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>"Was British rule actually a net negative, in retrospect? Have there been studies done using objective criteria (not emotional) over counties that were colonie
by zo1 12y ago
>"Was British rule actually a net negative, in retrospect? Have there been studies done using objective criteria (not emotional) over counties that were colonies versus ones that weren't?"
It's both a positive, and a negative. But if you want to calculate whether it was a "net" positive or "net" negative, then I'm afraid you're going to have to quantify very difficult-to-quantify concepts. And you'll have to do it on behalf of a lot of people, some of which don't exist anymore to answer your question. In essence, next to impossible.
However, particularly in the case of colonialism. I will add that because it's such a difficult concept, it is being exploited by manipulative scholars and politicians for personal/political agendas. So you have politicians in these countries claiming that it was a net negative, without any way to quantify it, and without acknowledging any good that came along with it. Now, of course, colonialism was bad, period. It can never be justified to enslave people, and it should never have happened.
- MichaelGG 12y agoWell that's why I said without taking into account people that were destroyed by it. That is, if we look purely at modern-day circumstances, are they better? A comparison might be a country with overpopulation. If you kill x% of the population and enact some birth control plan, then 100 years later you might end up with a "net positive" discounting the people that were killed and the emotional effects of their loved ones. Are there countries in Africa that weren't colonized, or some islands that weren't, that we could compare to ones that were and make some inferences?
- zo1 12y agohttp://www.quora.com/Which-countries-in-Africa-were-never-colonized http://www.quora.com/Which-countries-in-Africa-were-never-co... Alternatively, you could compare countries that had "more" or "less" colonialist control/influence, and see if there is any correlation to their current performance. Though, as with all social-sciency it's very difficult to isolate the variables to get deep insight into possible causal links.