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Title: BOOK REVIEW A law unto itself The Corporation that Changed the World
Source:
Asia Times
URL Source: http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Global_Economy/IA27Dj01.html
Published: Jan 29, 2007
Author: Sreeram Chaulia /
Post Date: 2007-01-29 17:19:34 by swarthyguy
Keywords: None
Views: 423
Comments: 19
Jan 27, 2007 Page 1 of 2 BOOK REVIEW A law unto itself The Corporation That Changed the World by Nick Robins Reviewed by Sreeram Chaulia The British East India Company was a colossus responsible for the creation of the iniquitous modern world. Historian Nick Robins' trenchant new history of this giant re-examines the world's most powerful corporation during the Age of the Enlightenment in terms of its shadow over the global economy of today. It is an attempt to expose its destructive legacy so that future interactions between Western corporations and Asian countries are based on principles of fairness. From the 17th to the 19th century, the East India Company shocked its age with executive malpractice, stock-market excesses and human oppression, outdoing the felons of our times such as Enron. Its contemporaries across the political spectrum saw the "Company" as an overbearing and fundamentally problematic institution. Karl Marx called it the standard bearer of Britain's "moneyocracy". Adam Smith, the economist deeply suspicious of mighty corporations, was horrified at the way in which the Company "oppresses and domineers" in India. Edmund Burke, the father of modern conservatism, declared India to be "radically and irretrievably ruined through the Company's continual drain of wealth". Established in 1600 by royal charter, the Company's operations stretched from the Atlantic Ocean to India, Southeast Asia, China and Japan. Colonial rule in India was the eventual outcome of the Company's forays, but its ultimate purpose was profit-making with an eye to shareholders and the annual dividend in London. Personal and private profits were the abiding motives of this Company, which "reversed the centuries-old flow of wealth from West to East and engineered a great switch in global development" (p 7). Robins challenges romantic reinterpretations of the Company's past, now under way in Britain, for ignoring the abuse, misery, devastation and plunder that marked its presence in India. His point is that the Company should be assessed on the basis of its extortion, corruption and impunity rather than peripheral contributions to "discovering" Oriental culture Poster Comment: Nothing new under the sun......
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#6. To: swarthyguy (#0)
Egalitarianism rather reared its ugly head and disrupted things. Not that the British should have ever ruled India in the first place, but having once decided to do so, they needed strong but careful distinctions between ruler and ruled. Indians are not British, cannot be made to be British (and vice-versa), and would not naturally choose to be ruled by them.
That was not the problem. The British were in India because that was a perfect place to grow Opium, and India was, for a long, long time, the world´s top producer of Opium. Until the British started to have problems and needed a different venue to do the production. Red China is, today, the world´s leading producer of illegal drugs; most of the golden triangle (of drugs) is inside of China. And Hong Kong was and is known as the crossroads of the drug trade, world wide. The movie about Gandi, in it they mention how many villages were dirt poor and starving because the Brits had decided not to accept that years crop of blue (? - different color?) dye, and the people had not been permitted to produce food on the land by the Brits; just the dye. Hogwash. They just did not put into the movie the facts about the real crop, which was opium. By then, the Brits had moved the production to the east to China in cooperation with the new power in China, Mao. Just in case you are wondering about all of the cooperation between the Chinese and the Brits, like handing over Hong Kong.
Perhaps, but Indigo was one of the key exports of India. The rebellion spoken about in the movie was about two things: clothing and salt. Indians were not allowed to manufacture clothes from their homegrown cotton; it had to be exported to England's mills and then imported back as finished clothing. Hence Gandhi's movement to make your own clothes and his spinning wheel. In the movie, it also focused on the salt rebellion; salt had to be bought from the British; hence Gandhi's salt march where people scooped up salt from the salt flats, disrupting Britain's monopoly.
#16. To: swarthyguy (#14)
You are correct. Excellent movie, by the way. I may have to buy a copy. Which is something I never do. Be that as it may, the OTHER real problem in India was the production of opium, and it is about at the turn of the 20th century that pressure began to be put on the Brits about it. It took until India won it's independence for the problem to be solved. The Brits would NEVER have solved the problem on their own; dealing drugs is too engrained in their systems and, I dare say, in their mentallity. I do not think that a movie about the real problems in India, and the revelation about the Brits being behind the international drug trade, could be made.
Top • Page Up • Full Thread • Page Down • Bottom/LatestIncreasing racial and administrative haughtiness lay at the root of the Revolt of 1857 that terminated the Company's rule of India.
#8. To: Tauzero (#6)
Not that the British should have ever ruled India in the first place, but having once decided to do so, they needed strong but careful distinctions between ruler and ruled. Indians are not British, cannot be made to be British (and vice-versa), and would not naturally choose to be ruled by them.
#14. To: richard9151 (#8)
Hogwash.
Replies to Comment # 14. clothing and salt.
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