The Shift in world leadership from west to east

7th Sep '21 by bullhead

36 comments 733 reads

Personally I think it’s hard to argue that the economic and financial as well as power base will shift towards the east and Asia in world history no empire or civilisation has lasted forever and new ones have risen and come to dominate

Would be interested in any reasons people can put forward why this will not happen over the next few decades if it hasn’t already

Think this will have massive implications on where you should deploy your investments

The below article puts it well I know it’s a Russian news channel but you have to balance that with everything we read in the west is focused on preserving the present system and power base based around G7 UN ,world bank IMF etc etc

https://www.rt.com/russia/5341...

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About the Author

Bullhead

Premium Member

36 comments

Bluesky Ventura

8th Sep '21

Bullhead,

This will be my last post to you, It is really important you fact-check what you write.

Indian GDP went down from 24% of global production when the British arrived, to 2% by the time the British Left, Not much building up then. I believe the common term used in Britain was the bleeding of India. I think the idea was to conquer and plunder.

BSV

mwjackson

8th Sep '21

Would appreciate a source for that statistic.

timarr

8th Sep '21

Would appreciate a source for that statistic.

The Maddison historical statistics are the best source: https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/histor...

Obviously historical data can only be an estimate but based on these the numbers presented are roughly right - Indian GDP as a percentage of world GDP dropped from about 24% in 1750 to about 4% in 1950.

Against that you have to balance the observation that there would almost certainly have been a relative decline in Indian GDP against the world anyway. Excess economic growth in Europe kicked in from about 1780, starting in the Netherlands and then spreading to the UK. It was the first time in history that economic growth anywhere exceeded the bare minumum levels needed to maintain life - William Bernstein wrote a great book on this, The Birth of Plenty, which is well worth reading for anyone interested.

At the very least though, it's hard to argue that the British brought any of the benefits of that economic growth to India and there's a reasonable case to be made that the British actively prevented India from industrialising.

timarr

Bluesky Ventura

8th Sep '21

An Era of Darkness, The British Empire in India.

A link is provided below.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Era-D...

BSV

Blissgull

8th Sep '21

Bullhead, That figure is nowhere near as impressive as it sounds.

This was pointed out once on the entertaining TV show QI.

Think about it, we all have two parents, four grandparents, eight great grandparents, sixteen great-great grandparents etc. When you go back to the time of Genghis Khan, nearly 1,000 years ago, or 30 to 40 generations everyone alive could have between 1 billion and 1 trillion ancestors from that era, clearly far more than the world population at that time.

In effect it means that nearly every white person alive today is probably descended from Julius Caesar or Pythagoras or just about any other famous person from ancient history.

No doubt many Oriental people are descended from Genghis Khan, but they are probably also descended from nearly every soldier in his army too, along with most of the peasants in the lands he conquered.

bullhead

8th Sep '21

Sorry I seem to have offended you but saying that the fall of Indias share of GDP of the world is entirely or even mostly down to GB is frankly not true

China had a similar fall in GDP share of the world as shown in your graph but was not a British colony

All the countries that increased their share of the pie when it came to GDP benefitted from the industrial revolution as has China in recent times when it industrialised and so will India if and when it does

Every country can play the blame game and can do it a lot closer to home

Russia with Germany WW2

Poland with Germany WW2

For instance it’s just pointless

bullhead

8th Sep '21

A book that starts of saying that in its description says that the greatest crime in history was the British rule of India tells you all you need to know what is to come from the book you quote

bullhead

8th Sep '21

thanks for the link very interesting

timarr

8th Sep '21

Just for context, between 1700 and 1950 the various nations saw the following growth rates in GDP / capita:

UK: up 5.5 times
Japan: up 3.4 times
India: zero (well, just a fraction over)
China: down by a quarter
West Asia (excluding India): up 3 times
US: up 18 times

Worth noting that the Japanese growth rate was after the Second World War so understates the pre-war growth. Nearly all of the growth in the list is associated with industrialisation although typically this came along with the growth of capital markets, an explosion of scientific knowledge and rapid transport links. Unpicking cause and effect is impossible.

China and India's failure to grow is associated with a failure to modernise. In the former's case that was a cultural issue, in the latter it's associated with British rule. There's no way of knowing whether that would have been different had the British not been in charge but as we can see from Japan and the rest of West Asia the failure to grow can't be attributed to geography or a low starting point.

timarr

Bluesky Ventura

8th Sep '21

Actually the title is likely to have indicated the focus of the book without reading the first page. If you're going to quote something from a book, quote actually what's been written at the beginning.

The book begins ;

In 1930 a young American historian and philosopher, Will Durant, stepped onto the shores of India for the first time. He had embarked on a journey around the world to write what became the magnificent eleven-volume The story of civilization. But he was, in his own words so ' filled with astonishment and indignation at what he saw and read of Britain's 'conscious and deliberate bleeding of India' that he set aside his research into the past to write a passionate denunciation of this 'greatest crime in all history'. His short book, The case for India remains a classic, a profoundly empathetic work of compassion and outage that tore apart the self-serving justifications of the British for their long and shameless record of rapacity in India.

'greatest crime in all history' is quoting an American Historians' view, and part of his book The Case for India.

The case for India is also an excellent book and well worth reading.

Yes, neither book tries to defend British occupation.

BSV

bullhead

8th Sep '21

thanks timarr for a well balanced response

Bluesky Ventura

8th Sep '21

I think you offend by your claims without facts, for example, 'British empire was different in that rather than just conquer and plunder countries they wanted to build them up so they could sell the goods'.

It is just a fact Indian trade went from 24% to 2% of global trade when the British were there and in charge. These are all just facts and not blaming anyone for anything. It's only your interpretation that someone is being blamed for something.

BSV

bullhead

8th Sep '21

Hi Bluesky

For a more balanced view I would personally recommend both

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Civil...

https://www.amazon.com/Wealth-...

There is always more than one view on history my friend you can believe what ever version you want to believe and so can I

bullhead

8th Sep '21

Go to top

bullhead

8th Sep '21

there where others but no one has as many and they seem to be mainly based in Asia

https://www.smithsonianmag.com...

bullhead

8th Sep '21

Maybe read the post above from timarr

There are facts and then the way you interpret facts and there is your problem

Like I say at the top of the page you can believe what you want and say it’s all based on facts your only kidding yourself

Bluesky Ventura

8th Sep '21

You really, need to stop.

bullhead

8th Sep '21

??????

I actually like your posts I don’t understand why someone having a different opinion on something makes you upset

You seem very set in your views and that’s fine just don’t expect me to agree with you on this matter

Alphaflight

8th Sep '21

If history has taught us anything, it is that hegemonies frequently change.

GrahamF

8th Sep '21

The article is poor. The Y chromosome is passed from father to son. There will be plenty of men descended from Gengis Khan who are connected to him through a female ancestor and so they haven't inherited any of his Y-DNA. But they are still descended from him. They also mention they looked at 11 Y-DNA sequences. That's a very low number to test and not meaningful in my view.

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The Shift in world leadership from west to east

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Bullhead

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