Slavery and colonialism did not make Britain rich, and may even have made the nation poorer, a new study from the Institute of Economic Affairs has found. The Telegraph has more.
The riches of the slave trade were concentrated in a few families while the nation footed the bill for extra military and administrative spending, according to a book by Kristian Niemietz at the Institute of Economic Affairs.
“Profits earned from overseas engagement were large enough to make some individuals very rich, but they were not large enough to seriously affect macroeconomic aggregates like Britain’s investment rate and capital formation,” he said.
Mr. Niemietz argued that that the slave trade had little overall impact on the economy or the country’s ability to industrialise.
He said: “The transatlantic slave trade was no more important for the British economy than brewing or sheep farming, but we do not usually hear the claim that ‘brewing financed the Industrial Revolution’ or ‘sheep farming financed the Industrial Revolution’.”
It comes amid a heated debate over Britain’s imperial past. Caribbean states have demanded reparations from Britain, while more than 100 British families whose ancestors benefited from the slave trade, including former BBC broadcaster Laura Trevelyan, have pledged to seek ways to make financial amends.
By contrast, leading figures including Kemi Badenoch, the Business and Trade Secretary, have hit back to argue that Britain’s wealth was not built on imperialism.
She hailed the report as “a welcome counterweight to simplistic narratives that exaggerate the significance of empire and slavery to Britain’s economic development”.
She added: “It was British ingenuity and industry, unleashed by free markets and liberal institutions, that powered the Industrial Revolution and our modern economy. It is these factors that we should focus on, rather than blaming the West and colonialism for economic difficulties and holding back growth with misguided policies.
“The paper argues persuasively that colonialism played a minor role in Britain’s economy, and may have actually been a net negative after accounting for military and administrative costs – a reminder that state overreach is always an expensive endeavour.”
Worth reading in full.
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