Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

The Strategic Issues & International Relations Forum is a venue to discuss issues pertaining to India's security environment, her strategic outlook on global affairs and as well as the effect of international relations in the Indian Subcontinent. We request members to kindly stay within the mandate of this forum and keep their exchanges of views, on a civilised level, however vehemently any disagreement may be felt. All feedback regarding forum usage may be sent to the moderators using the Feedback Form or by clicking the Report Post Icon in any objectionable post for proper action. Please note that the views expressed by the Members and Moderators on these discussion boards are that of the individuals only and do not reflect the official policy or view of the Bharat-Rakshak.com Website. Copyright Violation is strictly prohibited and may result in revocation of your posting rights - please read the FAQ for full details. Users must also abide by the Forum Guidelines at all times.
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34981
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

Let me relate a personal experience.

In medical college in the mid 1970s I once met a young man from Switzerland. He had ridden into India with a friend (who had been hospitalized with a minor injury). This man had parked his fantastic "never-seen-anything-like-this-before" motorcycle in our hostel. He told us that he and his friend worked for 6 months and earned enough money to go away from Switzerland for another 6 months simply to avoid being drafted into the military.

He asked us about poverty in India. Particularly he wanted to know "What are we doing about it?". This was only the first time - but through my life, for many decades, people have asked me "What are you doing about poverty in India" as if I had some special guilt and bore extra responsibility. I had never done a damn thing to increase Indian poverty. Heck I wasn't particularly rich myself - compared to these goras. I always knew that the government had to do something. There was not much I could personally do until I started earning - and even after that my personal contribution could only be miniscule. But Indians are constantly asked if nothing is being done about poverty as if they have to spend their entire lives answering questions about what they should do about poverty in India.

There are two separate facts here:
1. How to decrease poverty (in general, in any country)? I did not learn the suggested answers for many decades after I met the Swiss guy. The ways to decrease poverty are increased literacy, changing the economy from agrarian alone, to industry, services (banking, commerce) and tourism. You as an individual can do very little. Of course you contribute - but overall your contribution is not going to touch 250 or 300 million poor and illiterate. So in the 1970s, India has to industrialize, educate and diversify its economy. Even at that time the number of poor was more than the population of most countries on earth.

2. The second significant fact is that even after 67 years of "industrialize, educate and diversify" India still has more poor than most nations on earth.

This is not because Indians are stupid or Hindu.

If you look at literacy as the route to remove poverty, see this quote
http://www.mcsweeneys.net/articles/literacy-rates
In the 17th century education became an emphasized part of urban societies, further catalyzing the spread of literacy. All told, literacy rates in England grew from 30 percent of about 4 million people in 1641 to 47 percent of roughly 4.7 million in 1696. As wars, depressions and disease riddled 18th century Europe, the pace of literacy growth slowed but continued upwards, reaching 62 percent among the English population of roughly 8 million by 1800.
For America:
At the signing of the U.S. Constitution in 1787, nearly 60 percent of about 3 million American adults could read1 but in the following 19th and 20th centuries, literacy rates in America grew rapidly. In 1870, almost 80 percent of 38.5 million Americans were literate and by 1940, almost 95 percent of 131 million citizens could read.
In other words, literacy was reached in Europe and America at a time when populations were much lower and industrial and colonial economies that used slave labour and mineral wealth from colonies was the norm. It was relatively low populations and wealth that allowed literacy to increase.

Compare with India, from the same source. This is what India has been doing
Compared to relatively slow and steady literacy growth in the U.S. (around 50 percent in the 1600s and 60-70 percent in the 1700s), literacy in India has exploded in the past fifty years. In 1947, when the country gained its independence, only an estimated 60 million Indian adults could read (12 percent of the 500 million adults). Of the now 798 million Indian adults, 510 million (64 percent) can read.
But look at the converse - 400 million Indians are still illiterate despite record breaking literacy drives in India. Lack of literacy and poverty cannot go away soon in India. India the nation is doing more than anyone else has done before, and faster. But you are not personally guilty for India's poverty and illiteracy.

"Two Indias" will continue. There will be areas of India that compete with any 21st century developed nation. There will be areas in India that remain in the late 19th/early 20 century. And they will be mixed up. The squalor and crowds of the latter will exist side by side with the glass and concrete of the former. This only creates a unique situation that is invariably described as "third world squalor" - and not as coexistence of wealthy and poor. If garbage on the road creates ill health, the wealthy have the means to insulate themselves from that as many of us have done for decades. It is the poor who need some protection. And we have just seen how indolent poverty is.

Note that India is continuously bashed by western banks and financial institutions, and agenda-ed or caged people for not having the "Uniform wealth, literacy and living standard" that they think should be the case based on the "universal values" they push. Fact is that they base their views on what happened to Europe or the US 100 or more years ago when economies worked differently. Colonial looting and slave labour was normal and open back then. It is no longer open now.

Indians should stop getting pushed around to meet 19th and 20th century European experiences. We are not going to do that. We will develop in our own way. Poverty, squalor and wealth will continue to exist side by side and will not go away for many decades. But I hope that India will continue to be as tree friendly and animal friendly as it has been. This adds to mud, organic debris, muck and squalor, but earth was never about fields of concrete, or green mono-species lawns, no matter how beautiful those images have been imprinted as being on our minds.
KrishnaK
BRFite
Posts: 964
Joined: 29 Mar 2005 23:00

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by KrishnaK »

shiv wrote: But let me give you an example of universalism and western universalism

Universalism: Nuclear weapons are destructive and the world would be better off without them
Western universalism: Nuclear weapons are destructive and the world would be better off without them except for the US, France, Great Britain and two other members of the P5 who joined the club before the rule book was created
The latter is western statecraft. Par for the course for all countries, including India. After all Chanakya was a product of the Indian civilization ?
KrishnaK
BRFite
Posts: 964
Joined: 29 Mar 2005 23:00

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by KrishnaK »

shiv wrote:The Norway and Japan examples are specious. Both nations depended on sea fishing and did not have landlocked regions thousands of Km inland like the US and Brazil do. It is such countries that do better if they have arable land. Brazil was and is less livable and less cultivable than the USA.
Even during the civil war, the North was far richer than the south. The south with more arable land and bigger farms. Manufacturing > agriculture. Countries can be rich solely on the basis of manufacturing. Which is where Japan and Norway come in. They are richer without having ever had gotten any advantage out of slavery or colonialism. The US is not richer today because it has more arable land or that slavery gave it an advantage. Or else per capita GDP in Japan and Norway would be far lesser than the US. That is the point that Johann has been trying to make that you stoutly refuse to acknowledge or look at. Your story is solely centered around grievance.
I know that you will not deliberately make a racist comment - but you have stated that the presence of much larger numbers of slaves in Brazil kept Brazil down compared to the US. It follows that either the slaves were inferior people or they were simply not allowed to develop by their European masters. They came as slaves and lived as inferior laborers with lesser education and rights, unlike European migrants. No wonder the countries with more slaves have not done so well. The reason you quote is, unfortunately, fundamentally racist. The countries that had more non-slave immigrants from European colonizer nations have done better than countries with more slaves. You say so yourself, and you claim that it was because of enlightened values that the Europeans had. Do you mean the slaves did not have the enlightenment that the European settlers had? Would you be able to expand on this?
I guess this won't be called out as trolling :).
Last edited by KrishnaK on 14 Aug 2014 10:33, edited 1 time in total.
KrishnaK
BRFite
Posts: 964
Joined: 29 Mar 2005 23:00

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by KrishnaK »

shiv wrote: First you create slaves and poverty by colonization.

Then you start feeling guilty and get "enlightened"

Then you create a set of universal values that work well for wealthy societies and ask that all those poor ex-slave, ex-colonies adopt those universal values

Finally point out academically that it costs a lot to being slaves out of poverty.

Duh. If my aunt had a dik she would have been my uncle. if those people had not been rendered poor and separated from their lands in the first place they would not have been in the state they are in now and no one would have to complain about how expensive it is to make them meet western "universal" standards.
Having practiced slavery/colonialism in the past doesn't mean western proclamation of belief and championship of human rights today are lies. Or that only the west came up with the idea of universal values. Ashoka the great did pretty much the same, including preaching the values he espoused all over Asia.
Last edited by KrishnaK on 14 Aug 2014 10:49, edited 1 time in total.
KrishnaK
BRFite
Posts: 964
Joined: 29 Mar 2005 23:00

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by KrishnaK »

shiv wrote: Note that India is continuously bashed by western banks and financial institutions, and agenda-ed or caged people for not having the "Uniform wealth, literacy and living standard" that they think should be the case based on the "universal values" they push. Fact is that they base their views on what happened to Europe or the US 100 or more years ago when economies worked differently. Colonial looting and slave labour was normal and open back then. It is no longer open now.

Indians should stop getting pushed around to meet 19th and 20th century European experiences. We are not going to do that. We will develop in our own way. Poverty, squalor and wealth will continue to exist side by side and will not go away for many decades. But I hope that India will continue to be as tree friendly and animal friendly as it has been. This adds to mud, organic debris, muck and squalor, but earth was never about fields of concrete, or green mono-species lawns, no matter how beautiful those images have been imprinted as being on our minds.
Lots of grievance and very little fact. Thomas Piketty's book, quoted on this thread, is about the west ? India isn't mud house friendly because of some deeply ingrained love of nature in the Indic civilization. It's because that's the best many can afford.
KrishnaK
BRFite
Posts: 964
Joined: 29 Mar 2005 23:00

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by KrishnaK »

shiv wrote: Like I said, some naive Indians have swallowed this "universalism" stuff wholeasle. To me it appears that at least some Indians believe that the material-economic status of the west has resulted from the fact that they have always espoused these "universalist values". That of course is complete nonsense. The material and economic advancement of the west was aided in no small part by the now illegal universalist traits of racism and looting. And the current "universalist ideals" are being pushed as if everyone needs them, having conveniently sidelined and buried all the methods that were applied universally to actually gain economic clout.
The UK didn't turn into an industrial economy because of colonization. It industrialized first and used the advantage it gave to its benefit. How could then colonialism be the reason for it's economic advancement ? But then logic and facts are always sparse in your posts.
Yayavar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4852
Joined: 06 Jun 2008 10:55

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Yayavar »

^^The money from colonies did fund Industrialization. See the capture and loot of Bengal and the Industrialization timeline.
See the zero or close to zero cost of producing cotton in Southern colonies in USA to the cost that Indian cotton producers had to bear during the 19th century.
habal
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6922
Joined: 24 Dec 2009 18:46

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by habal »

US has many poor people who can easily be eased out of poverty by giving them jobs etc. The world got a glimpse of this during hurricane Katrina in New Orleans when the law & order machinary froze for a bit. The people from the ghettos wondered out. They are kept in poverty due to anglo-saxon racism or social conditioning or what ? I wonder where the western universalism vanished in such cases.

Image
Image
Image
Image
Image
Image

these people are also overwhelmingl of one race.
svenkat
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4727
Joined: 19 May 2009 17:23

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by svenkat »

Yezidi website claims they (yezidis) came from India.Wikipedia omits this fact.

The first principle of Western "Universalism"
1)Asatyam Vada-with all the sophistry in ones command.

The second principle
2)Apply 'principles of Universalism" selectively as in the case of non-proliferation by paksatan or genocide in bangladesh.
Arjun
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4283
Joined: 21 Oct 2008 01:52

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Arjun »

KrishnaK wrote:The UK didn't turn into an industrial economy because of colonization. It industrialized first and used the advantage it gave to its benefit. How could then colonialism be the reason for it's economic advancement ? But then logic and facts are always sparse in your posts.
KrishnaK - go easy with the claims of "logic" being on your side.

Industrial Revolution birthed by British colonialism
The Industrial Revolution happened in Britain during 1775–1850. It gave birth to modern industry – a new system of production based on machines and factories. For the Industrial Revolution to happen, three things were needed:

1. Capital – to build the machines and factories
2. Raw materials – to produce the goods in the factories
3. Market – to sell the manufactured goods

All three were needed in large amounts for the Industrial Revolution to kick off:

1. Capital: After the Industrial Revolution started, the huge profits it generated could provide the capital for further industrialisation. That is, the process could become self-sustaining. But how was the process to begin in the first place? Where could such a large amount of money be got from?

2. Raw materials: The Industrial Revolution needed vast amounts of raw materials at cheap prices. Where were they to be got from?

3. Market: Finally, a vast captive market was needed to sell the manufactured goods at a handsome profit. Where was it to be found?

The first country to answer these three questions would be the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution. In the second half of the 18th century, one country did find the answer to these three questions: Britain. And its answer was India.

On 23 June 1757, the English East India Company defeated Siraj-ud-Daula, the Nawab of Bengal, in the Battle of Plassey. The British thus became masters of east India (Bengal, Bihar, Orissa) – a prosperous region with a flourishing agriculture, industry and trade.

The East India Company started collecting revenue from this region and sending it to Britain. This provided the capital. It also started seizing raw cotton from the cotton farmers and sending it to Britain. This provided the raw material. Finally, it brought the manufactured textiles from Britain into India – without any duties or tariffs – and sold them here. This was their free market.

Thus India provided all the three ingredients of Britain's Industrial Revolution: capital, raw materials and market.

It is not a coincidence that the Industrial Revolution began less than 20 years after the British conquest of east India. Nor is it a coincidence that the engine of Britain's Industrial Revolution was its textile industry. Before the Industrial Revolution, India was the world's number one textile manufacturer and exporter. When you have conquered a country, what better industry to enter and dominate, than the industry dominated by the country you now rule – and whose economy you now control?

Subsequently, of course, Britain conquered the whole of India, thus giving it more capital, more raw materials and a larger market – which helped to accelerate its Industrial Revolution. Needless to say, India's economy was devastated in this process.

Thus the Industrial Revolution was built on the grave of the Indian economy. The Industrial Revolution was made in Britain, but it was funded by India (against her will).

The Industrial Revolution gave birth to the Industrial Age, or the Modern Age. Thus, though the Modern Age was inaugurated in Britain, the real driving force behind it was India.

That was the role of India in the Industrial Revolution (and consequently, the birth of the Modern Age).

Thus Britain did not "make India modern". The truth is the other way around. It was India that helped Britain to become modern.
Arjun
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4283
Joined: 21 Oct 2008 01:52

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Arjun »

More material for your edification. Plunder of India
During the middle ages, Indian products, in particular its famed textiles, were exported to Europe chiefly by the overland route through western India. At that time India was universally recognized for its high industrial development relative to the contemporary world standards. But with the capture of Constantinople, the bustling East-West trade center, by Turks in 1453 A.D., the overland trade was severely disrupted and the prices of Eastern commodities in the European markets soared. This led to the desperate European search for a sea-route to India. Year after year Europeans explored the west coast of Africa until in 1487 the Portuguese rounded the Cape of Good Hope. Ten years later, Vasco da Gama set out on a voyage and after picking up an Indian pilot on the African coast sailed for India. The way was open now and by the middle of the sixteenth century, Portuguese had established trading posts along the western Indian Coast. Soon to follow were the English merchants who, under the East India Company, secured permission from the Moghul emperor in 1612 to establish a trading depot at Surat.

The problem that faced East India Company from the outset was that England, at the time, had nothing of value to offer India in the way of products comparable in quality or technical standard with Indian products. In the middle of the eighteenth century England was still mainly agricultural. In 1750 the Northern Counties still contained less than one-third of the population; Gloucestershire was more thickly populated than Lancashire. The woollen industry was the main industry; in 1770 woollen exports, according to Baines' History of the Cotton Manufacture comprised between one-third and one-fourth of all exports. But wool was of no use to tropical India. Therefore precious metals had to be taken out to buy the goods in India. This had historically been the case of most of India's trading partners till the middle of the eighteenth century. Pliny reports that Roman trade with India, as far back as 31 B.C. put a heavy drain on the Roman reserves of precious metals.

The drain on precious metals that resulted from East India Company's early trade with India could not continue for ever. The English traders were thus beset with the problem of finding something that India would be willing to take in exchange for the goods they bought there. One of their first devices was to develop a roundabout trade to utilize the plunder from Africa and America, in particular the silver obtained by the sale of slaves in the West Indies and the Spanish America, to meet the costs of purchases in India.

By the middle of the 18th century, the Mughal Empire in India was disintegrating and the central authority was weakened as it faced challenges from local regional powers. In the course of a normal evolution this could have paved the way for the rise of bourgeois forces in India, whose foundations had been laid amongst the powerful manufacturing, trading and shipping interests in India. The English traders had been in India at that time for almost 200 years and they seized this opportunity to fight and intrigue for the territorial domination of India. In 1757 they declared war on the regional power in Bengal and their victory at battle of Plassey in 1757 brought a vast area in the east under their control.

As soon as the Company domination began to be established in India, the Company merchant was able to throw the sword into the scales to secure a bargain which abandoned all pretense of equality of exchange and the age-old problem of trading with India had been solved. The Company rule began with outright plunder and the wealth of India began to flood England in an ever-growing stream
.

Immediately after, the great series of inventions, such as spinning-jenny and the steam engine, began in Europe which initiated the Industrial Revolution. The development of the age of inventions depended, not simply on "some special and unaccountable burst of inventive genius," as the leading authority on English industrial history, W. Cunningham, writes in his Growth of English Industry and Commerce in Modern Times, but on the accumulation of a sufficient body of capital as the indispensable condition to make possible the large-scale outlay for their utilisation. Previous inventions of Kay's fly-shuttle in 1733 and Wyatt's roller-spinning machine in 1738 came to naught because they couldn't be used for lack of capital. It was the plunder of India that thus set into motion one of the greatest revolutions of history - the Industrial Revolution. In his Law of Civilization and Decay, the American writer, Brooke Adams describes how it happened:

"The influx of the Indian treasure, by adding considerably to the nation's cash capital, not only increased its stock of energy, but added much to its flexibility and the rapidity of its movement. Very soon after Plassey, the Bengal plunder began to arrive in London, and the effect appears to have been instantaneous
; for all the authorities agree that the 'industrial revolution,' the event which has divided the nineteenth century from all antecedent time, began with the year 1760. Prior to 1760, according to Bains, the machinery used for spinning cotton in Lancashire was almost as simple as in India; while about 1750 the English iron industry was in full decline because of the destruction of forests for fuel. At that time four-fifths of the iron used in the kingdom came from Sweden.

Plassey was fought in 1757, and probably nothing has ever equalled in rapidity of the change which followed. In 1760 the flying shuttle appeared, and coal began to replace wood in smelting. In 1764 Hargreaves invented the spinning jenny, in 1776 Crompton contrived the mule, in 1785 Cartwright patented the powerloom, and, chief of all, in 1768 Watt matured the steam engine, the most perfect of all vents of centralising energy. But though these machines served as outlets for the accelerating movement of the time, they did not cause that acceleration. In themselves inventions are passive, many of the most important having lain dormant for centuries, waiting for a sufficient store of force to have accumulated to set them working. That store must always take the shape of money, and money not hoarded, but in motion. Before the influx of the Indian treasure, and the expansion of credit which followed, no force sufficient for this purpose existed; and had Watt lived fifty years earlier, he and his invention must have perished together. Possibly since the world began, no investment has ever yielded the profit reaped from the Indian plunder..."

The spoliation of India was thus the hidden source of capital accumulation which played an all-important role in helping to make possible the industrial revolution in England. Once the industrial capital was established in England, it needed markets to sells its products to. It was again India which was forced, to absorb these goods to enable the industrial revolution in England to sustain itself. India had to be de-industrialized in order to achieve this. After the victory of English industrial capital over its mercantile capital, India's textile industry was destroyed leading to the destruction of its urban economy and the subsequent overcrowding in the villages and pushing India hundreds of years behind in its economic development.
Arjun
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4283
Joined: 21 Oct 2008 01:52

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Arjun »

KrishnaK wrote:Having practiced slavery/colonialism in the past doesn't mean western proclamation of belief and championship of human rights today are lies.
A significant part of the 'Western proclamation of belief and championship of human rights' is inextricably tied to Western Statecraft (a term that you've used). Some part of it is genuine belief in values that arise from the West's own Christian code of morals.

There are certain Dharmic Universals that India must champion - based on her own statecraft and on her own set of Dharmic morals. These may nor may not align with Western Universals.
KrishnaK
BRFite
Posts: 964
Joined: 29 Mar 2005 23:00

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by KrishnaK »

Arjun wrote:
KrishnaK wrote:The UK didn't turn into an industrial economy because of colonization. It industrialized first and used the advantage it gave to its benefit. How could then colonialism be the reason for it's economic advancement ? But then logic and facts are always sparse in your posts.
KrishnaK - go easy with the claims of "logic" being on your side.
The UK got the Indian market AFTER it won India. Is that logic too hard to grasp for you ? How is it that the UK accrued enough of an advantage to fight and win wars consistently half-way across the world ? Against an entity with far more financial resources than her ? I sincerely hope you don't come up with - we were dharmic onlee.
member_22733
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3786
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by member_22733 »

----deleted .... foggy brain....late night
Last edited by member_22733 on 14 Aug 2014 12:28, edited 1 time in total.
abhischekcc
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4277
Joined: 12 Jul 1999 11:31
Location: If I can’t move the gods, I’ll stir up hell
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by abhischekcc »

KrishnaK,

UK never had the capability to fight India in a fair battle - they resorted to the tried and tested European method of fighting war - genocide, in order to win against our forces.
TSJones
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3022
Joined: 14 Oct 1999 11:31

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by TSJones »

habal wrote:US has many poor people who can easily be eased out of poverty by giving them jobs etc. The world got a glimpse of this during hurricane Katrina in New Orleans when the law & order machinary froze for a bit. The people from the ghettos wondered out. They are kept in poverty due to anglo-saxon racism or social conditioning or what ? I wonder where the western universalism vanished in such cases.

these people are also overwhelmingl of one race.
what you are commenting on is the failure of the city of new Orleans to have adequate hurricane emergency plans. the city is largely sited under sea level by 10 to 20 feet and it failed to properly execute sensible emergency procedures coupled by a state governor that did not want to call in federal troops and assistance. Bush finally insisted and sent troops. he waited too long and got blamed for racism.

the city of Houston went w/o power for up to two weeks after hurricane Ike struck. it had solid emergency plans that were executed although the city did not flood. but everybody was very cooperative and peaceful because of distribution centers set up all over the city with trucked in ice and potable water free of charge no questions asked. food as well. Houston has a huge minority population. no looting, no riots.
Arjun
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4283
Joined: 21 Oct 2008 01:52

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Arjun »

KrishnaK wrote:The UK got the Indian market AFTER it won India. Is that logic too hard to grasp for you ? How is it that the UK accrued enough of an advantage to fight and win wars consistently half-way across the world ? Against an entity with far more financial resources than her ? I sincerely hope you don't come up with - we were dharmic onlee.
You were arguing against Shiv's statement that Colonialism was responsible for Britain and the West's wealth and for the industrial revolution. I proved that you are wrong, and that colonialism (specifically that of India) was directly responsible for the West's gain in GDP and for its industrial revolution.

Now you seem to be asking a different question - which is, why did India allow herself to be colonized ? That is an entirely different question which others are better qualified to answer. But history, as you know, is replete with examples where sophisticated civilizations have fallen to more vicious hordes of barbarians. So, the fact that India did fall to the British does not really tell us much about the relative standing of the two societies.

One explanation that I can offer is that the West was clearly far more incentivized to change the rules of trade which India was overwhelmingly winning - by using violence, force or any other means that today would be termed 'unfair trade practices'. When the playing field is level - Indians tend to come out on top, and that is obviously very true even today. So the British were certainly more incentivized to stop the outflow of wealth from its shores to India. Secondly - the state apparatus and business interests worked closely with each other to develop a comprehensive mercantile philosophy that had not developed to the same extent in India. The latter may in part be due to decay caused by Mughal / Islamic rule or due to a general Hindu outlook where Kshatriyas, Brahmins and Vaishyas were individually world beaters but operated in silos and never really teamed up for larger goals.
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34981
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

KrishnaK wrote:. Countries can be rich solely on the basis of manufacturing. Which is where Japan and Norway come in. They are richer without having ever had gotten any advantage out of slavery or colonialism.
:rotfl:

A stupendously ignorant comment. The value of your posts seems to decrease with the size of chip on your shoulder.

Norway was part of the Danish empire (Denmark Norway) and Norway benefited from colonial riches from the 1500s right up to the 1800s

Japan's colonialism started in the latter half of the 19th century under the Meiji empire and the colonization went along with industrialization.

It is OK to disagree with me KrishnaK - but facts help. But you are posting unadulterated tripe.
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34981
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

Arjun wrote:
KrishnaK wrote:The UK got the Indian market AFTER it won India. Is that logic too hard to grasp for you ? How is it that the UK accrued enough of an advantage to fight and win wars consistently half-way across the world ? Against an entity with far more financial resources than her ? I sincerely hope you don't come up with - we were dharmic onlee.
You were arguing against Shiv's statement that Colonialism was responsible for Britain and the West's wealth and for the industrial revolution. I proved that you are wrong, and that colonialism (specifically that of India) was directly responsible for the West's gain in GDP and for its industrial revolution.

Now you seem to be asking a different question - which is, why did India allow herself to be colonized ? That is an entirely different question which others are better qualified to answer. But history, as you know, is replete with examples where sophisticated civilizations have fallen to more vicious hordes of barbarians. So, the fact that India did fall to the British does not really tell us much about the relative standing of the two societies.

One explanation that I can offer is that the West was clearly far more incentivized to change the rules of trade which India was overwhelmingly winning - by using violence, force or any other means that today would be termed 'unfair trade practices'. When the playing field is level - Indians tend to come out on top, and that is obviously very true even today. So the British were certainly more incentivized to stop the outflow of wealth from its shores to India. Secondly - the state apparatus and business interests worked closely with each other to develop a comprehensive mercantile philosophy that had not developed to the same extent in India. The latter may in part be due to decay caused by Mughal / Islamic rule or due to a general Hindu outlook where Kshatriyas, Brahmins and Vaishyas were individually world beaters but operated in silos and never really teamed up for larger goals.
What KrishnaK has done is to move the goalpost. Bait and switch. The anger runs deep and I'm not sure I know why, but being caught out multiple times may be a reason.

Maybe he wants everyone to say that it was western universalism that won India? :P
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34981
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

habal wrote:US has many poor people who can easily be eased out of poverty by giving them jobs etc. The world got a glimpse of this during hurricane Katrina in New Orleans when the law & order machinary froze for a bit. The people from the ghettos wondered out. They are kept in poverty due to anglo-saxon racism or social conditioning or what ? I wonder where the western universalism vanished in such cases.
Habal, as Ashis Nandy points out, if the US builds one less nuclear submarine it will have enough and more money to remove poverty in America. Why don't they do that?
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34981
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

KrishnaK wrote: The UK got the Indian market AFTER it won India. Is that logic too hard to grasp for you ?
No need to get personal with anyone. You are simply getting too angry to do any good - especially when you are way off on facts and trying to bluff your way through

It won India after gaining market access for trade, with multiple bases and forts in India set up in competition against the Portuguese.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India ... y#Founding
The East India Company also launched a joint effort attack with the Dutch United East India Company on Portuguese and Spanish ships off the coast of China, which helped secure their ports in China.[13] The company created trading posts in Surat (where a factory was built in 1612), Madras (1639), Bombay (1668), and Calcutta (1690). By 1647, the company had 23 factories, each under the command of a factor or master merchant and governor if so chosen, and had 90 employees in India. The major factories became the walled forts of Fort William in Bengal, Fort St George in Madras, and the Bombay Castle.

In 1634, the Mughal emperor extended his hospitality to the English traders to the region of Bengal, and in 1717 completely waived customs duties for the trade.
The British government became a company shareholder in 1707 and helped the company's military campaigns, leading to the defeat of the Nawab of Bengal and his French allies.

The entire business was all about European countries looting. That India got looted is true. This looting was part of the universalism that we are talking about and the wealth created by that looting fuels western universalism. Nowadays looting is not mentioned. Thank you for helping to remind everyone.
habal
BRF Oldie
Posts: 6922
Joined: 24 Dec 2009 18:46

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by habal »

TSJones wrote:what you are commenting on is the failure of the city of new Orleans to have adequate hurricane emergency plans. the city is largely sited under sea level by 10 to 20 feet and it failed to properly execute sensible emergency procedures coupled by a state governor that did not want to call in federal troops and assistance. Bush finally insisted and sent troops. he waited too long and got blamed for racism.
Kat made these people visible, they were always there no ? You are getting defensive and thinking on lines of H&D. I am saying these people were always on margins kept out-of-sight and thus out-of-mind and they suddenly became visible during Katrina fiasco. Why are this group being kept like this.

Ofcourse there are two sides to the coin, the empowered elites of USA can say, this group is criminalized and doesn' work hard enough and has low ethical values. On the other side, this group may say they are discriminated against and aren't given respect by local govt, local populace or local law enforcement and are not allowed to get out of the ghetto. Ofcourse, this is a situation tailor made for govt and it's affirmative action policies, why isn't the govt reaching out to them, when it can reach out to China, India and so far away.
shiv wrote:Habal, as Ashis Nandy points out, if the US builds one less nuclear submarine it will have enough and more money to remove poverty in America. Why don't they do that?
yes sir, why don't they do that ? They can easily uplift this underclass to another socially empowered group. Afterall they can give uplift entire PRC through their exports, give them a surplus of $300 odd trillion then what is the matter with empowering such a small group of few million blacks who are kept on the periphery.

Is the idea behind this another version of mughals or similar Islamist civilizations breeding dhimmis who are to be a major revenue/tax resource. Such an underclass will do anything to be uplifted. I think they are kept on margins to be used in drugs trade or cheap manpower for military excursions abroad or maybe even some other nefarious design we cannot dream about.
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34981
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

Habal, here is what Ashis Nandy says, for your reading pleasure
The undying mythof development, that it will remove all poverty forever from all corners of the world, now lies shattered.It is surprisingthat so many people believed it for so many years with such admirable inno-cence. For even societies that have witnessed unprecedented prosperity during the last five decades, such as the United States of America, have not been able to exile either poverty or destitution from within their borders.The world GNP has grown many times in the last fifty years; even more spectacular has been the growth of prosperity in the United States.

Yet, consistently more than 11 percent of its citizens-the figure, according to some, rose to something like 18 percent a decade ago-have more or less consistently stayed in poverty through-out almost the entire period of American hyperprosperity.'We are told that in the current capital of world capitalism, New York, 25 percent of all children and 50 percent of African American children live in families with incomes below the official poverty line. Around 40,000 homeless adults live in the streets, subways, under bridges and in train tunnels of the city.2 Cardinal Paulo Ever-isto Arns once said, "[T]here are 20 million abandoned and undernourished children in a country that not only has the means to feed all its own children but also hundreds of millions in other countries."

I am not speakinghere of sub-Saharan Africa, Afghanistan or South Asia. I am not speakingof countries that struggle to avoid famine or where millions go to bed hungry every night and where radical institutional changes are required to avoid hunger, malnutrition and high infant mortality.These countries can claim they do not have the capacity to remove poverty, at least in the short run.

I am speaking of the richest country in the world, which has already spent, according to available estimates, between 5000 billion and four trillion dollarson only nuclear armament. Given available data,I suspect that minor changes in the American economy, such as eliminating only the country's nuclear-powered navy, perhaps even the nuclear-armed submarines,can get rid of this poverty. For the gap between the system's expenditure on the poor, direct in the form of personal relief (food coupons, free medical service or dole) and indirect in the form of security against poverty-induced crimes and poverty-relatedvio-lence, is not high. But those minor changes, I also suspect, will not be made.
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13563
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2005/0 ... nd-on.html
Curious reflection of what is said here.
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13563
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

If a complex subject can be condensed accurately to a few words, this is it:
The original and most enduring source of Western power in Asia has been the capacity of Western states to disrupt the complex organization that linked Asian societies to one another within and across jurisdictional and civilizational divides. This capacity has been rooted in Western advances in military technology on the one side, and in the vulnerability of Asian societies to the military disruption of their mutual trade on the other side.
Please note, we're not talking about Africa or the Americas. The above is specific to Asia. It was true in 1600 and it is true today (perhaps a little less so).

http://www.binghamton.edu/fbc/archive/gaht5.htm

The next sentences are:
Writing in 1688 during the war against the Mughal emperor Aurangzeb, Sir Josiah Child, director of the East India Company and instigator of the war, captured the essence of this relationship. "The subjects of the Mogul," he noted, "cannot bear a war with the English for twelve months together, without starving and dying by the thousands for want of work to purchase rice; not singly for want of our trade, but because by our war, we obstruct their trade with all the Eastern nations which is ten times as much as ours and all the European nations put together" (quoted in Watson 197x, 348-5).
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13563
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

FYI, Shiv, I read a study long ago, that I thought was credible. The conclusions of that study was that rupee for rupee the three most effective ways of reducing poverty in the Indian context were investing in measures that increase agricultural productivity, roads and literacy.
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13563
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

Reginald Reynolds {The White Sahibs in India, 1937} tells us that the Indian ship-building industry "was also doomed, for we read how "the arrival in the Port of London of Indian produce in Indian-built ships created a sensation among the monopolists which could not have been exceeded if a hostile fleet had appeared in the Thames. The ship-builders of the Port of London took the lead in raising the cry of alarm.....An obliging Government saw to it that the Indian industry perished."{A Popular History of British India, W. Cooke Taylor, 1842}

---- Do note, the source of this information that the British Government killed the ship-building industry in India dates to a book published in 1842.
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13563
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2013/0 ... ritic.html
Once again, we draw on Reginald Reynolds, "The White Sahibs in India" — several of my posts owe to tracing sources from his footnotes— for the following: writing about what William Jennings Bryan termed as the legalized pillage of India, (and, in my opinion, that Romesh Chunder Dutt could not term so, whatever he might have believed)

Quote: (emphasis added)

There could be no more fitting conclusion to this chapter than the words of Bishop Heber, whose praise for the administration and general prosperity in one of the Indian native states has already been cited. Once more we are reading the words of a writer of the early part of the century; but it must be remembered that after 1858 criticism of the British administration became more difficult and more rare, for reasons which we shall consider later. Bishop Heber's words refer to a system which continued in all its principal aspects to be the administrative system of India; and those who have followed the instances we have selected will recognize the symptoms which alarmed the Bishop and the results which he feared. [64]

Bishop Heber toured the country extensively during three years from 1824 to 1826. He inquired carefully into social conditions and was gravely disturbed by the heavy land-tax which then, as in later years, was the main source of supply for the growing tribute to England. In a letter written in 1826 Heber tells how "half the gross product of the soil is demanded by the Government," and comments that such a rate of taxation (which still obtains throughout the greater part of British India) "keeps the people, even in favourable years, in a state of abject penury." [65] He finds such excessive taxation, employed for a tribute to a foreign country, with no return to the cultivator, "an effective bar to anything like improvement," and notes that the tardy remissions made in times of scarcity "do not prevent men, women and children dying in the streets in droves, and the roads being strewed with carcasses." [66]

[64] Memoirs and Correspondence, London, 1830, Vol II, p. 413. Letter to the Rt. Hon. Charles Wyndham Wynn, dated Karnatic, March, 1826. Quoted by Dutt, Vol I, pp. 369-370. Dutt points out that the Bishop avoided expressing himself on this subject in his journal, which was written for publication: even greater discretion was to become even more common in later years. Dutt says that there was a reduction in the land tax in Bombay and Madras after Heber's time, but that it was "still excessive".

[65] According to H.H. Wilson (Mill, Vol VII, pp. 299-300) the Hindu law enacted that the King should have a twelfth, an eighth or a sixth of the produce, but in time of war he might take one-fourth. Assessments varied according to the quality of the land, and were taken in kind, which made the peasant less concerned with price variations. Moslem rulers demanded more, but Akbar limited the land-tax to one-third of the produce.

[66] Mr. W.S. Lilley in India and its Problems gives a similar and equally gruesome description of famine in the latter half of the century.

End quote.
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13563
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

People like KrishnaK distress me. This is my way of alleviating my distress. I hope it also helps people on this forum.
http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2013/0 ... munro.html
"I do not understand", said Sir Thomas Munro in 1813, "what is meant by the civilisation of the Hindus. In the higher branches of science, in the knowledge of the theory and practice of good government, and in education which, by banishing prejudice and superstition, opens the mind to receive instruction of every kind from every quarter, they are much inferior to Europeans.

But if a good system of agriculture, unrivalled manufacturing skill, a capacity to produce whatever can contribute to either convenience or luxury, schools established in every village for teaching reading, writing and arithmetic, the general practice of hospitality and charity among each other, and above all, a treatment of the female sex full of confidence, respect and delicacy are among the signs which denote a civilised people, and if civilisation is to be an article of trade between England and India, I am convinced that England will gain by the import cargo." (Quoted in Reginald Reynolds, "The White Sahibs in India")
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13563
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

Why people like KrishnaK distress me is that the primary sources from the British side of what happened in India are in English and are typically available on Google Books, their copyright having expired; one doesn't have to take any modern writer on faith, one can go and examine the material; and yet the modern mythology continues unabated.

The simple fact is that even the early inventions of the industrial revolution could not compete with India's "unrivalled manufacturing skill", it took special and deliberate effort to destroy that. In an alternate universe, independent Indian states would have first seen wages go down or stay stagnant as the industrial revolution caught up; then they would have erected tariff barriers to protect domestic industry, and they would have sought to catch up. Not different from e.g., how the US reacted to the industrial revolution emanating from Great Britain.
member_22733
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3786
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by member_22733 »

briturd Josiah Child wrote: "cannot bear a war with the English for twelve months together, without starving and dying by the thousands for want of work to purchase rice; not singly for want of our trade, but because by our war"
When I say colonialism is genocide, this is exactly what I meant. Colonialism was genocide and land/resource grab packaged into one. It is THE most heinous crime in human history with a death toll that will put Genghis Khan to shame. We have all but forgotten it, and we are bound to fall into the same trap again. Indians know more about 5 million Jews dying under Hitler than 30 million odd Indians dying under the Briturds, and that says a lot.
This capacity has been rooted in Western advances in military technology on the one side, and in the vulnerability of Asian societies to the military disruption of their mutual trade on the other side.
I wish this is read and internalized by every policy maker and strategic thinker that gets to power in India. This explains things from the formation of Bakistan (as an agent of disruption) to the phenomenon of compromised media and NGOs in India (agents of disruption).

It also accurately captures what WU really is : Disruption. Disruption as in "not having the power to make a choice for itself", a choice is forced on the country by someone else. From that standpoint WU can be defined as a set of "values" that are peddled by the west on "others", by choice or by force, disrupting the continuity of values of the "other".


The capacity for disruption exists today not so much because of the military, but because of the Policy-setting->Enforcement->Sepoy-Middleman structure. This structure is pervasive in India to this day and any other country that had a "peaceful" liberation from their colonial oppressors.

Policy setting used to be Colonial Administration back in the day, that decides how much tax a farmer has to pay to the looters. Today it is the WTO demanding India to stop stock piling food or the Briturds running parliamentary sessions on Cashmere etc. This is mostly made of the western elites. The current iteration of this has two faces, one which it shows in public (WMD in Iraq) and the other which is the real face (Access to Oil in Iraq, Cheney the dick needs his dollar fix).

Enforcement structure back in the day used to be the Colonial Army/Police (largely made of the colonized). Nowadays its NATO, IMF loans, "sanctions", "technology denial" or the briturd peanuts we get as "AID", which is then used in attempts to control our Space Program.

Sepoy-Middlemen used to be babus, lawyers, journalists who had contacts with the administration. Today it is Babus, NGOs, MediaPimps and many many Politicians like Nehru, MMS. Corruption at this level is rampant as it always has been. This level was a bunch of people with no real interest in India, their interests were always with the colonizer. It has been so to this day.

So when one wonders why we haven't made much "progress", one has to consider what we are dealing with here. We are dealing with a civilization disruption of fatal proportions, a cancer close to getting malignant. Before doing anything else, one has to look at oneself and figure out if they are peddling the same disruptive values that were shoved onto the world as inevitable, in which case one is just another Sepoy, another little pawn for the west to play with.
member_22733
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3786
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by member_22733 »

India had a very organized guild system doing batch production in villages. Every village was very close to self-sustaining. The immense fertile plains and warm weather meant that other than the purpose of "ruling" there was no need to scale an urban area beyond administration purposes. The wealth was in the villages and not in the cities. The economy, population and the environment were largely in balance with each other.

The Mughals kept this system but added a loot tax on top of it, their cities and garrisons were filled with middlemen who wanted a cut of the tax or their army men. This was the first level of urban scale up in India. The cities became powerful centers compared to the wealthy villages.

The briturds, the genocidal greedy phucks that they were, broke the guild system in Indian villages using every means they can. Taxation (district "collector" ) and draconian laws were used. It also moved the power center from villages to the city, the city that the briturds had no interest in maintaining or developing. Middleman/Sepoy became a good alternate profession for many people. The power differential between cities and villages became acute.

Another result of guilds being broken was that a large number of people were driven into poverty and they did sharecropping or worked as laborers for farmers for a living. In many cases they turned migrant and traveled village to village or to cities. You can see the descendants of the broken guild system when you pass through any highway in a large Indian city. These are the people who live in small camping tents selling statues, mats, art work and the like. They are dirt poor and their kids run all over naked even in the heat of the summer. These are the people who ran our "factories" back in the day. This is what the brituds gifted us after they "civilized us".

Before the mass-murdering civilizers set foot on Indian soil, about 50 - 60% was into farming the rest were in "other occupations". When the turds left India, we were 90% - 95% into farming, with the rest were the middlemen in broken non-functional power centers called cities. The Sepoys who ruled us after that in the form of CONparty, continued colonialism in a "gentler" form.
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34981
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

A_Gupta wrote:http://arunsmusings.blogspot.com/2005/0 ... nd-on.html
Curious reflection of what is said here.
Arun the following is an interesting quote
Literacy for the whole population is unattainable for several generations; and can only be extended as India's wealth is increased by her technical progress.
Not only is it prescient, it also presupposes that a degree of national wealth is required before everyone can be made literate. It appears that 100 % literacy was approached only after European nations had achieved considerable wealth

From the following link:
http://www.unesco.org/education/GMR2006 ... t8_eng.pdf
During the early twentieth century, literacy
levels increased throughout Europe, with few
changes in the ranking of countries. By mid-
century, central and northern Europe were
reported to have achieved over 95% literacy;
western Europe, over 80%; Austria and Hungary,
over 70%; and Italy, Poland and Spain, over 50%
literacy. In Portugal and the Eastern Orthodox
countries, adult literacy rates were not above
25%; only after 1945 did the ability to use written
languages extend to the masses (Johansson,
cited in Graff, 1987; Vincent, 2000).
shiv
BRF Oldie
Posts: 34981
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30
Location: Pindliyon ka Gooda

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by shiv »

A_Gupta wrote:FYI, Shiv, I read a study long ago, that I thought was credible. The conclusions of that study was that rupee for rupee the three most effective ways of reducing poverty in the Indian context were investing in measures that increase agricultural productivity, roads and literacy.
Can't dispute the idea.

I have written at least half a dozen times on BRF that I (like all other trainee doctors) studied a subject called "Preventive and Social Medicine" - a subject ignored and derided by most medical students who are ready to be shipped to the west the day they get their degree.

My textbook was a classic - by brothers called Park and Park (desis). I was completely gobsmacked by the statistic that in 1976 (or 75?), when the book was published, 80% of tonnage of transport in India did at least part of its journey by bullock cart. I realized decades later, in retrospect, that India's main product requiring transport back then was agricultural produce. And this was when I was in college.

I remember reading long ago that the idea of putting tyres on bullock carts improved efficiency of transport in India a great deal. I need to go see if I still have that book. I loved it and it was a real classic. For me that book is a "photograph" of India in the late 1960s and early 1970s. I know I also have a newer edition of the book.
Last edited by shiv on 14 Aug 2014 19:20, edited 1 time in total.
member_22733
BRF Oldie
Posts: 3786
Joined: 11 Aug 2016 06:14

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by member_22733 »

^^^ Shiv,

On the theme of WU as disruption of civilizational continuity. The current style of "mass schooling" with "one size fits all kids" approach is also a western model.

Kids stay unproductive and skill-less until they are in their mid-teens, this cuts out poor parents from sending their kids to school. Pre-invasion era model was largely vocational and skill based, where the kids become productive from day 1. We are now neither here nor there. We have skill-less teenagers graduating from high school with zero employable skills. Those kids who went to work instead of the school have skills but no necessary basic education that will help them move up in the current Indian Jigsaw.

Now, according to WU, every child must have a "happy" childhood.

When we send kids to work it becomes violation of the "civil rights" of the child because it is "Child labor", so the kids get let go from their work and end up rag-picking on the street. There they get sexually abused and exploited by all sorts of evil ghouls.
ramana
Forum Moderator
Posts: 60278
Joined: 01 Jan 1970 05:30

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by ramana »

A_Gupta wrote:Why people like KrishnaK distress me is that the primary sources from the British side of what happened in India are in English and are typically available on Google Books, their copyright having expired; one doesn't have to take any modern writer on faith, one can go and examine the material; and yet the modern mythology continues unabated.

The simple fact is that even the early inventions of the industrial revolution could not compete with India's "unrivalled manufacturing skill", it took special and deliberate effort to destroy that. In an alternate universe, independent Indian states would have first seen wages go down or stay stagnant as the industrial revolution caught up; then they would have erected tariff barriers to protect domestic industry, and they would have sought to catch up. Not different from e.g., how the US reacted to the industrial revolution emanating from Great Britain.



I have a book "A Steel Man in India" by John L Keenan, an autobiography of one of the first general managers of Tata Steel. He was an American who came to setup the blast furnaces and stayed on to become the general manager. He says the British crucible steel making is a copy of the Indian village way of making high quality steel in batch process. Until the Bessemer process was invented, Indian steel production was more than Briitsh. Us adopted the open hearth process invented by Seimens and he being an American introduced that to Tata Steel. By end of WWi India was the largest steel maker in Britsh Empire!!!.

http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/ ... n-in-india

KrishnaK doesnt want ot wake up. No point in trying to wake him up as he is lost in the West. Its the inner Whiteness that seeks to emerge from the brown shell. Many show similar issues due to fractal recursivity.

But in countering him hithertofore hidden points emerge so he has his usefulness.

in my old ways he would be out after his ten posts.....
Yayavar
BRF Oldie
Posts: 4852
Joined: 06 Jun 2008 10:55

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Yayavar »

shiv wrote:
I remember reading long ago that the idea of putting tyres on bullock carts improved efficiency of transport in India a great deal. ...
For those in CBSE, there was a chapter on the 'efficient bullock-cart' and how tires, a better placement of the yoke, change in some other structures made it more long lasting, efficient and less of a burden on the animal. I've since read lots of mocking of the effort put into it rather than other forms of transport. But in reality, especially based on the statistic in the book cited by you, this was a good immediate step; and the NCERT folk were well placed to bring it to the young students. In parallel of course other advancement happened too.
A_Gupta
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13563
Joined: 23 Oct 2001 11:31
Contact:

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by A_Gupta »

KrishnaK wrote:Even during the civil war, the North was far richer than the south. The south with more arable land and bigger farms.....
No, the North had far more manufacturing capability. But the South was wealthy.
http://www.nps.gov/resources/story.htm?id=251

Emphasis added:
The Southern lag in industrial development did not result from any inherent economic disadvantages. There was great wealth in the South, but it was primarily tied up in the slave economy. In 1860, the economic value of slaves in the United States exceeded the invested value of all of the nation's railroads, factories, and banks combined. On the eve of the Civil War, cotton prices were at an all-time high....
and
By 1815, cotton was the most valuable export in the United States; by 1840, it was worth more than all other exports combined.
http://faculty.weber.edu/kmackay/select ... very_i.htm
With only 30% of the nation's (free) population, the South had 60% of the "wealthiest men." The 1860 per capita income in the South was $3,978; in the North it was $2,040.
Notice the almost 2:1 advantage in per capita income that the South had over the North.
Vayutuvan
BRF Oldie
Posts: 13786
Joined: 20 Jun 2011 04:36

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by Vayutuvan »

svenkat wrote:YThe first principle of Western "Universalism"
1)Asatyam Vada-with all the sophistry in ones command.
or satyam vadha (kill the truth or people who speak truth) dharmam chera (imprison dharma or dharmic people) :wink:

Original: satyam vada dharmam chara (Always speak truth and propagate dharma).
chanakyaa
BRFite
Posts: 1799
Joined: 18 Sep 2009 00:09
Location: Hiding in Karakoram

Re: Western Universalism - what's the big deal?

Post by chanakyaa »

Has Mr. Putin been reading about WU on BRF?? :wink:

http://rt.com/news/180268-putin-russia- ... rontation/
<snip>
Russians must consolidate and develop their country, neither sliding into isolationism nor sacrificing their dignity for the sake of pleasing anyone, President Vladimir Putin declared.

“We have to develop our country with calm, dignity and efficiency, without barricading ourselves from the outer world or breaking ties with partners, but also without allowing anyone to treat us with disrespect,” he told Russian MPs in Yalta, Crimea....
</snip>
Post Reply