Can a Nation Plunder Its Way to Wealth (with Noah Smith) 1/15/24

Did nations get rich on the backs of other nations? Did the West get rich from imperialism? Noah Smith says no. But why not? If you can steal stuff, isn't that better than having to make it yourself? Listen as Noah Smith and EconTalk’s Russ Roberts discuss the impact of imperialism and industrialization on growth and wealth. Smith argues that understanding plunder and where wealth comes from is more than an exercise in economic history--it matters for today's world, too.
Links, transcript, and more information: www.econtalk.org/can-a-nation...
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[@ArtOfTheProblem]

award for best background

[@ifinksdereforiare]

Great podcast and food for thought! Would love to hear a talk debating theories on why many African nations are struggling to develop (e.g. stagnating South Africa) and others are beginning to thrive (e.g. Rwanda)

[@FlamingBasketballClub]

Please bring on Dr. Stanton Hom to the podcast for a discussion on the importance of health freedoms.

[@anderb9311]

Taking this into account ... Around 1850, for example, Great Britain accounted for 1.8% of the world's population, while the British Isles comprised 0.16% of the world's land mass, providing 2/3 of the world's coal output at the time and producing up to half of the world's textiles and iron.1 (from McCloskey, Deirdre: The Industrial Revolution, 1780-1860: A Survey) ... however ...

[@libshastra]

You should look at GDP per capita of UK pre and post 1857. After the conquest of India, the British economy was basically a rocket going straight up - you can imagine the scale of plunder that helped that country grow.

[@anderb9311]

@@libshastra Thank you for your answer. Global world trade as a percentage up to around 1875? By 1875 approx. 5-8% of worldwide GDP, roughly from the UK around 1870, when it was the Victorian era and the Empire and it was more the railroad and the "know-how" in many economic-industrial-agricultural-chemical-financial sectors ... so that the USA and a Germany overtook an uncatchable UK already around 1890 and afterward in all the aspects mentioned ... but India was already the "most valuable" colony, where they plundered very, very much, however ...

[@libshastra]

Noah's description of Colonial plunder excludes taxation, oppressive trade monopoly, deindustrialization of native industry and productive capacity and how it was different in different places. Africa wasn't rich but India was. British taxed everyone into debt and then enslaved them - that's how you got Indians in South America, Malaysia, Singapore, Hong Kong and Pacific islands - they were trapped in debt and shipped over as plantation workers. The land grab and enslavement is not dissimilar from what they did in Canada. Indian Railways was built with Indian money and Indians paid 10x more for imported Rail tracks compared to an American made railway tracks or cost price in Britain (BTW British disallowed local steel making) - inherently subsidizing British Industrial revolution. Company & British Raj Govt in India had to pay somewhere between 5-7% per annum of dividends to British Govt and British shareholders. Indians could only export raw material often at their own detriment (British Indigo farming policies led to famines almost every decade), they were disallowed from producing secondary or tertiary products.
Noah should really read up on Company and British Raj to get a better grip on the topic of colonialism.

[@LOPEKJJJ]

👏🏼

[@arshbad1]

National security is tied to geography too not just wealth . Why wasn't that motivation for conquest discussed ?

[@TheStrangeBloke]

I think this was a great talk, however, I think Noah misses the real power of colonialism (both in the past and in the future). The real benefit of colonialism was not the extraction of wealth (their goal) but the destruction of potential future competitors. Colonialism may not have been necessary for industrialization, but it did prevent anyone else from industrializing.