Comments by "Old Scientist" (@OldScientist) on "History Scope"
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Say thank you for:
Representative Parliamentary Democracy,
The Rule of Law,
Common Law Justice,
The Industrial Revolution,
The concept of Evolution by Natural Selection,
The Laws of Motion,
Penicillin,
Vaccination,
The destruction of the global slave trade,
The Abolition of Slavery throughout the British Empire,
The Free Market,
The defeat of Facism,
The Bessemer Process,
Portland cement,
The jet engine,
The Newtonian telescope,
The steam engine,
The Worldwide Web,
The structure of DNA,
Television,
Photography,
The Police,
Music festivals,
Life Insurance,
Fingerprinting,
The Theory of Electromagnetism,
and nearly all organised sports.
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@SeekHistory The British took a continent of people in which life for everybody was ugly brutish and short, plagued by the prospect of unremitting warfare, and the arbitrary exercise of power by self-appointed despots. Britain changed India into a land at Independence gifted with internal peace, the Law, Democracy, property rights, a growing population with improving health and education, a modern transportation system, and a developing economy. You're welcome. It took the Indians another 50 years before they made any real progress when left to their own devices. Largely because they were foolish enough to colonise themselves with another, much worse form of western imperialism, planned economy Marxism. The Indians were truly fortunate to have the British as the facilitators of their development for as long as they did.
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@time_warriors Utter tosh.
The British took a continent of people in which life for everybody was ugly brutish and short, plagued by the prospect of unremitting warfare, and the arbitrary exercise of power by self-appointed despots. Britain changed India into a land at Independence gifted with internal peace, the Law, Democracy, property rights, a growing population with improving health and education, a modern transportation system, and a developing economy. You're welcome. It took the Indians another 50 years before they made any real progress when left to their own devices. Largely because they were foolish enough to colonise themselves with another, much worse form of western imperialism, planned economy Marxism. The Indians were truly fortunate to have the British as the facilitators of their development for as long as they did.
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@time_warriors The fact that such a small number of British could sit atop a system that governed such a huge mass of humanity is a credit to British history. It is a demonstration of the energy and dynamism of the British nation at that time, and totally in keeping with the ways in which pre-industrial societies were organised. Of course it was a pyramid, but it was one overlaid on an Indian society in which it had always been thought proper that a member of higher caste could exploit, abuse and even murder the members of a lower caste as the whim took them. Before the British, the Zamindars were warlords who would rapaciously exploit their own holdings whilst raiding and degrading the lands of other Zamindars. The British pacified them, and brought the rule of law. Besides which all this was just an evolution of the jagirdar system used by the Mughals and the Sultanate of Delhi before that. These agrarian parasites were already there. But they were Indian, not British.
This Indian elite creamed off 15% of the national income under the Mughals, and after the latter's collapse, between 1750 and 1810, the despotic indigenous elite extracted upto 50% of production so they could indulge in warfare. Despicable. The British stopped all that, and at the height of the Raj, the Zamindars only took 3% for themselves.
The idea that the British somehow drained the life out of India is without statistical foundation. The colonial government was a very small part of economy, and any monies sent out of the country were easily offset by India's trade surplus. India had attracted £380 million in British capital by 1913, £23 billion in today’s money. But Home charges in 1913, the so-called drain from India to Britain, were only £ 11 million, tiny by comparison.
The introduction of Peace, the Rule of Law, Property Rights, Modern Education based on Enlightenment Ideals, economic entrepreneurship and ultimately Democracy, were of huge benefit to Indians. The British way of doing things was just better and that's why they won India.
When the British decided to quit India, the country didn't magically blossom into some Hindustani utopia freed from the yoke of those nasty Brits. No. It lapsed into 50 years of 'Licence Raj' riddled with corruption and inefficiency.
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@Espen_Bos The fact that such a small number of British could sit atop a system that governed such a huge mass of humanity is a credit to British history. It is a demonstration of the energy and dynamism of the British nation at that time, and totally in keeping with the ways in which pre-industrial societies were organised. Of course it was a pyramid, but it was one overlaid on an Indian society in which it had always been thought proper that a member of higher caste could exploit, abuse and even murder the members of a lower caste as the whim took them. Before the British, the Zamindars were warlords who would rapaciously exploit their own holdings whilst raiding and degrading the lands of other Zamindars. The British pacified them, and brought the rule of law. Besides which all this was just an evolution of the jagirdar system used by the Mughals and the Sultanate of Delhi before that. These agrarian parasites were already there. But they were Indian, not British.
This Indian elite creamed off 15% of the national income under the Mughals, and after the latter's collapse, between 1750 and 1810, the despotic indigenous elite extracted upto 50% of production so they could indulge in warfare. Despicable. The British stopped all that, and at the height of the Raj, the Zamindars only took 3% for themselves.
The idea that the British somehow drained the life out of India is without statistical foundation. The colonial government was a very small part of economy, and any monies sent out of the country were easily offset by India's trade surplus. India had attracted £380 million in British capital by 1913, £23 billion in today’s money. But Home charges in 1913, the so-called drain from India to Britain, were only £ 11 million, tiny by comparison.
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@Lotsoftrains2192 The British took a continent of people in which life for everybody was ugly brutish and short, plagued by the prospect of unremitting warfare, and the arbitrary exercise of power by self-appointed despots. Britain changed India into a land at Independence gifted with internal peace, the Law, Democracy, property rights, a growing population with improving health and education, a modern transportation system, and a developing economy. You're welcome. It took the Indians another 50 years before they made any real progress when left to their own devices. Largely because they were foolish enough to colonise themselves with another, much worse form of western imperialism, planned economy Marxism. The Indians were truly fortunate to have the British as the facilitators of their development for as long as they did.
The fact that such a small number of British could sit atop a system that governed such a huge mass of humanity is a credit to British history. It is a demonstration of the energy and dynamism of the British nation at that time, and totally in keeping with the ways in which pre-industrial societies were organised. Of course it was a pyramid, but it was one overlaid on an Indian society in which it had always been thought proper that a member of higher caste could exploit, abuse and even murder the members of a lower caste as the whim took them. Before the British, the Zamindars were warlords who would rapaciously exploit their own holdings whilst raiding and degrading the lands of other Zamindars. The British pacified them, and brought the rule of law. Besides which all this was just an evolution of the jagirdar system used by the Mughals and the Sultanate of Delhi before that. These agrarian parasites were already there. But they were Indian, not British.
This Indian elite creamed off 15% of the national income under the Mughals, and after the latter's collapse, between 1750 and 1810, the despotic indigenous elite extracted upto 50% of production so they could indulge in warfare. Despicable. The British stopped all that, and at the height of the Raj, the Zamindars only took 3% for themselves.
The idea that the British somehow drained the life out of India is without statistical foundation. The colonial government was a very small part of economy, and any monies sent out of the country were easily offset by India's trade surplus. India had attracted £380 million in British capital by 1913, £23 billion in today’s money. But Home charges in 1913, the so-called drain from India to Britain, were only £ 11 million, tiny by comparison.
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@SincerelyFromStephen The British took a continent of people in which life for everybody was ugly brutish and short, plagued by the prospect of unremitting warfare, and the arbitrary exercise of power by self-appointed despots. Britain changed India into a land at Independence gifted with internal peace, the Law, Democracy, property rights, a growing population with improving health and education, a modern transportation system, and a developing economy. You're welcome. It took the Indians another 50 years before they made any real progress when left to their own devices. Largely because they were foolish enough to colonise themselves with another, much worse form of western imperialism, planned economy Marxism. The Indians were truly fortunate to have the British as the facilitators of their development for as long as they did.
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