Australian Politics Forum - Why Nations Fail

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #45 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 11:57am

a) What is said about China could be stated about Ancient Persia etc - they had some amazing stuff but fell into disarray and then into a neo-fuedalism under certain religious groups.

b) What you say may well be true, Herb, and the English system of law as written is the basis for many such institutions throughout the world today. However - it can be and has been bastardised by governments of many to become an instrument of oppression. Australia is a fine example.

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The_Barnacle

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #46 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:03pm

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 11:52am:

The_Barnacle wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 10:46am:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 10:16am:

I think its true to say the British did not act any worse than other imperial nations (maybe better than many)... But that's not to say they didn't commit crimes in the cause of empire... Now that the British aren't writing the history without serious rivals as they did in the 19th century, naturally there's now a focus away from the glories of the Empire towards the cost borne by others as a result of empire. Is that so surprising?

That is exactly right. What the Conservatives like to deride as "political correctness gone mad" or "victim mentality" is actually a backlash against the establishment which for too long has been writing it's own history and blowing it's own trumpet.

When there is even the hint of a suggestion that under modern civilised values the treatment of our indigenous population was quite barbaric, the Conservatives get very defensive, bury their head in the sand and try to justify it by proclaiming racial and cultural superiority.

You're making a common mistake. You're applying modern day trendy morality to past acts. This in no way actually gives an insight into the time and why things occurred as they did. True history involves understanding the morals, laws, mores of an era and how they were justified. Just looking back and claiming the past was 'barbaric' reveals more about the values of the person making the claim than anything in history.

"True history" involves seeing it from both sides, not just the victors.
So would it be equally a mistake to apply modern day trendy morality to the 18th century slave trade?
Those who do not learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat them.

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NorthOfNorth

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #47 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:09pm

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 11:49am:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 10:16am:

I think its true to say the British did not act any worse than other imperial nations (maybe better than many)...

Jesus on a crippled donkey! Didn't they have comparative history at your school?

While the rest of the European colonial powers were butchering and slaughtering across the world ~ committing real genocide and stealing their gold ~ the Brits meanwhile had the Death Penalty around 1800 for any of their own who should kill one of the local Stone Aged natives.

No other colonial power dreamed of hanging one of their own for killing one of the local abos. It was inconceivable to them.

All imperial powers steal something... gold, land etc... How else do they pay for empire?

Or write founding documents that benefit the purposes of the empire (e.g. Terra Nullius). Or write documents that are cynically disregarded when they are no longer of much use (e.g. NZ's Treaty of Waitangi).

Or attempt to keep possessions by force long after its evident that the locals no longer want them there (e.g. India). Its true that Britain could not remain in India after WW2. It was bankrupt and the Americans were the new masters of the (free) world, who had an historical distaste for the British Empire.

None of this is unusual about empire... as dictators never willingly relinquish power... Imperialists never surrender the empire they serve except at the point of a gun, or due to the impossibility of holding it together.

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Postmodern Trendoid III

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #48 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:11pm

The_Barnacle wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:03pm:

"True history" involves seeing it from both sides, not just the victors.

Okay. But theories of "oppression" are more often than not a projection of the author rather than an insight into the times. Theories of "oppression" become popular from about the 1960s and are retroactively projected onto historical acts. Foucault was the master at doing this.

Quote:

So would it be equally a mistake to apply modern day trendy morality to the 18th century slave trade?
Those who do not learn from their mistakes are destined to repeat them.

Yes it would be a mistake because slavery was considered normal for the time.

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NorthOfNorth

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #49 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:21pm

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 11:52am:

You're making a common mistake. You're applying modern day trendy morality to past acts. This in no way actually gives an insight into the time and why things occurred as they did. True history involves understanding the morals, laws, mores of an era and how they were justified. Just looking back and claiming the past was 'barbaric' reveals more about the values of the person making the claim than anything in history.

Do you believe that Southern US slave owners truly believed (by sole virtue of the morals, laws, mores of their era) that the African should by his nature be subjugated? Or were they more concerned about the destruction of their economy that the end of slavery would unleash were they to admit what was easily provable - That a black man had the same capacity as any white man to succeed or fail deploying the same natural predispositions?

What is the excuse of large companies today (e.g. Apple) who happily allow Chinese workers to endure slave-like conditions to build their products cheaply?

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NorthOfNorth

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #50 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:23pm

Postmodern Trendoid III wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:11pm:

Yes it would be a mistake because slavery was considered normal for the time.

Who's time? It was not considered normal at all even by the American founding fathers, who wilted at the writing of the constitution. And not because they thought there was anything normal about slavery at all.

Thomas Jefferson commented that it would take another 200 years for the new US to rid itself of the scourge of slavery.

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Lord Herbert

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #51 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:31pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:09pm:

All imperial powers steal something... gold, land etc... How else do they pay for empire?

Trade.

It was all about trade.

We're talking about the colonial powers here ~ not the Vikings, the Visigoths, and the Vandals.

The Spanish in South America were after plunder, of course, and to this very day the Vatican has looted gold booty stacked to the ceiling in subterranean chambers.

I read a calculation made after Britain had withdrawn from India, which showed that the British Raj had cost the British government more to finance than it earned from trade during all of its years of occupation.

Britain left a magnificent railway system, and thousands of solid Victorian-era buildings all over the subcontinent. The Indians still have statues of Queen Victoria in all their major cities. Britain's universities also taught and trained generations of Indians on how to be civil servants, administrators, business people, and government bureaucrats.

They left a legacy ~ and who knows how many widows have since been spared a horrible death from being burned alive on their husband's funeral pyre because the British banned the practice.

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NorthOfNorth

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #52 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:39pm

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:31pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:09pm:

All imperial powers steal something... gold, land etc... How else do they pay for empire?

Trade.

It was all about trade.

We're talking about the colonial powers here ~ not the Vikings, the Visigoths, and the Vandals.

The Spanish in South America were after plunder, of course, and to this very day the Vatican has looted gold booty stacked to the ceiling in subterranean chambers.

I read a calculation made after Britain had withdrawn from India, which showed that the British Raj had cost the British government more to finance than it earned from trade during all of its years of occupation.

Britain left a magnificent railway system and thousands of solid Victorian-era buildings all over the subcontinent. The Indians still have statues of Queen Victoria in all their major cities. Britain's universities also taught and trained a whole generation of Indians on how to be civil servants, administrators, and business people, and government bureaucrats.

They left a legacy ~ and who knows how many widows have since been spared a horrible death from being burned alive on their husband's funeral pyres because the British banned the practice.

Trade? Terra Nullius was about trade?

Didn't the English loot Spanish ships and steal their gold whenever they could? Did they then return it to its rightful owners? Or did they keep it for themselves?

The British left a legacy of infrastructure in India (and more because they had fallen under the country's spell, than for any love of the Indian people) but not before deploying a cynical divide and rule policy to disunite the Indians.

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ian

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #53 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:31pm:

I read a calculation made after Britain had withdrawn from India, which showed that the British Raj had cost the British government more to finance than it earned from trade during all of its years of occupation.

Britain left a magnificent railway system, and thousands of solid Victorian-era buildings all over the subcontinent. The Indians still have statues of Queen Victoria in all their major cities. Britain's universities also taught and trained generations of Indians on how to be civil servants, administrators, business people, and government bureaucrats.

They left a legacy ~ and who knows how many widows have since been spared a horrible death from being burned alive on their husband's funeral pyres because the British banned the practice.

a few points, wherever you read that calculation, if you read that calculation, it is wrong. The colonisation of India was started as a purely business venture by the east india company.
also, the Indian rail system is not magnificent, it is a complete shambles, the bureaucracy that the British left behind only ensures that everything is done at about 1 percent of the pace it should be, it is a disaster. If you have ever tried to buy a train ticket in india you would be aware of this. I have also never seen a statue of Queen Victoria in India, however a google search tells me there are 5, 1 in a major city. Also while the British did outlaw suttee it was unsuccessful and the practise continues to this day. You need to stop making stuff up Herbert.

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NorthOfNorth

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #54 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:57pm

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

a few points, wherever you read that calculation, if you read that calculation, it is wrong. The colonisation of India was started as a purely business venture by the east india company.
also, the Indian rail system is not magnificent, it is a complete shambles, the bureaucracy that the British left behind only ensures that everything is done at about 1 percent of the pace it should be, it is a disaster. If you have ever tried to buy a train ticket in india you would be aware of this. I have also never seen a statue of Queen Victoria in India, however a google search tells me there are 5, 1 in a major city. Also while the British did outlaw suttee it was unsuccessful and the practise continues to this day. You need to stop making stuff up Herbert.

And then there is the curious history of the Anglo-Indians (once known as Eurasians) a class of people the British cynically created to act as a buffer between themselves (the overlords) and the Indians (the underclasses) - Another act of dividing and ruling. How was it done? By encouraging British soldiers and workers to mate with the local women (marry them if you must), the lower the caste, no doubt, the better... Nothing to lose for the low caste woman and everything to gain.

This cultural strata - Anglo-Indians - were awarded most if not all public service positions in the service of their overlords... They were encouraged to remain in contact with Indians and remain fluent in the Hindi dialects of the region but to consider themselves British. And, for that loyalty, they were well rewarded... That was until the Anglo-Indians, by a sheer force of numbers, became a threat to the overlords who then began to discreetly discriminate against them... Deploying British public servants into the most senior positions and maintaining a glass ceiling such that the Anglo-Indian could not rise according to merit but remain subjugated.

These same poor people at the end of the Raj were considered collaborators and were not well accepted, hence their mass migration from India to Britain, Canada, Australia etc...

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #55 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 1:02pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:39pm:

Didn't the English loot Spanish ships and steal their gold whenever they could?

Yes, indeed they did. But do you know the story behind it?

Of course you don't. The luvvies don't want to spoil the 'narrative' of the 'Evil British'.

You've been watching British history as told in TV documentaries by university academics who would never have secured their tenure if the Dean and the Board of Directors had suspected they weren't committed to anything other than a 'Black Arm Band' version of British history.

When Wilberforce persuaded the British parliament to outlaw slavery, it left a fleet of British ships with nothing to do.

And so, Wilberforce told their captains that they could loot the Spanish galleons that were still plying the Atlantic in the filthy trade of delivering fresh slaves for the tobacco and cotton plantations of the Old South.

Result: The captains of the British West Africa fleet earned a living helping to discourage the trade in slaves while being paid in looted Spanish gold and Doubloons.

The slave trade withered and stopped for being no longer profitable due to these British naval interceptions.

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« Last Edit: Mar 16^th, 2014 at 1:59pm by Lord Herbert »

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #56 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 1:09pm

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:09pm:

All imperial powers steal something... gold, land etc... How else do they pay for empire?

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:31pm:

Trade.

It was all about trade.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:39pm:

Trade? Terra Nullius was about trade?

Don't make my efforts here a pointless exercise, helian.

India, China, the West Indies, Malaya, Singapore, British Guiana, etc etc ~ all about trade.

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #57 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 1:19pm

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 1:02pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:39pm:

Didn't the English loot Spanish ships and steal their gold whenever they could?

Yes, indeed they did. But do you know the story behind it?

Of course you don't. The luvvies don't want to spoil the 'narrative' of the 'Evil British'.

You've been watching British history as told in TV documentaries by university academics who would never have secured their tenure if the Dean and the Board of Directors had suspected they weren't committed to anything other than a 'Black Arm Band' version of British history.

When Wilberforce persuaded the British parliament to outlaw slavery, it left a fleet of British ships with nothing to do.

And so, Wilberforce told their captains that they could loot the Spanish galleons that were still plying the Atlantic in the filthy trade of delivering fresh slaves for the tobacco and cotton plantations of the Old South.

I think you'll fin that the English had been looting Spanish gold for over 200 years before Wilberforce... and long before they developed a conscience over slavery.

Destroying the Spanish economy was an obsession with the English since the time of Elizabeth I.

I'd bet that destroying Spanish ships in the 19th century was more to do with keeping the British as naval masters and the overlords of world trade than saving black people from slavery.

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #58 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 1:36pm

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:31pm:

I read a calculation made after Britain had withdrawn from India, which showed that the British Raj had cost the British government more to finance than it earned from trade during all of its years of occupation.

a few points, wherever you read that calculation, if you read that calculation, it is wrong.

Ah, okay ... Thanks for informing us, sahib.

It was probably calculated by someone whose 'Black Armband-of-Guilt-and-Shame had temporarily slipped off his arm while he was typing the results.

I'm sure he was mortified when after returning home from posting his thesis he discovered it lying there on the floor.

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

the Indian rail system is not magnificent,

It was one of the proudest achievements of any colonial power. That it was left to fall into disrepair by successive Indian governments, post-raj, is hardly Britain's fault.

And the population has doubled or tripled in the past 65 years or so, with hardly any additional tracks having been laid.

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

the bureaucracy that the British left behind only ensures that everything is done at about 1 percent of the pace it should be,

Rabid nonsense.

The British Raj didn't train generations of young Indians at British universities so that trade would be slowed to ...

Quote:

"about 1 percent of the pace it should be ...

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

I have also never seen a statue of Queen Victoria in India ...

"bugger Google!" hey?

Let's pretend there's no such thing as Google, okay? I've had a nice Sunday lunch and I'm feeling generous.

So ...

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

I have also never seen a statue of Queen Victoria in India ...

Hmmm .. well, okay ... Embarrassed

My bad.

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

Also while the British did outlaw suttee it was unsuccessful ...

No prosecutions? No lives saved? No investigations post-mortem?

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

and the practise continues to this day ...

Oh well, that's definitely an evil legacy from Britain's imperial years ...

ian wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:44pm:

You need to stop making stuff up Herbert.

Have a nice day, Ian.

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Re: Why Nations Fail
Reply #59 - Mar 16^th, 2014 at 1:41pm

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 1:09pm:

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:09pm:

All imperial powers steal something... gold, land etc... How else do they pay for empire?

Lord Herbert wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:31pm:

Trade.

It was all about trade.

NorthOfNorth wrote on Mar 16^th, 2014 at 12:39pm:

Trade? Terra Nullius was about trade?

Don't make my efforts here a pointless exercise, helian.

India, China, the West Indies, Malaya, Singapore, British Guiana, etc etc ~ all about trade.

China forced to trade at gunpoint wasn't it?

Do you think Britain will return the Kohinoor diamond to India? Stolen by the East India Company wasn't it?

I think your efforts on this thread are largely pointless... More the effort of an old British bloke defending his country's legacy, than someone prepared to accept a more balanced view of its history...

No one could really argue that the British Empire was 'evil incarnate'... It was an Empire and empires sometimes (or often) commit crimes against those they rule by force or by guile... That's just the way of empires.

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