WI: A colonial power was shrewd and they.....

This is bullshit. The production process of something as complicated as a car is complex enough that, in order to compete, you need access to the exact lay out and practice of someone who's already doing it OR the time and capital necessary to experiment for an extended period of time. Just being able to make some of the feeder components doesn't give you all the other information capital you need, nor the physical capital necessary to do it with.

Hrrrm, well, if you have factories producing auto parts which are assembled in Britain, (which inherently presumes a certain modularity, since they aren't making whole autos but putting them together from peices), it's not going to take long for some enterprising Indian to import a couple of those British autos, take them apart, and realize he can put the parts together in Lahore instead of Liverpool. Even if the going is slow at first due to lack of expertise, it is probably much cheaper to assemble parts in India rather than transport parts from India, to Britain, and back to India.
 

Typo

Banned
The Americans got textile mills because British industrialists came over with the plans. That's a little different from inventing a competitive production process ex nihilo.
What prevents a similar dissemination of knowledge to the colonies?

What if some British entrepreneurs/engineers goes to India with the knowledge of car-building and the intention of using that knowledge for personal profit?
 
What prevents a similar dissemination of knowledge to the colonies?

What if some British entrepreneurs/engineers goes to India with the knowledge of car-building and the intention of using that knowledge for personal profit?

He goes there and then realizes, wow look at these crates of tea, spices, cotton, salt, and huge amount of resources. Why bother trying to build a car factory, when I can ship these back with enough volume to make a killing.

If an entrepreneur is out to make a profit, then doing what india does easiest for the lowest price would be best. Similar to slavery in the Roman Empire, sure they could have developed a steam engine, but with so much labor to fill the demand why bother.

With capitalism, longterm development is very rarely the goal. So while for the longterm developing the colonies would be ideal, capitalism doesn't work that way. Remember India's colonization began with its domination by a Corporation called the East India Trading company. Which was beholden to stock holders in London. Later India was made a crown colony. But even then the british empire was always ideally an informal empire, meaning it was sustained by not direct control but convenient control.
 

Valdemar II

Banned
Certainly easier in 1875, when Frenchmen outnumbered Algerians 9.5 to one, rather than in 1950, when the ratio was more like 4.5. And of course, a richer Algeria would have an earlier demographic transition...

But of course the intensive racism of the second half of the 19th century makes such an act very unlikely.

So how do we make late 19th century Europeans less racist? I suspect even if the Mughals and the Qing had done a better job of modernization and held off European colonization and forced intrusion, it would just mean that the Europeans would consider them just _somewhat_ inferior, rather than being truly lower grade beings, like, say, black Africans. :(

Bruce

I don't think racism was really the problem, in opposition to USA, non-Europeans which settled in Europe often married European spouses (both male and females)*, and was given same right as European immigrants. European racism while it certainly existed in the homelands, was much more condensenting than hateful, and the only group which Europeans showed real hate toward, the Jews was given full citizenship in that periode. What we need is a French government which sees this as oppotunity to build up France to match Germany.

*Chinese was brought to Copenhagen, where they worked in Zoo as exhibitions married local womans.
 
I don't think racism was really the problem, in opposition to USA, non-Europeans which settled in Europe often married European spouses (both male and females)*, and was given same right as European immigrants. European racism while it certainly existed in the homelands, was much more condensenting than hateful, and the only group which Europeans showed real hate toward, the Jews was given full citizenship in that periode. What we need is a French government which sees this as oppotunity to build up France to match Germany.

*Chinese was brought to Copenhagen, where they worked in Zoo as exhibitions married local womans.

After WWI, there was in fact a fair amount of enthusiasm for the idea of a "France of 100 million" to counterbalance a vengeful Germany's larger population. But the "Africans are fundamentally inferior" crowd nixed the idea of successful assimilation.

Of course, one might suggest that the problem with Algeria was more anti-Islamicism than racism: Algerians were only allowed to become French citizens if they gave up Islamic law, which meant in practice that very few did.

Bruce
 
Hrrrm, well, if you have factories producing auto parts which are assembled in Britain, (which inherently presumes a certain modularity, since they aren't making whole autos but putting them together from peices), it's not going to take long for some enterprising Indian to import a couple of those British autos, take them apart, and realize he can put the parts together in Lahore instead of Liverpool. Even if the going is slow at first due to lack of expertise, it is probably much cheaper to assemble parts in India rather than transport parts from India, to Britain, and back to India.

Because, in all likelihood, you can do it cheaper in Britain. Remember, this is the 19th century we're talking here, not the 20th. The labor price advantage we're used to thinking India has is something pretty modern, back in the day British workers weren't that incredibly much better paid than a theoretical equivalent Indian proletariat would be. They were also the most productive workers per capita in the world. EDIT: Not to mention that auto manufacture is kind of a bad example. Making cars is actually something of skilled labor, so you not only need the capital goods but also the educated, skill work force to do it with. I'm not sure even feeder parts would be made in India. Perhaps the steel itself would be...does India have any major sources of iron?

People assuming an industrialized India would lead to a de-industrialized Britain aren't quite getting how capitalism works. Not something to feel bad about, though, you're in as illustrious company as Abe Lincoln and Alexander Hamilton on this front :p
 
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