. I'm sure plenty of thought went into how to make the job comfortable given its gruesome reality. That doesn't mean we should be writing salivating opeds about management lessons to take away from that.
    - rayiner 4y ago
      > The statute of limitations have passed on those crimes since they took place in Antiquity. Europeans got over it even way back in antiquity. The Franks adopted the Roman language, religion (by then Christianity), and civil law and institutions. They didn’t seek to distance themselves from Roman empirical history.
      - exBarrelSpoiler 4y ago
hnbad 4y ago
To be abundantly clear, the trains did not run on time: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/stop-saying-mussolini-made-the-trains-run-on-time https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-11-15/stop-sayi... There's a difference between looking at the BEIC to figure out how it managed to exist this long and looking at it to find "some things to learn" from it and using it as a model for building a successful business.