The Cold War-Communism vs Colonialism

[aneeshm]

Just one thing - doesn't 2 % seem a bit less , when considering that India had ( and has ) one-sixth the world's human population ? And how , exactly , are my numbers meaningless ?

[Patroklos]

So you telling me all the Africans woudl be happy if they could only support 1/20th their current population and were living in mud huts?

They have accepted the Western standard of living, and even if they have not reached it, they are 1000 times closer to it then before we came.

[Az]

Of course it seems a bit less, but let us not forget that Europe and The Americas enjoyed phenomenal unparalleled growth at the period, while India only enjoyed marginal growth - HOWEVER, saying that this lack of growh is somehow indicative of a negative influence of imperialism on India is bridging a relatively large gap, since it implies that without imperialism, growth would've been much larger. This assumption is bordering pure speculation, since without imperialism, the enormous markets of the modern times that were created wouldn't exist in the first place.

[Patroklos]

one-sixth

What was the percentage of the population in 1800.

What happend in Europe during that same time that might explain a rapid increase in their production and a decline in India's? Percentage wise of course, in real numbers I bet both went up.

[Az]

So you telling me all the Africans woudl be happy if they could only support 1/20th their current population and were living in mud huts?

They have accepted the Western standard of living, and even if they have not reached it, they are 1000 times closer to it then before we came.

Now you see, that's the bad part of imperialism supporters -you haven't said it, so correct me if I am wrong, but I am getting this vibe from you, like they owe the west anything - This certainly isn't true, since the west was by far the biggest benefactor of imperialism. My claim is that all people gained, so it was generally a positive thing. However, the same forces can be considered negative, when after the initial progress area, they're operating to hinder the formation of people's rule and democracy in these regions. But, again, without imperialism/western influence, these places would never be able to even have a shot at modern society anyway.

[Patroklos]

like they owe the west anything

Not at all, I will clarify.

Colonialism did not just impose an economic system on the colonies, but Western culture as well. They rank themselves on any number of things just like anyone in the West would. Things like health care, education, tranportation, government corruption, etc. There is no way someone in South Africa, no matter what class, can study the history of their people before colonialism and think they would be better off like that.

[Dr Strangelove]

Originally posted by aneeshm
Just one thing - doesn't 2 % seem a bit less , when considering that India had ( and has ) one-sixth the world's human population ? And how , exactly , are my numbers meaningless ?

While I'm not arguing the niceness of colonialism let me ask two questions: (1) Was India likely to unite toi form one country without the intervention of the British? IMHO it was not. No state had the wherewithall to unite India. Without unity India would have been destined to continue sporadic local wars that would have sapped any hope of keeping up with the world. The condition of India would have been much like that of China between the world wars. (2)Was India likely to embrace the industrial revolution had it been left to it's own devices? If not then it's unlikely that India could have done anything more than fail to gradually lose ground.

[molly bloom]

Re: The Cold War-Communism vs Colonialism

Originally posted by Berzerker

http://www.mayaparadise.com/ufc1e.htm

the Dutch in East Timor,

The Dutch East Indies did not include East Timor, which was Portuguese.

Following the revolt against Dutch control of Indonesia, the Indonesians went on to occupy West Papua.

Then (coincidentally) after a visit from Henry Kissinger the Indonesians squashed East Timor's independence plans following their declaration of independence after the collapse of the Salazar regime in Portugal.

How well they learned their lessons...


Two good examples, both American I'm afraid- the Eisenhower intervention in Guatemala against a democratically elected government that was planning land reform but also offering compensation.

Arbenz was laughably described as a Communist, and unfortunately both for him and Guatemala, United Fruit who owned so much of the land (used and unused) in Guatemala happened to be well connected at the highest levels of the Eisenhower administration:

Secretary of State John Foster Dulles and his brother CIA Director Allen Dulles had a personal interest in protecting United Fruit's businesses. Both had investments in firms with heavy investments in United Fruit. In addition, the American ambassador at the UN was a stockholder of United Fruit and President Eisenhower's personal secretary was the wife of United Fruit's public relations director. The Dulles brothers convinced Eisenhower that Arbenz was a real threat to American national security and got his appoval to develop a plan to get rid of the Guatemalan President.

http://www.unitedfruit.org/bitter.html

The resulting coup led to pogroms against the Guatemalan Maya and the decades long conflict with paramilitary and army death squads that did so much to make Guatemala the economic success story it isn't today. Still as long as it means that some American politicians can have cleaners, housekeepers and maids and nannies at very cheap rates, all's well.


The other of course was Chile, where again the Nixon administration spent an inordinate amount of money funding domestic unrest and opposition against another democratically elected president, in a country which just happened to have mineral and ore supplies (and phosphates) that were worked or controlled by American companies.

Of course, unlike Arbenz Allende could be described as Marxist, but it still gives one pause for thought.

It should be noted too that American media outlets friendly to the two administrations did their best to 'sell' the interventions, much like Hearst's outlets in the Spanish-American War.

[Sir Og]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove


While I'm not arguing the niceness of colonialism let me ask two questions: (1) Was India likely to unite toi form one country without the intervention of the British? IMHO it was not. No state had the wherewithall to unite India. Without unity India would have been destined to continue sporadic local wars that would have sapped any hope of keeping up with the world. The condition of India would have been much like that of China between the world wars. (2)Was India likely to embrace the industrial revolution had it been left to it's own devices? If not then it's unlikely that India could have done anything more than fail to gradually lose ground.

Germany and Italy did it why not India?

[lord of the mark]

Cold warriors in the US loved Taiwan.

Taiwan implemented a fairly progressive, very successful land reform.


Throughout most of the world US cold warriors were quite willing to ally with socially progressive forces (many of them WERE Social Democrats)

Central America and the Caribbean are quite another story, where US vested interests long antedated the cold war.

Seems like its maybe a mistake to see the whole "cold war" as one thing.

[chequita guevara]

I think some might wish to reread Diamond's GG&S before blythely declaring the 3rd world to be better off today than before colonialism. In most cases, colonialism saw a marked decrease in standard of living and life span for the colonized. Many of those former colonies have yet to recover.

That's only part of the story. In the case of India, for example, the Indian textile trade, which was once an exporter to Europe, was destroyed, physically, by the British. Indians were no longer allowed to manufacture textiles, so that Great Britain could sell India textiles instead.

In Africa, aside from the overt slaughter of natives, the worst case of which was in the Belgian Congo, several hundred years of slave trade wreaked havoc on those formerly great societies. When the Europeans finally carved up the continent, they created mass starvation and congragated the natives in areas they had previously avoided: those areas that suffered from malaria, sleeping sickness, etc. Today Africa still suffers from those diseases, living in the cities Europeans founded in pestilential areas.

On the flip side, when the Chinese Revolution occured, the average life span in China was 35 years. By 1980, Maoism, as bad as it was, had increased that life span to 65 years, nearly double in a mere 31 years. Standard of living improved dramatically. The revolution saved half a billion lives, twenty-five times the number of people who died in the Great Leap Foward.

Since the fall of Communism in the USSR, in many parts of the former country, both the standard of living and the life expectancy have fallen. Russia actually has negative population growth.

[chequita guevara]

Originally posted by Dr Strangelove
While I'm not arguing the niceness of colonialism let me ask two questions: (1) Was India likely to unite toi form one country without the intervention of the British?

Why should India be united? If uniting India by force is acceptable, why is uniting Europe by force unacceptable?

[Sandman]

India did break apart. The Indus river is mostly in Pakistan, after all.

[chequita guevara]

I don't think the Baluchis and Pashtoons were historically part of India.

[lord of the mark]

Originally posted by chegitz guevara
I think some might wish to reread Diamond's GG&S before blythely declaring the 3rd world to be better off today than before colonialism. In most cases, colonialism saw a marked decrease in standard of living and life span for the colonized. Many of those former colonies have yet to recover.

That's only part of the story. In the case of India, for example, the Indian textile trade, which was once an exporter to Europe, was destroyed, physically, by the British. Indians were no longer allowed to manufacture textiles, so that Great Britain could sell India textiles instead.

In Africa, aside from the overt slaughter of natives, the worst case of which was in the Belgian Congo, several hundred years of slave trade wreaked havoc on those formerly great societies. When the Europeans finally carved up the continent, they created mass starvation and congragated the natives in areas they had previously avoided: those areas that suffered from malaria, sleeping sickness, etc. Today Africa still suffers from those diseases, living in the cities Europeans founded in pestilential areas.

On the flip side, when the Chinese Revolution occured, the average life span in China was 35 years. By 1980, Maoism, as bad as it was, had increased that life span to 65 years, nearly double in a mere 31 years. Standard of living improved dramatically. The revolution saved half a billion lives, twenty-five times the number of people who died in the Great Leap Foward.

Since the fall of Communism in the USSR, in many parts of the former country, both the standard of living and the life expectancy have fallen. Russia actually has negative population growth.

in the case of british India, we look at the history of the textile trade, and dont look at the pattern of death rates. We assume that whatever improvements to living conditions took place, would have anyway. On the other hand, in the case of China, we assume that the 1948 death rates would have remained the same under a non-communist regime, ergo the revolution saved half a billion lives. of course death rates declined across the less developed world in this period, for a variety of reasons. By this logic, neocolonialism ALSO saved huge numbers of lives in this same period.


And of course since the fall of Communism the decline in living standards experienced inthe FSU has not taken place in Eastern Europe, rather living standards have improved. In fact the USSR in it last years was not reinvesting in its industry and infrastructure, and so its living standards were not sustainable. and the market was handicapped there, more than in eastern europe, by the corruption of the state, and the destruction of civil society, a legacy of the previous regime.