The Rise of Far Left Extremism

[Metamorph]

If you can somehow make the incisive case that colonization-at-scale was essential for catalyzing the Industrial Revolution, go ahead. Some historians have tried already.

Here's a case: the Industrial Revolution was started by people. If you feel like you have unlimited resources from your colonies and trading partners, but no resources in your home land, your home land makes new things out of them. If you get whatever tea they give you, you make overly-strong Turkish tea and drink it just for the caffeine. If you can get all the tea you want, you add bergamot from Italy and sugar from the West Indies and make Earl Grey. The Industrial Revolution happened because the British had all the resources in the world and needed them to become something British in order to keep trading. If all you're doing is shuffling tea to the West Indies and sugar to China, you're not going to be able to keep up an empire. Making tea is not a huge industrial enterprise but the creative aspect seems more obvious to me since it's something everyone's seen. Not everyone has seen cotton spun and things like that you read about in history textbooks, but the rule is just the same thing. If all you're doing is facilitating Egyptians trading cotton to Tibet in exchange for yak wool, you're not going to have an empire.

[Grendel]

Imagine thinking steam power and electric current didn't have a serious material impact on the fate of world empires.

[FreelancePoliceman]

Imagine thinking steam power and electric current didn't have a serious material impact on the fate of world empires.

Answer not a fool according to his folly...

That fellow was in the chatbox earlier arguing that the United States doesn’t have a right-wing party. Should give you an idea of his understanding of history.

[mfckrz]

Here's a case: the Industrial Revolution was started by people. If you feel like you have unlimited resources from your colonies and trading partners, but no resources in your home land, your home land makes new things out of them. If you get whatever tea they give you, you make overly-strong Turkish tea and drink it just for the caffeine. If you can get all the tea you want, you add bergamot from Italy and sugar from the West Indies and make Earl Grey. The Industrial Revolution happened because the British had all the resources in the world and needed them to become something British in order to keep trading. If all you're doing is shuffling tea to the West Indies and sugar to China, you're not going to be able to keep up an empire. Making tea is not a huge industrial enterprise but the creative aspect seems more obvious to me since it's something everyone's seen. Not everyone has seen cotton spun and things like that you read about in history textbooks, but the rule is just the same thing. If all you're doing is facilitating Egyptians trading cotton to Tibet in exchange for yak wool, you're not going to have an empire.

You really think it was all tea, rather than innovation in machines and investment in industry?

[Grendel]

You really think it was all tea, rather than innovation in machines and investment in industry?

Anyone who acknowledges that Europe prospered from pillaging during the colonial era is also forced to see the question of how they managed to stay on top in the conquering game as long as they did.
If on one hand their imperiaist success was by unearned random chance, then morally it puts them in the same stratum as all the other non-western empires that tried to conquer as much as they could when they got the chance.
If, on the other hand, you say there was some exceptional property that granted them their unusually great success, Industrialization is the most obvious answer, which in turn raises a second-guess about how much they really stole, and how much they actually produced.


Outside of these two options, you can't really characterize the west as an exceptional evil without also invoking something like "European magic," which is poopy.