Needs?

People’s needs are things like food, water, air and Costco rotisserie chicken.

In fact this ‘need’ could be easily fulfilled by two Costco rotisserie chickens taped to the chest and that way meals would be covered too.

Its possible as a once or twice off but I think with how the population skews in many Western countries, retirees will always have a disproportionate voice. Essentially death by gerentocracy. It’s why new legislation often amounts to a transfer of wealth from young to old.

Even if that skew wasn’t a factor, many young people are consuming far right propaganda on social media and accepting that ideology as their worldview.

Finally even if there is a massive rebuke against Trump/MAGA etc. by 2028 it may be too little too late.

Its fascinating to watch news within the US versus outside of it. Within the US there are political commentators recommending that allied nations do their best to hold out to 2028 when the US hopefully gets back on track. Outside the US, countries are reorganizing supply chains to minimize US involvement / dependency wherever possible.

When your most reliable partner suddenly becomes unreliable, you don’t forget that in one election cycle.

Fascinating to see the Western world fall apart while quadrupling down on the possibility AGI and fossil fuels.

5 to 10 more years of these disproportionately wealthy nations quibbling with each other and fighting within themselves due to far right politics and one wonders what the world will look like in a few decades.

Most empires fall when they spend more time looking backwards than forwards. Looking at you America…

Is it though? People hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe. No one wants to believe that their privileges are predicated on suffering elsewhere.

Westerners in particularly have always been very “heads in the sand” when it comes to modern history but it’s not surprising. Every nation struggles with the darker aspects of their history.

We call that extortion in our part of the world. I assume the British call it that today too.

Where I’d say Friedman is arguing in bad faith is that the obvious goal of colonialism is value extraction by force or coercion. He may argue that due to inefficiency or resistance it didn’t actually produce significant wealth for Britain but the evidence shows otherwise.

That or he may argue that the East India Company (the origin of multinational capitalism) was not colonialism which would be divergent from historical consensus.

There are several estimates. Some as high as $45 trillion.

Friedman’s take has been repeated in many Western circles.

As you’ve mentioned there were multiple members of Parliament who were directly invested in the EIC and made sizable profits. The EIC managed to extract explotative taxation during the Bengal famine of 1770 (promoting starvation) while shareholders increased their dividend from 10 to 12.5%. The massive transfer of wealth from India, the Atlantic slave trade and Opium sales to China essentially built Britain during this era. It was the seed capital of the industrial revolution.

The British Raj took over after the failed sepoy mutiny in mid 1800s. It was at this point Britain introduced the strategy of the ‘civilizing mission’, denigrating Indian culture as a justification to the British public to continue colonization. The British public accepted this. It was the independence movement in India that ultimately secured freedom (along with Nazi destruction of British infrastructure).

As we watch power and wealth slowly drift back from West to East and South, African, Indian and many other voices that speak truth on this matter will be heard more clearly.

Often times Westerners are not open to accepting voices from the global south on these matters and portray them as biased. I usual refer to the writings of historian William Dalrymple (the self admitted descendant of colonists) as a starting point to those that feel morally threatened by this history but want to learn more from someone who doesn’t feel too foreign.

For those that are open to Indian voices, Sashi Tharoor’s writings or his YouTube series ‘Imperial Receipts’ does a good job capturing the history and scale of extraction.

Didn’t know much about the guy except that he’s a Nobel laureate. Happened to come across a YouTube video where a curious college student asks him about how slavery and colonialism contributed to Western wealth. He had an elaborate answer but within it he actually said Britain did not have slaves and America did not have colonies (for the most part).

Nevermind the fact that America absolutely had slaves and Britain certainly had colonies (he was selective on who didn’t have what), Britain absolutely did profit from slavery also.

He added on that Britain spent more on administering colonies than it gained extracting their resources which may be one of the stupidest arguments I’ve ever heard. How can someone that worships at the altar of capitalism not understand that greed was the obvious motivator? Or is it only the motivator when it fits his narrative?

If this is the messaging we get from our intellectuals, what hope does truth have?

slams buzzer ER nurse.

Women absolutely have a role to play in toxic masculinity. Not to take accountability away from the social conditions that men ultimately created and propagated.

Stoicism teaches to focus on what’s in our control and understand, accept and reframe emotions, not suppress them entirely. The pop culture definition of stoicism has become what you have described though.

Capitalist nations uphold those with capital. Who would have thought?

What would you say to those that wish the same on America since Trump defended the Saudi government’s actions? Or is that a “special case” where civilians should be seen as distinct from their government?

The only way you counter it is with education and being worldly

Well said. It really shouldn’t be harder with the technological advantages we have today but clearly the powers that be go out of their way to make sure it’s not used for that purpose.

1. Indian Hindus have had a caste system since it was introduced in the Vedas 3500 years ago. It was initially intended as means of organizing society and not necessarily hierarchical.

2. It wasn’t necessarily systemized until it was legally codified by the British during the colonial era. Indian historians have debated the fluidity of caste prior to this time and concluded that while caste endogamy was clearly the norm, caste was much more fluid historically.

3. There are thousands of castes in India. When the British came across this system, for the purposes of census administration, they limited self identification to only one of the four castes as described in the Vedas, legally codifying it as a hierarchy.

4. The idea of one group of people seeing itself as superior to others is a common theme throughout human history. The US had a race based caste system for most of its history with the addition of legally codified chattel slavery and segregation of African Americans.

5. Pulitzer prize winning author Isabel Wilkerson argues that America still has an invisible caste system to this day.

6. America utilizes DEI to remedy past and present caste discrimination. India outlawed caste discrimination at its inception in article 17 of it’s constitution.

7. Some regressive Indians bring a casteist worldview with them. The government of the United States and its supporters are currently working at establishing a caste system where those of European heritage are high caste and those of other races or heritages are low caste. Both are wrong.

I say this mainly because I come across many people that see caste as a uniquely regressive institution the likes of which has not existed in other societies. Every hierarchical system based on race or ancestry is casteist and essentially every human society in civilizational history has had and likely currently continues to have that bigotry deeply ingrained within.

Nothing you said is wrong. Just adding context for a better understanding.

Not entirely true, many want to bring their family (see settler immigrants in early America) and there are still many that don’t want to eliminate immigration entirely.

I think they just romanticize Western antiquity which often saw sex as a manifestation of power and control rather than an expression of intimate connection.

Damn didn’t know Lemmy drafted Aristotle. Another win for the Fediverse.

Sectarianism will always exist. One can argue that the resurgence in white supremacy here is a manifestation of that (a group of Europeans and their descendants thinking their sect is superior / innately worthy of more resources).

I think one would be hard pressed to defend the argument that racism is a “white export” but what is undeniably true is that colonial Europeans were obsessed with race and saw the world through the lens of a race based caste system.

They assumed that all human progress could be distilled to lighter skin people being more advanced and darker skin people being more primitive.

They created entire scientific fields around this and interpreted their religion in a way to support this.

In India, they interpreted indigineous systems of social hierarchy such as caste and took them a step further, defining those that were darker skinned and lower caste as inherently criminal, keeping them under the watchful eye of their surveillance state.

They perceived lighter skin Muslims and upper caste Hindus as more “civilized” than darker skin low caste Hindus and gave the former administrative opportunities because of this perceived superiority.

They had an explicit policy of divide and conquer, promoting hateful and divisive rhetoric that resulted in communal violence so that people would be distracted from fighting against them.

Then when Nazi Germany destroyed their infrastructure in WW2 such that they could no longer financially maintain their institutions of colonialism, they drew an arbitrary border which cut through incredibly culturally and linguistically diverse communities and left.

In summary: Would there be animosity between Pakistan and India without the mismanagement of partition and the empire going out of its way to promote hate? Probably.

Would racism and sectarian violence not exist in the absence of the European world view being spread globally through colonialism? No we would still have that.

Were these made substantially worse by colonial powers promoting those divisions around the world over centuries? I think absolutely yes.

So while I take your point that such divisions didn’t originate in the West, it very much was a core component of their worldview and they stoked and exacerbated those divisions everywhere they went. I find it difficult to let colonists off the hook for that.

But to your general point on human nature, I agree. The reason why I hold America toa different standard is it calls itself the land of oppurunity and takes pride in that.

From the regressive perspective, if you’re nonwhite and poor you’re a leech on society and if you are well off you must have took it from them by gaming the system. The core is not seeing others as equally human.

Being financially secure is a multiplier to their bigotry as they feel it challenges 1) their collective power and 2) their worldview that anyone that shares their melanin level is innately superior in every way.

To be honest, as a South Asian, racists have always been openly bigotted in our direction. It was never really taboo in most Western countries. We have no StopAsianHate or BLM equivalent.

That being said I appreciate the author for highlighting the issue. Despite our faults (by virtue of being human) we value family and education as ideals and that has helped us create prosperity, especially in the US where Indians are the highest earning demographic. This rubs some the wrong way, even if it is fairly earned.

Though its not surprising, it is disappointing when it occurs in a nation that sees itself as a land of opportunity.