I think the costs and benefits of empire (pre-capitalist as well as capitalist) have almost always been allocated in rather twisted ways. I think a good argument can be made that during the entire span of English occupation of India, it cost more to control India than _England as a whole_ got out of India. The beneficiaries were (a) a sector of big capital and (b) the civil service which ran both India _and_ England in the service of capital. The costs came out of the British working class.
Carrol
In a paper that I wrote in 1979, I made a very conservative estimate of the annual net flow of resources from India to England, at the time of the Industrial Revolution, of about £2 million per year. (Alavi, 1980 and 1982) That figure compares with estimates made (e.g.) by Marshall of some £3 million before 1757 and an average of £5 million between 1757 and 1784. (Marshall, 1976: 256). Other estimates are equally large. We can compare these estimates of the annual flow of resources from India to Britain, during the critical period of the Industrial revolution, to estimates of annual industrial capital formation in Britain at the time. Crouzet, for example, estimates gross capital formation in the British economy at a grand total of £9.4 million in 1770 and £16 million in 1790-93. Of that grand total investment in machinery was £ 0.8 million in 1770 and £2 million in 1790-93 and additional investment in stocks were £ 1.5 million and £ 2 million respectively. (Crouzet 1972:33) If we compare these figures of the amount of resources that went into industrial capital formation in Britain, even my own much lower estimate of the flow of resources from India to Britain of £ 2 million annually is no longer derisory—and other, better informed, estimates are twice that figure. The flow of resources from India underpinned capital formation in British industry to a very large degree. To that we must add the tribute extracted by Britain from the rest of the colonial world. It can be said that indeed the bulk of capital formation in British industry during the Industrial revolution was paid for by the colonial tribute. The surplus arising in the colonies was accumulated not at home but in the metropolis.
full: http://ourworld.compuserve.com/homepages/sangat/Colonial.htm
Louis Proyect
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