Interesting, but need check if it's factual history: What made White people so powerful and dominant on the global stage?
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Baba Vickram Aditya Bedi, Top Writer 2018 Badge, Published in Yugmarg & Punjab Times. • Answered July 9
In 1450 the two largest economies in the world were that of India and China. India held near full dominance in clothing exports, and medicines. By 1605, India was the world’s largest exporter and silver from the New World was filling the treasuries of India’s reserves and merchants. Western Europe and is former European majority colonies, would in a few centuries rise to become the dominant force in the world, and until recently unchallenged.
There are situations which are anomalous, and when they arise the person or group takes credit for a situation they are at best partially responsible for, but completely benefiting from. There are myths which are made around these successes and in time they are repeated so many times, that they are viewed as facts. The rise of Western Europe was actually long overdue, India and China had for 3000 years been exchanging the position of the largest economies in the world. The numbering system, the idea of the decimal system and even the concept of Zero had been invented by Ancient Indians. The concept of the sun being the center of the solar system was also understood by ancient Indians. So were the days in a year and the even the stellar distances between planets. Even the concept of gravity was discussed in Ancient India. But, Ancient Indians never decided to set sail and colonize the world. They had all the advantages including the invention of steel and better weapons grade steel until the 1700s. The Islamic World though highly war like and expansionist in its early history, controlled an Empire which spanned from Spain to the borders of India. It could be viewed as the first colonialist empire, but it eventually ceded into locally controlled dynasties who eventually found themselves identifying with the conquered rather than as separate. Sure there were massive deaths from the initial expansion and loss of knowledge, but no complete eradication of the local population, even though their chroniclers often liked to insinuate this as they thought of it as achievements they never accomplished. Baghdad became a city known for its libraries and cultural understanding. A combination of many disciplines came to be known as Algebra or the science of balancing. During this medieval time, Europe was unknown in reality to the Indians, Chinese and African civilizations. The Arabs controlled the flow of knowledge from East to West.
The Emperor of Hindustan being shown maps of the world, and the large scale of his own Empire which had a greater output than that of Europe, in 1605.
In India the landmass of Europe was spoken of but not much importance was given to it. By the 1500’s, the Emperor of Hindustan, Akbar, would gaze upon world maps and see that the ambassador of England came from an Island smaller than one his provinces, and this far off England had no wealth to even compare itself with his Empire. It would take the British many attempts to even gain an audience with the Emperor of Hindustan again, finally in 1617 Emperor Akbar’s son, Alamgir agreed. If not for Red Wine and the sending of a representative who played a false friend for months, there would have been little interest. Eventually, the Emperor decided to allow trade with Britain if they agreed to act as his navy and keep other European powers at bay. The British were certain that they could never win a war in India as the Mughal Emperor had the world’s largest land army, armed with cannons which could fire miles away, and musket divisions. The British finally decided to see if they could challenge Hindustan in the 1690s, but the ensuing war was a massive failure for the British. The first Asian power to score a land and sea victory was India in 1699. The British begged for their trading rights to be restored after surrendering.
So how did the British Empire and other European powers become dominant, as far as India goes they waited until India itself was in a civil war and the victors were not allowed to consolidate power. In the Americas and Australia they found a native population which was isolated, lacking immunity to diseases they brought and without any modern warfare capability. In Africa they found a population which was relatively small for the land area, and entered into their political arena supporting one local King against another. The game in India was to use Indians to do most of the fighting and slowly take over the entire area of the Indian Sub-Continent. In Africa an even worse exploitation coupled with a slave trade which further reduced population led to complete domination.
When an Empire such as he British Empire was able to take 45 trillion dollars from India, it is no wonder that it could finance an industrial revolution, while India which was the world’s largest economy was reduced to a famine ridden nation in the span of 190 years. If we call this dominance than for sure India and Africa witnessed and experienced it. Can we say that this is the worst experience history gave to India or Africa, lets just say that India in 3000 years of recorded history never moved below the spot of second largest economy nor did it ever have famines where the central state did not assist the victims, during the colonial period, India saw both norms broken. Over 66 million Indians died in colonial famines, and since India regained independence there has never been a single famine. Just recently, an Indian complained in a Pharmacy, that India’s response to COVID-19 was slower than it should have been. The Pharmacist who was an older man, said, “We made a vaccine and saved millions of lives, what do you think would have been the situation if we were colonized today. Half of the people walking around would have perished, as there would have been a lockdown and keys would have been thrown away!”
Dominance in science, math and astronomy along with medical research were and are areas where Western civilization greatly assisted the world in the past 300 years. But, this came at a time when it was dominant, still it does not take away from the modern developments it brought to the world. We cannot imagine living without these technologies, and even today resurgent civilizations such as India and China are not equals yet in this area. We can look at the course of history in many ways, but we can understand that history runs in cycles and dominance is not continuous and often it is not intentional. The world is returning to a pre-colonial power structure. We can no longer expect a era of dominance but instead one of cooperation as hard as that is to fathom for many.
Interesting but you fail to mention the most important factors. You only mention England and suggest that dominance came solely from exploitation and colonialism. England is only a part of Europe. France’s and Italy’s economies were each four times bigger than England in 1500 and England did not surpass France until the 1800s. China was the biggest economy until almost 1900. British and then European dominance came from a better political and economic system, based on a capitalism less tied to mercantilism. The use of joint stock companies like the East India Company meant that huge amounts of capital could be assembled and permitted Britain to extend its economic reach. The actual employment of science (technology) through steam power enabled it to be the economic powerhouse. Finally, although you probably discount Max Weber completely, the Protestant work ethic had a tremendous impact. Your answer has a number of other historical inaccuracies, but the above are the main points. The Bogeyman of colonialism is just that. So England for example goes to country where the vast majority is living on a subsistence level. Like the Indian subcontinent. They set up tea plantations etc. and the local population has a choice, make more money out of being “exploited” or continue to barely survive. That, you call colonialism.
Excellent reply but there were also countries like Portugal and Spain that were colonizing the world…. and thank good ness for that … the world is better today because of colonization by the Europeans… no doubt
Interesting thoughts, but the answer is industrialization. Not just manufacturing, but how society is organized around it.
Thanks for the thoughtful comment, I hope my optimism here comes true. Every modern war ends on a negotiation table, and we should as civilized nations think of this before firing.
A very interesting and thoughtful take on what dominance actually means in a macro sense.
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