The Benefits of Colonialism

[james_davis_nicoll]

I cited this chart that coyu once posted here:

From Angus Maddison's OECD study, The
World Economy: A Millennial Perspective:

Country 1820-1870  1870-1913  1913-1950  1950-1973  1973-1998
China    -0.25       0.10       -0.62      2.86       5.39
India     0.00       0.54       -0.22      1.40       2.91
Indonesia 0.13       0.75       -0.20      2.57       2.90
Japan     0.19       1.48        0.89      8.05       2.34 

Look at the 1913-1950 column. Even taking into account that the US bombed Japan flat during WWII, the Japanese still outperform India under the Raj, Indonesia under the Dutch and China during the unpleasantnesses of the first half of the 20th century.

It's better to be an independent nation that loses a world war than it is to ruled from overseas. I wonder how many Hiroshimas one Raj is equal to?

Comments

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

The only benefit to colonialism is that it beats genocide (compare the surviving native populations of the USA & Canada to that of Mexico and South America).

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

How much from disease and how much from violence? (If you happen to know? My American history is quite poor.)

[autopope.livejournal.com]

The only benefit to colonialism is that it beats genocide

Really?

I thought genocide was usually part of the package ...

[corruptedjasper.livejournal.com]

Nah, you can't kill off all the natives, then you have nobody to work the plantations/mines/etc for you any more. Well, unless there aren't enough of them so you're shipping in convict labour anyway.

[mayakda.livejournal.com]

I was thinking of the Conquistadors. The Church seemed to limit their massacres somewhat since they needed souls to baptize, and plow the fields and build the churches. Pacificacion, yeah!

[casaubon.livejournal.com]

What are the numbers?

Assuming it's growth, the huge Japanese spike is due in large part to the Korean War and the USA using Japan as a forward base... which suggests that it's best to be a colony in all but name in a very useful strategic position.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

It's GDP per capita annual growth rate, and no, the huge Japanese spike of eight percent a year for a generation in a nation of a hundred million people is not due in large part to the Korean War or the U.S. bases in Japan. There were a few years in the early 1950s where American military procurement in Japan played a role in helping to revitalize Japanese heavy industry, making spare parts and such. But the basis for postwar Japanese growth relied on its very large internal market on the one hand, and a return to export manufacturing on the other.

Since there's so much misinformation about cross-country economic growth, I want to shoot this urban legend several times in the head with extreme prejudice. I hope you don't mind.

The periods were chosen to reflect the era of high imperialism, the period of World Wars and the Depression, the postwar period up to the oil shock, and then up to (roughly) the current day. Meiji has nothing to do with it.

[casaubon.livejournal.com]

I don't mind at all.
Averaging the numbers over 23 years makes it rather smeared. I assume his book's got lots more detail.

[tsm-in-toronto.livejournal.com]

" ...I want to shoot this urban legend several times in the head with extreme prejudice."

Except (said the man with the lawyer's briefcase and the debbil's horns), that you're calling it an "urban legend" when it is merely a contrary opinion, largely IMHO for rhetorical, not analytical / logical reasons -- and, more importantly you are ignoring the fact that economic recovery is a non-linear dynamical process, highly dependent upon initial conditions.

To be more concrete, you're implying that without the US use of Japan as a forward supply base in the Korean war, a similar level of GDP growth would have occured (in Japan -- or, one presumes, in a Marshall Plan-less Germany), anyway. Well, to be blunt, what primes the pump?

Next you'll be telling us China's ostensible 10%+ year-over-year GDP increases of the last decade or so, had nothing to do with Americans buying PRC-made stuff at Wal-Mart.

[Takes off debbil horns, puts away brief-case ...]

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

[shrug] I've heard it often enough to call it an 'urban legend'. Perhaps we travel in different circles. It's wrong, and not merely a contrary opinion, because the numbers are wrong. It's rather like the urban legend, popular in certain corners of the world, that U.S. aid is entirely responsible for the success of the Israeli economy.

The likeliest counterfactual is that Japanese internal demand and Japanese government policy primes the Japanese pump. The emphasis would have been different: motorcycles and shipping rather than orders of larger motor vehicles and spare parts. A little bit more "forced savings" for industrial development. It would change the mix of heavy industries, but given the interlocking nature of Japanese corporations, less than you might think.

Please note that Japan received no Marshall aid.

Without the Korean War, I would expect the full Japanese recovery to have been delayed maybe a year or two -- so back on their prewar trendline in 1965/6 instead of 1964 (but at a faster growth rate than before). This is substantial, but it doesn't alter the general macroeconomic trend.

Now, the American occupation of Japan did have pro-growth effects, but they were subtle and have to do with the weirdly progressive policies of SCAP, not the spending proclivities of Americans in the bases. (U.S. military bases in general cause few positive economic spillovers -- in one case I'm working on, deliberately none, just to screw over the locals.)

[anzhalyumitethe.livejournal.com]

n one case I'm working on, deliberately none, just to screw over the locals

Which one?

military bases, in my experience,a re like the oil addiction. When they're there, great, but when they leave...oh man.

This is, of course, tainted by a semi-NMican POV.

[tsm-in-toronto.livejournal.com]

Thanks for the informative reply.

I imagine we do travel in different circles -- SFAICT from your posts, you are in some sort of economics-related or history-related job; for a living, I torment innocent adolescents with polynomial equations and facts about cell organelles.

Anyway, a thing I left out -- it would have interfered with my self-appointed devil's advocate role -- was the business about how the South Koreans in 1997, during the East Asian currency crisis, voluntarily donated huge, but huge, piles of personal gold to the government, so that the latter could re-liquify the international market for the Won (currency). I simply cannot imaging NorAm-ians doing such a thing (we hide our gold in a box buried by the maple tree in the backyard, where the window gives us a good bead, so we can take our squirly rifles to blast gummint varmints who might fancy comin' ta get it, dag-nab 'em all ta tarnation). That [Korean / East Asian, more generally] cultural ethos, I think, is also partly what is behind Japan's economic success.

BTW, I know about Japan / Marshall -- I mentioned Germany because it, too, had a post-war "miraculous economic recovery". This is usually attributed to the Marshall Aid, and so people, I think -- this is perhaps the source of your "urban legend" -- uncritically accepting that explanation, look for an analogous factor in Japan's recovery -- and the most obvious such analogy is the Korean War "forward industrial base" thing.

Certainly, and I know this from stuff I had to read in university (for an elective), about Douglas MacArthur's administration in Japan -- before 1951, there had been a faction of the American administration in Japan that openly advocated reducing Japan to a preindustrial, agricultural economy, as a way of preventing any future war (this was the same faction that got those anti-war clauses into the Japanese constitution) -- and the advent of the Korean War, and the resulting American need for Japan to not be deindustrialized, cost that faction (I forget the names, and I'm too lazy to look it up again) all influence.

So, while the Korean War, as you say, might not have been an economic reason for the Japanese "economic miracle" -- it definitely was a political reason why that "economic miracle" wasn't strangled in its cradle by the American Occupation Government.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

... um. It's an interesting point of view, but one that limits Japanese agency. To wit, I can't think of anything which would strengthen the then quite vigorous, large, and militant Communist Party of Japan than a policy of forced deindustrialization.

The time frame is off, too. But it's a good story.

[tsm-in-toronto.livejournal.com]

... um. It's an interesting point of view, ...

I'm confused by your telegraphic grammar. If you mean that this point of view among those members of SCAP was "interesting" (i.e. dubious), then, yeah, you're right. I wasn't asserting that it was a brilliant point of view, merely that it existed, -- and, that if serious efforts had been made to implement it, it would have crippled the Japanese industrial recovery, even though (I concede your ultimate point) it would have failed.

But if you meant to characterize my assertion of the existence of this faction within SCAP is a "point of view" (i.e., debatable), then, um, no.

Now, in fairness, that which I assert without proof, you are free to reject without proof. But, I took a course in this (20+ years ago now), and wrote my major paper on this topic, and I'm pretty sure those were the facts. Alas for me providing you with the citations -- that stuff has all long since either been put in storage or put in recycling. But, as they say, "you could look it up" ...

... but one that limits Japanese agency. ...

Yeah, you're right -- remember, I wasn't asserting the wisdom of this goal, merely asserting the existence of some advisors to MacArthur, early on, who were pushing for this.

... To wit, I can't think of anything which would strengthen the then quite vigorous, large, and militant Communist Party of Japan than a policy of forced deindustrialization. ...

Well, SCAP brought in Taft-Hartley type union-purging laws in 1949, and the communists were tossed out in the "Red Purge" shortly after. So, I dunno.
Actually, I can think of several other arguments against this narrow point. But it's kind of quibbling over details -- I actually agree with your bigger point, which is that if the MacArthur administration had actually fully adopted these (deindustrialization) goals, it would have been resisted, and would have ended badly.

... The time frame is off, too. ....

Well, yeah, I guess -- but this discussion is being held in the context of those century spanning tables of low-granularity data. I'm not sure that mild sloppiness with the actual year-dates here, matters. IIRC, these policies were being advocated ca. 1945-1947, as SCAP was ramping up its Zaibatsu-busting ("hey, why not take it that further step, eh?"), and were already abandoned by, say, 1948 or 1949 -- so, yes, in fairness, the thing predates the Korean War. But, that doesn't impinge on its relevance to the claim that (1) these views were held/advocated (2) if they had prevailed (one of those "ifs of history" counterfactuals, n.b.), then it would have seriously crimped the Japanese economy going forward from 1947, quite regardless of its subsequent failure as a policy, and of any opposition to it.

...But it's a good story.

You know, you have a right to your own opinion about the facts, but you do not have a right to your own facts.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

You know, you have a right to your own opinion about the facts, but you do not have a right to your own facts.

[shrug again] Oddly enough, I was going to use the same line. Here's the actual chronology. Edwin Pauley -- the same guy who was later part-owner of the L.A. Rams, but in this period was doing horse-trading at Yalta -- made some maximal claims to Truman in 1945-1946 about the deindustrialization of Japan in the original Reparations Mission. (And frankly, I can't blame him; he was in Manila in late 1945.)

SCAP nixed Pauley pretty much immediately, because it was so obviously bananas -- a 1949 report in Far Eastern Quarterly, after it was a dead issue, called it "economic nonsense" -- and SCAP sent its own report back to Washington in December 1946, stating that removing the "obvious excess" was sufficient. Confused, Washington then sent a third mission in January 1947, which found that even the "obvious excess" was too much.

A lengthier fourth mission, in the spring and summer of 1947, agreed, and by the the time of the fifth mission in 1948, the focus was on getting Japanese non-military plant operational for the reconstruction of the Japanese economy more than what could be pried loose.

The Pauley recommendations were left to wither on the vine, much as the similar and similarly motivated Morgenthau recommendations were allowed to fade with regards to Germany; and like them, they were never close to being enacted by anyone on the ground.

Anyhow. I suppose, broadly speaking, "before 1951" is equivalent to 1945-1946, and I'm willing to overlook someone's half-remembered account from a college elective that wasn't in their field.

But, you know, I do know a little about this period. And if I seem a little arrogant about it, remember: I'm not the one relying on a half-remembered account from a college elective that wasn't in their field against someone who does this for a living.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

(Potsdam, not Yalta. argh.)

[tsm-in-toronto.livejournal.com]

(1) -- Yes, Pauley.

(2) -- Nothing whatever that you have written above, since it is a corroboration of what I had written even further above, in any way a rebuttal or refutation of the claims I made. So: why did you write it all, and in such detail? Hypothesis: my purpose in participating in this thread was to discuss post-WWII Japan; yours was merely to "demonstrate greater knowledge than anyone else in the thread", for reasons of your own, having nothing to do with the thread or its topic.

(3) Anyhow. I suppose, broadly speaking, "before 1951" is equivalent to 1945-1946, and I'm willing to overlook someone's half-remembered account from a college elective that wasn't in their field. -- my, how big of you.

(4) But, you know, I do know a little about this period. And if I seem a little arrogant about it, remember: I'm not the one relying on a half-remembered account from a college elective that wasn't in their field against someone who does this for a living. -- Knowledge, of itself, never results in arrogance. Arrogance is a choice, -- or, more properly, a strategy. You have confirmed, above, that my "half-remembered account" was, in fact, correct. So, your strategic objective in adding the above to the thread, in the manner you have done, with the specific words you have used, must have been something else.

[carloshasanax.livejournal.com]

It certainly is not a corroboration. You said, "But if you meant to characterize my assertion of the existence of this faction within SCAP is a "point of view" (i.e., debatable), then, um, no."

It wasn't within SCAP. Pauley was a Truman man. (Perhaps you remember how well Truman and MacArthur got along. Or perhaps not.) SCAP resisted Pauley's recommendations, quite successfully. The dates and events you cite have nothing to do with deindustrialization or its advocates, who were completely out of the loop in postwar Japanese reconstruction, but represent different factions within SCAP. Like I said, it's a good story, but not one that fits the facts.

As regards to your arrogance, I think I have been milder than you deserve, out of courtesy to James Nicoll. You do fit a certain sort of type, though. I've come across it before, and weirdly, it's mainly Ontarians. Go figure.

[tsm-in-toronto.livejournal.com]

(1) It certainly is not a corroboration.

My assertion was: there were voices in the American occupation bureaucracy that advocated the deindustrialisation of Japan (Germany, too, for that matter). That was my point. You've corroborated that, while rightly correcting my misremembering of quite irrelevant details (though: not correcting me for the purpose of correcting me -- rather, for the purpose of publicly demonstrating a superior command of these details). But, those corrections of immaterial facts disprove the essence of my original assertion, how?

(2) As regards to your [sic] arrogance, ...

SFAICT, from your contributions here and in other threads in this forum, -- in your personal dictionary, people are "arrogant" if they have the poor taste to disagree with you, and the temerity to defend their PoV. Arrogance [n.]: "A state of ill-grace characterised by a failure to defer obsequiously to Carloshasanax".

(3) I think I have been milder than you deserve [sic], out of courtesy to James Nicoll.

From the start of your contribution to this sub-thread, you have neither been "mild", nor courteous. Thank you for giving me permission to sit in judgment reciprocally.

(4) ... You do fit a certain sort of type, though. I've come across it before, and weirdly, it's mainly Ontarians. Go figure.

I notice you close with an irrelevant, insulting digression, calculated to anger, and yet strategically placed at the end, for prominence in the mind of a reader. You are a very skilled verbal tactician. The previous sentence may, or may not, be meant as a compliment.

[twoeleven.livejournal.com]

any idea why the lengths of the periods reported vary so much? 1870-1913 looks like it may have been chosen to bracket the meiji period.

wrt "better to be an independent nation that loses a world war than it is to ruled from overseas", i think that might be better written "loses the second world war to the united states, after the us got to see the effects the treaty of versailles on germany".

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

after the us got to see the effects the treaty of versailles on germany

Those effects would be "The Second World War."

[kd5mdk.livejournal.com]

It looks to me like losing World War I was a bad deal for all who did that (of course, winning it was pretty rough too).

How did Africa fare in the same time periods?

[phanatic.livejournal.com]

Even taking into account that the US bombed Japan flat during WWII, the Japanese still outperform India under the Raj, Indonesia under the Dutch and China during the unpleasantnesses of the first half of the 20th century.

I'm pretty sure you want a more granular dataset to make that claim rather than just using numbers from "1913-1950." And for that matter, a good deal of the unpleasantness of the first half of the 20th century (in China, anyway) was due to Japanese military aggression; is it better to be an independent nation that has chunks of it annexed by the Japanese than it is to be ruled from overseas? How many Mukden Incidents is one Raj equal to?

[(Anonymous)]

You know, this also gives some insight into how the Communists were able to win in China: man, the Chinese had a bad century. (Any idea on how reliable those statistics on Chinese growth 1950-1973 are? One wonders if there are any statistics on average income in India and China over those years...)

Bruce

[(Anonymous)]

Some estimate of the error in these figures would be interesting.

Also, estimates for, say, the Ottoman empire contrasted with Iran, and those parts of India that did not come under British rule until circa 1850. Data might be yet harder to find for those, though.

William Hyde

[neonchameleon.livejournal.com]

Um. Could you tell me exactly what is being compared there please? GDP growth? GDP per capita growth?

I object to charts not saying what they are measuring on general principles.

[mindstalk.livejournal.com]

I agree, but anyway Carlos said "GDP per capita annual growth rate".

[casaubon.livejournal.com]

For anyone who's interested, Maddison has an Excel spreadsheet with all the data on a year by year basis:

http://www.ggdc.net/maddison/Historical_Statistics/horizontal-file_03-2007.xls

There's also a number of papers describing his methodology on his home page.

And the book itself is in Google Books:
http://books.google.com/books?id=DF-N_lXjlL8C

[james-nicoll.livejournal.com]

I wonder how many Hiroshimas one Raj is equal to?

Just the Bengal Famine of 1943 killed at least ten times as many people as the destruction of Hiroshima, and possibly as many as 40 times (High estimate for the famine, low estimate for Hiroshima). Funny how India seems to have stopped having famines about the time they kicked the British out.

Confound those durn variables, Martha!!

[tsm-in-toronto.livejournal.com]

Um, yeah, James -- but the Indians had plenty o' famines before the British arrived, so maybe other factors were in play, that explain this better, than yer "inept pallid colonial administrators" hypothesis, no?

(Just ask the Irish -- I'm sure they had no famines under British rule ...)

Re: Confound those durn variables, Martha!!

[(Anonymous)]

True enough, although Mike Davis's "Late Victorian Holocausts" argues that pre-colonization Indian states generally had notions on famine relief a bit in advance of "let the surplus population die off."

Personally, I suspect that the British colonization of India was at best a null event, in economic terms: give that India has only recently pulled ahead of the pack of sub-Saharan countries in terms of GNP/capita, I suspect the average GNP of an India where colonization didn't get beyond coastal enclaves, gunboat diplomacy, and pushing Manchester goods down people's throats at gunpoint (AKA "free trade")probably wouldn't be much worse off and possibly quite a bit better.

(On the other hand, the British did politically unify most of the area - with 2-3 more "successful modernizers" trying to do unto their more backward neighbors what the Japanese tried to do unto East Asia, the 20th century might well have been a rather exciting, if only briefly experienced, era for a lot of inhabitants of the subcontinent.)

Bruce