WEBVTT - Part Two: The Most Evil Company In History 0:00:00.040 --> 0:00:08.800 Mmm, hello friends, I'm Robert Evans, and this is once 0:00:08.840 --> 0:00:11.320 again Behind the Bastards, the show we tell you everything 0:00:11.360 --> 0:00:13.480 you don't know about the very worst people in all 0:00:13.520 --> 0:00:16.880 of history. Now, this is part two of our episode 0:00:16.960 --> 0:00:20.400 on the age of Heroic Commerce. Uh and my my 0:00:20.520 --> 0:00:24.200 guest with me, as with the last episode, is the imminent, 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:33.120 the tenerant, the excellent Michael Swain. Thank you, the auspicious 0:00:33.280 --> 0:00:36.760 Robert Evans for having me. Yeah, you know what's fun good? 0:00:36.800 --> 0:00:40.200 Poor tense, abound adjective. Yeah, I love them. That little 0:00:40.200 --> 0:00:44.120 blue triangle and adverbs, little orange circle. I think did 0:00:44.120 --> 0:00:47.159 you do that what we're talking about? I learned with 0:00:47.240 --> 0:00:49.839 the system where you put symbols for every part of 0:00:49.880 --> 0:00:52.600 speech that sounds exhaust So to me, a conjunction will 0:00:52.600 --> 0:00:56.200 always be a little pink rainbow. Oh okay, that's good 0:00:56.200 --> 0:00:59.440 to know. Actually, I think that's preposition. Let's talk about 0:00:59.440 --> 0:01:03.360 some speaking of prepositions. I'm gonna make a preposition. I 0:01:03.360 --> 0:01:06.040 don't think you are. I think prosition that one. That 0:01:06.240 --> 0:01:08.560 one didn't come out. I was going to try to 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:10.720 tie that in more smoothly, but then you caught me 0:01:11.080 --> 0:01:14.080 scripted apart. So where we are in the story. We 0:01:14.120 --> 0:01:16.600 got we got this guy, Robert Clive, and Robert Clive 0:01:16.680 --> 0:01:19.760 has conquered Bengal like a big chunk of India and 0:01:19.760 --> 0:01:22.160 he's rich as ship. And the East India Company has 0:01:22.200 --> 0:01:25.160 got like tens of millions of people that they don't 0:01:25.160 --> 0:01:28.560 really have to take care of, but they kind of control. 0:01:29.240 --> 0:01:32.080 And it's getting weird. And everybody back in England is like, 0:01:32.080 --> 0:01:35.039 this is getting weird. And also corporations are spreading throughout 0:01:35.040 --> 0:01:37.160 the world and starting colonies all over the place and 0:01:37.200 --> 0:01:40.720 extending European domination and center the globe. They're collecting rents, 0:01:40.760 --> 0:01:42.800 they are starting to do that, and yeah, they are 0:01:42.800 --> 0:01:45.800 starting to to carry out taxes and stuff that that 0:01:45.800 --> 0:01:49.200 that is beginning in this period of time. But mostly 0:01:49.240 --> 0:01:51.680 what's happening, mostly the thing that the company is doing 0:01:51.720 --> 0:01:54.760 in this big area they now control is being corrupt 0:01:54.800 --> 0:01:57.480 as ship. Corruption had always been indemic among the East 0:01:57.480 --> 0:01:59.800 India Company's foreign officers. That's why you did it, is 0:01:59.800 --> 0:02:02.680 so that you could take a bunch of stuff and 0:02:02.720 --> 0:02:04.680 come back home and be rich if you survived the 0:02:04.720 --> 0:02:07.480 tropical diseases. So everybody skimmed a little bit off the 0:02:07.480 --> 0:02:10.200 top that was kind of built into the system. Clive 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:12.360 had just done what everybody else had been doing when 0:02:12.400 --> 0:02:14.960 he took the three thousand pounds of gold and jewels 0:02:15.000 --> 0:02:17.880 and stuff. But the cup that he'd been skimming from 0:02:18.160 --> 0:02:21.960 was the biggest cup anyone had ever stumbled across. Right, Yeah, 0:02:22.080 --> 0:02:25.079 so that's that's the situation. And it was unprecedented, and 0:02:25.120 --> 0:02:27.440 people started to ask the question do we want it 0:02:27.480 --> 0:02:31.680 to be okay for our corporate officers in foreign countries 0:02:31.720 --> 0:02:34.239 to be this corrupt? And that's something we as British 0:02:34.240 --> 0:02:36.600 people are fine with. It's not like he's a brilliant innovator, 0:02:37.080 --> 0:02:40.160 it's just the most Yeah, he's Yeah, no one has 0:02:40.160 --> 0:02:45.079 ever had that. This seems like it could go bad places. 0:02:45.760 --> 0:02:47.480 And some of that is people who like have a 0:02:47.560 --> 0:02:50.120 human sense of like it's wrong, we're plundering the world. 0:02:50.360 --> 0:02:52.440 A lot of it is other rich guys who are 0:02:52.480 --> 0:02:54.639 old money and are just don't like just like this 0:02:54.680 --> 0:02:56.880 is a threat to our fortresses of the money that 0:02:56.919 --> 0:03:00.440 we have built in our places. Exactly. Now this gross 0:03:00.480 --> 0:03:03.440 guy is rich and yeah, this uncouth guy who joined 0:03:03.440 --> 0:03:07.520 because he likes beating people up, Yeah, it's too wealthy. Exactly. 0:03:08.120 --> 0:03:12.160 So Clive leaves India after conquering and Bengal and governing 0:03:12.160 --> 0:03:14.160 it for a while, and he goes back to England, 0:03:14.240 --> 0:03:15.600 and to give you an idea of how modern this 0:03:15.639 --> 0:03:18.080 period is, he takes all this lute that he earned 0:03:18.080 --> 0:03:21.079 from conquering Bengal and he deposits it with the Dutch 0:03:21.160 --> 0:03:23.680 East India Company and then when he gets back to London, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.639 he withdraws it from them as cash or as cash okay, 0:03:27.840 --> 0:03:31.360 So they didn't like transport his jewels and because he 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:33.160 he was like, there's no way, this is way too 0:03:33.240 --> 0:03:35.440 much ship to syd I'll give it to them, They'll 0:03:35.440 --> 0:03:37.120 give me the cash value and I'll take it out 0:03:37.120 --> 0:03:39.160 in London. Boom, it was done. Just upload it to 0:03:39.160 --> 0:03:40.920 the cloud. You're good to go. Yeah. This is like 0:03:40.960 --> 0:03:43.200 the first time people were figuring out how to do 0:03:43.240 --> 0:03:45.640 that sort of ship. So yeah, again this is becoming 0:03:45.680 --> 0:03:48.560 a very modern time period. Uh So Cloud gets back 0:03:48.600 --> 0:03:50.720 to England and he's rich and he's popular for a while. 0:03:50.760 --> 0:03:52.640 He buys his shipload of mansions, but all is not 0:03:52.720 --> 0:03:56.360 well because his boss, Laurence Sullivan does not like him. Now, 0:03:56.400 --> 0:03:59.040 Laurence Sullivan is the chairman of the company, so Clive 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:00.720 in addition to all of them, and he had gotten 0:04:01.080 --> 0:04:05.040 was guaranteed a giant yearly payment from all of ben Goal. 0:04:05.160 --> 0:04:07.840 So basically the prints that he put in power was like, 0:04:07.880 --> 0:04:10.720 we'll give you a huge a fortune every single year. 0:04:11.320 --> 0:04:13.840 Because you put me in power, He's just free to 0:04:14.000 --> 0:04:18.480 write up that contract. And that's why the company challenges 0:04:18.520 --> 0:04:21.159 it because I just don't understand how people take pure 0:04:21.200 --> 0:04:25.279 will yeah and make it reality because people to go along, 0:04:25.480 --> 0:04:27.360 they're not they don't want to. His own company takes 0:04:27.440 --> 0:04:28.920 him to court the like, you're not allowed to make 0:04:28.960 --> 0:04:31.080 that deal. Yeah, they you're not allowed to make that deal. 0:04:31.120 --> 0:04:34.760 We never voted to confirm this giant annual payment for you. 0:04:34.760 --> 0:04:36.359 You know, you worked it out directly with the prince, 0:04:36.440 --> 0:04:38.320 but you were working with the company at the time 0:04:38.320 --> 0:04:40.720 and this is our area. So and they're not saying 0:04:40.720 --> 0:04:42.440 this money should go back to the Indian people. They're 0:04:42.440 --> 0:04:46.880 saying that we should this should get us, not you. Um. 0:04:47.000 --> 0:04:48.960 So they go to quarter over and they fight in 0:04:49.000 --> 0:04:51.520 court for a while. So they're battling in court while 0:04:51.560 --> 0:04:53.960 things in India are kind of starting to go sour 0:04:54.040 --> 0:04:56.920 for the company. They're making a lot of money because 0:04:56.960 --> 0:04:58.680 they found a bunch of different ways to tax and 0:04:58.720 --> 0:05:01.080 sell and suck being gold Eye, but they start being 0:05:01.120 --> 0:05:03.760 rebellions as a result of this, So now the company 0:05:03.800 --> 0:05:06.400 is spending more and more money putting down rebellions, and 0:05:06.440 --> 0:05:09.719 eventually they agree to confirm Clive's big annual payment in 0:05:09.760 --> 0:05:12.080 exchange for him going back to India and fixing the 0:05:12.080 --> 0:05:14.040 ship that's gone wrong since he left the last time. 0:05:14.080 --> 0:05:16.120 But that makes it sound like it's arm again, like 0:05:16.200 --> 0:05:18.200 he's the only man in the world who can do this, 0:05:18.360 --> 0:05:22.360 don't they have other trustworthy mercenaries they do. They think 0:05:22.360 --> 0:05:25.200 he's special, but as he's traveling back to India, they 0:05:25.279 --> 0:05:27.599 learned that he's really not because some other guy puts 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:30.839 the rebellion down. First. Yeah, first, British guns are just 0:05:30.880 --> 0:05:33.360 so much better than everything they face. So they agree 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:34.720 to give him his money and he leaves over there 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:36.479 because they're worried they're going to lose control of the 0:05:36.520 --> 0:05:39.360 region because of these rebellions. And then when he's in transit, 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:41.560 some other guy beats. You can tell like, you don't 0:05:41.560 --> 0:05:44.000 need this guy. Yeah, you don't need any guy. You've 0:05:44.000 --> 0:05:47.760 got canav guns. It's the guns that you need. And 0:05:47.839 --> 0:05:50.880 in fact, actually Clive's big contribution winds up being that 0:05:50.960 --> 0:05:52.960 when he gets there, things are going so well that 0:05:53.000 --> 0:05:56.279 the company has almost invaded Delhi, the capital of India, 0:05:56.320 --> 0:05:59.680 and conquered the whole Mughal Empire, and he stops them. 0:05:59.839 --> 0:06:05.080 Like Robert Clive is like, this is this has gone unessential. Also, 0:06:05.320 --> 0:06:08.520 it seems like he may have just actually gotten scared 0:06:08.600 --> 0:06:11.800 at how much thinks have escalated. This is this could 0:06:11.839 --> 0:06:16.039 be bad. Yeah, yeah, you launch a new Starbucks franchise 0:06:16.120 --> 0:06:20.680 and somehow you accidentally now took over city hall. Yeah. 0:06:20.760 --> 0:06:23.520 So he writes a letter when he's justifying his corporate 0:06:23.520 --> 0:06:25.640 bosses why he stopped the army, he writes a letter 0:06:25.680 --> 0:06:28.039 that says, quote to go further, it is, in my opinion, 0:06:28.080 --> 0:06:31.560 a scheme so extravagantly ambitious and absurd that no governor 0:06:31.600 --> 0:06:34.279 and counsel in their senses can adopt it unless the 0:06:34.279 --> 0:06:37.480 whole system of the company's interests be first entirely new modeled. 0:06:37.800 --> 0:06:41.320 Said the guy who's like, but acquiring three hundred thousand 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.479 pounds of gold, that is not overly ambsual. I think 0:06:44.480 --> 0:06:46.599 he would say that was never his goal. He found 0:06:46.640 --> 0:06:48.920 himself in a war and he won, and then they 0:06:48.960 --> 0:06:51.080 handed him all this stuff. What am I gonna do 0:06:51.160 --> 0:06:56.080 say no, that is yeah, yeah, but he didn't, and 0:06:56.120 --> 0:06:58.560 I don't think most people would to be fair, I 0:06:58.600 --> 0:07:00.640 think most people who are the kind of people who 0:07:00.680 --> 0:07:02.640 could be in Clive's position, I was gonna say most 0:07:02.640 --> 0:07:05.080 people would never get in that position. There's no way 0:07:05.080 --> 0:07:07.680 to get to there. But anyone who's capable of being 0:07:07.680 --> 0:07:09.240 in that position is probably gonna be like, yeah, hit 0:07:09.279 --> 0:07:15.680 me the uh so. Clive basically thought that the company 0:07:15.720 --> 0:07:18.360 already had a sweet deal. They weren't officially in charge 0:07:18.400 --> 0:07:21.080 of anything. They were in control because guns, but they 0:07:21.080 --> 0:07:24.320 didn't have to do anything aside from occasionally fighting cash checks. 0:07:25.040 --> 0:07:28.480 The Indians were still nominally at least leaders of their 0:07:28.480 --> 0:07:31.240 own land, and they were outside of Bengal. They were 0:07:31.240 --> 0:07:33.480 still in control, so the East Indian Company didn't have 0:07:33.560 --> 0:07:36.000 to worry about this giant subcontinent that they had no 0:07:36.640 --> 0:07:40.720 business interests in. Most of this changed on August twelfth, 0:07:40.720 --> 0:07:44.280 seventeen sixty five, when Robert Clive, with worry and his gut, 0:07:44.360 --> 0:07:46.920 signed a deal on behalf of the East India Trading 0:07:46.960 --> 0:07:49.760 Company with the Mughal Emperor that guaranteed the British East 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:53.520 India Company formal control over three big chunks of India 0:07:53.560 --> 0:07:56.240 and the lives of almost thirty million people. So we'll 0:07:56.240 --> 0:07:57.760 have the graphic up on the site, but you can 0:07:57.760 --> 0:07:59.960 see outline there this is what the East India Company 0:08:00.040 --> 0:08:03.880 after this agreement now controls. That's land they own and govern. 0:08:04.080 --> 0:08:06.840 So now, okay, it's about a fifth about a fifth 0:08:06.880 --> 0:08:10.200 of India, the largest country in existence, I believe, one 0:08:10.280 --> 0:08:15.560 of them and Russia. Yeah wow. So but what I 0:08:15.560 --> 0:08:18.400 don't understand is to what level did they control people's 0:08:18.400 --> 0:08:20.400 lives because I assume they have no interest in going 0:08:20.400 --> 0:08:22.400 in and being like we're going to make laws and 0:08:22.440 --> 0:08:24.480 moral codes. They just want to loot the place. That 0:08:24.640 --> 0:08:27.320 is the point of today's episode. But now they are 0:08:27.360 --> 0:08:29.280 in charge of it. So they are now the government 0:08:29.360 --> 0:08:31.400 in a big chunk of India. Right, So that's the 0:08:31.440 --> 0:08:33.600 situation after this. It's weird that they'd even want to 0:08:33.640 --> 0:08:35.720 be what's the prophet Clive did not want to be, 0:08:36.040 --> 0:08:38.400 but I think they got greedy and so well Clive 0:08:38.520 --> 0:08:41.200 is in charge, he tries to cut back on the 0:08:41.360 --> 0:08:44.000 shocking amount of corruption and graph that he sees amongst 0:08:44.040 --> 0:08:47.120 the company officers. He banns his officers from taking gifts 0:08:47.200 --> 0:08:49.440 or bribes, although he doesn't give up his own bribes 0:08:49.480 --> 0:08:52.960 so people don't take it super seriously. He increases salaries 0:08:53.040 --> 0:08:55.840 to try to make people want to steal less. Uh. 0:08:55.880 --> 0:08:58.680 And he restricts the company's monopoly so that some sort 0:08:58.679 --> 0:09:01.679 of local economy can exists, so that the East India 0:09:01.720 --> 0:09:03.280 Company is not the only people who are allowed to 0:09:03.320 --> 0:09:06.000 sell products to Indians, so that they can have a 0:09:06.040 --> 0:09:11.320 functioning society. So he tries to pump the brakes, just 0:09:11.400 --> 0:09:15.280 let them do what they do. Um. He also does 0:09:15.400 --> 0:09:17.080 nice stuff, like he gives a shipload of money to 0:09:17.080 --> 0:09:19.480 the pension fund for the company army. Again, he's one 0:09:19.480 --> 0:09:21.640 of these people. He starts this road, but he does 0:09:21.679 --> 0:09:25.240 not seem to be running unchecked in that direction. It's 0:09:25.280 --> 0:09:28.000 not like jan Coon or new money is evolving into 0:09:28.000 --> 0:09:30.559 old money like you talked about on the Brothers episode 0:09:30.559 --> 0:09:34.120 where it's time to get philanthropic now and resuscitate my image, 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:36.680 gloss over all that ship. It's possible. I don't know 0:09:36.720 --> 0:09:39.439 the man, but eventually he like his health isn't great. 0:09:39.480 --> 0:09:41.400 At this point, he winds up heading back to England 0:09:41.400 --> 0:09:44.280 and other people take over for for India, and he 0:09:44.320 --> 0:09:47.600 winds up in court again fighting a company for access 0:09:47.640 --> 0:09:50.760 to his yearly bribe basically because they can't get him hired. 0:09:51.360 --> 0:09:54.160 Can't they fire him? Well, he when he leaves every time, 0:09:54.200 --> 0:09:56.960 he stops working for them, essentially, and so then there's 0:09:57.040 --> 0:09:59.320 like big legal fights in the court because they don't 0:09:59.360 --> 0:10:01.839 want him to just forever get a fortune every year. 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:03.920 They want that fortunate. But it seems like they keep 0:10:04.000 --> 0:10:06.120 coming back and being like, Okay, we'll give you your 0:10:06.160 --> 0:10:08.880 old job back, sign this deal. Well, they thought they 0:10:08.880 --> 0:10:11.400 needed him, and now they know they really don't um 0:10:11.440 --> 0:10:18.080 and he's starting to try to we should steal slightly less. Yeah, 0:10:18.520 --> 0:10:21.760 this guy's served his purpose getting out here. So the 0:10:21.760 --> 0:10:26.080 East India Company now after Clive leaves, is essentially, yeah, 0:10:26.080 --> 0:10:28.559 the government of a big chunk of India. And if 0:10:28.559 --> 0:10:30.760 you're a government, need to provide things for people, right 0:10:30.800 --> 0:10:33.240 and then just take tax money like you take tax money, 0:10:33.240 --> 0:10:35.280 but you provide roads and libraries and e m t 0:10:35.400 --> 0:10:38.959 s and firefighters and the FDA and ship. The company 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:42.640 doesn't provide anything. They just take pretty much. And so 0:10:42.720 --> 0:10:45.880 that's the situation in seventeen seventy when a famine hits 0:10:46.120 --> 0:10:47.640 and it's a bad one, and we will get into 0:10:47.640 --> 0:10:49.520 the famine in a little bit. Right now, we're talking 0:10:49.520 --> 0:10:52.320 about Clive because this famine is a disaster for his image. 0:10:52.679 --> 0:10:56.360 He's not in charge when it happens, but it goes 0:10:56.400 --> 0:10:58.880 big in the press and it looks bad for him, 0:10:58.920 --> 0:11:00.760 and he's basically portrayed aid by a lot of the 0:11:00.760 --> 0:11:03.559 media as a greedy idiot who had ruined India, even 0:11:03.600 --> 0:11:06.040 though a lot of other people had ruined India as 0:11:06.080 --> 0:11:08.520 well as Robert Clive. And here you are throwing him 0:11:08.559 --> 0:11:11.600 under the bus. A full two hundred years later, we 0:11:11.720 --> 0:11:14.120 leave Clive alone. I mean, he had tried to clamp 0:11:14.160 --> 0:11:17.520 down on the shameless left. He did see the problem. Um. 0:11:17.559 --> 0:11:20.320 So he winds up in court and you know, has 0:11:20.360 --> 0:11:22.520 a big legal case where he tries to essentially defend 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:25.720 his legacy. And during the court proceedings he delivers a 0:11:25.760 --> 0:11:28.560 famous speech. So it's it's like one of those really 0:11:28.600 --> 0:11:31.280 like movie ready moments from history. So he's being cross 0:11:31.280 --> 0:11:35.360 examined about robbing Bengal blind and accused of plundering India, 0:11:35.559 --> 0:11:39.199 and he says, quote, consider the situation in which the 0:11:39.280 --> 0:11:42.280 victory of Plassy placed me a great prince was dependent 0:11:42.360 --> 0:11:45.200 on my pleasure. An opulent city lay at my mercy. 0:11:45.280 --> 0:11:48.280 It's richest bankers bid against each other for my smiles. 0:11:48.520 --> 0:11:51.520 I walked through vaults which were thrown open to me alone, 0:11:51.840 --> 0:11:55.400 piled on either hand with gold and jewels. Mr Chairman. 0:11:55.480 --> 0:11:58.800 At this moment, I stand astonished at my own moderation. 0:11:59.679 --> 0:12:02.760 I mean, that's literally just the same as you want 0:12:02.760 --> 0:12:05.480 the truth, you can't handle the truth when you're out there. 0:12:06.040 --> 0:12:08.160 Can you think I stole a lot? I could have 0:12:08.240 --> 0:12:12.120 stolen a lot more? Mother? Why does the loophole exist 0:12:12.160 --> 0:12:15.120 if I'm not supposed to exploit it? That classic justification 0:12:15.200 --> 0:12:16.880 we hear all the time to this day. So he 0:12:16.920 --> 0:12:21.040 was acquitted, Uh, yeah, but he didn't last that much longer. 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:23.360 He was very sick from all of the tropical diseases 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:26.080 he'd picked up overseas, and he also might have been 0:12:26.120 --> 0:12:28.920 suffering terrible regret for his actions and the famine. He 0:12:29.000 --> 0:12:32.040 has described as having had a nervous disorder. It's also 0:12:32.080 --> 0:12:34.600 possibly he had severe PTSD. There are numerous times where 0:12:34.640 --> 0:12:37.160 people exploded next to him, Like would be shot by 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:39.040 cannons and just the guy next to him would burst. 0:12:39.559 --> 0:12:41.880 Like So if you don't mean got mad at him, 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:46.080 you mean physically exploded? Yeah, yeah, Like was burst by 0:12:46.120 --> 0:12:48.679 a cannon, so he lived through horrible commas, so it's 0:12:48.760 --> 0:12:51.280 possible he was just a broken mentally at this point. 0:12:51.320 --> 0:12:54.680 Then he drowned on gold. No. In seventeen seventy four, 0:12:54.720 --> 0:12:56.800 he stabbed himself to death in the throat with a 0:12:56.840 --> 0:13:01.720 pocket knife. Yeah, at home alone, a suicide with no explanation. 0:13:01.880 --> 0:13:04.400 That's a crazy math. People knew he was depressed, it 0:13:04.440 --> 0:13:07.000 has always been depressed. But he cut his own throat 0:13:07.040 --> 0:13:09.719 with a tiny knife, so he was gone. This is 0:13:09.760 --> 0:13:11.960 the end of Robert Clive. But the British were still 0:13:11.960 --> 0:13:13.840 in India, and they would stay there from nearly two 0:13:13.880 --> 0:13:17.720 centuries now. Merchant Kings mentioned the famine in passing but 0:13:17.720 --> 0:13:19.439 didn't get into much detail on the matter. It was 0:13:19.480 --> 0:13:21.600 a famine, it was very, very bad. So I decided 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:23.000 to do a little bit of extra digging and I 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:26.559 ran into a college textbook called The East India Company 0:13:26.559 --> 0:13:29.040 and the Natural World. It had a whole chapter on 0:13:29.080 --> 0:13:32.120 the famine, and thanks to the bountiful Goddess of Capitalism, 0:13:32.120 --> 0:13:35.400 Springer allowed me to buy just that chapter for thirty dollars. 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:39.880 What a deal, right, for a single single chapter exercised 0:13:39.880 --> 0:13:43.079 from the book Capitalism it's different from the stuff we're 0:13:43.080 --> 0:13:46.280 talking about today because reasons. Anyway, I read the chapter 0:13:46.559 --> 0:13:48.800 and it's really good. I'm gonna I'm gonna quote from 0:13:48.800 --> 0:13:51.760 it now. According to the report from the Famine Commission, 0:13:51.760 --> 0:13:54.440 in a period of ninety years from seventeen sixty five 0:13:54.440 --> 0:13:56.920 when the British East India Company took over the Dwani 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:00.680 of Bengal to eighteen fifty eight Bengal experience, it's twelve 0:14:00.679 --> 0:14:04.280 famines and four severe scarcities. Now, some of those famines 0:14:04.320 --> 0:14:07.000 would have occurred with or without the British East India Company, 0:14:07.040 --> 0:14:09.680 because famines are a thing. They've always been a thing, right, 0:14:09.920 --> 0:14:11.839 But once you delve into it, their whole period of 0:14:11.920 --> 0:14:14.439 rule is basically a master class and had a funk 0:14:14.440 --> 0:14:18.479 over an entire subcontinent. In essence, in order to compensate 0:14:18.559 --> 0:14:21.240 for the minimal amount of actual government work the company 0:14:21.280 --> 0:14:23.560 needed to do in order to turn a profit, they 0:14:23.600 --> 0:14:26.880 just started jacking up taxes on rural workers and on farmers, 0:14:26.880 --> 0:14:28.960 and usually these taxes were in kind, so you'd pay 0:14:29.000 --> 0:14:30.720 with whatever it is you were growing at the time. 0:14:31.080 --> 0:14:34.240 So the company commercialized agriculture in India and tried to 0:14:34.240 --> 0:14:37.280 turn it into an almost industrial operation to maximize output. 0:14:37.880 --> 0:14:40.480 So there's been a bunch of small independent farms and 0:14:40.560 --> 0:14:43.080 villages and whatnot, And now the whole countryside was basically 0:14:43.080 --> 0:14:46.560 one giant, big food production plan and made a lot 0:14:46.560 --> 0:14:48.880 of money. But it also made it impossible for the 0:14:48.880 --> 0:14:53.080 farmers themselves to handle bad years. Everything was sold every year, 0:14:53.400 --> 0:14:55.800 nothing was set aside for the bad times. There wasn't 0:14:55.880 --> 0:14:59.360 enough left over after the taxes for the individual farmers. Anyway, 0:14:59.680 --> 0:15:02.760 the dis East India Company had disrupted the intricate cultural 0:15:02.800 --> 0:15:05.440 systems that had formed during and before the Mughal Empire. 0:15:05.800 --> 0:15:07.440 In the past, when there was a bad year and 0:15:07.440 --> 0:15:11.080 the rains didn't come, villages had standing arrangements with other 0:15:11.160 --> 0:15:13.560 villages to help each other out with food. These were 0:15:13.600 --> 0:15:16.560 local insurance plans that were present all across India and 0:15:16.560 --> 0:15:19.360 particularly in the farming regions have been gal was very 0:15:19.400 --> 0:15:22.200 common way to stop people from dying horribly when a famine. 0:15:22.240 --> 0:15:27.280 Presumably have been working for a thousand years exactly. Now, No, 0:15:27.280 --> 0:15:30.080 now you all work one giant farm together. Yeah, this 0:15:30.120 --> 0:15:33.920 will be better for us. So now when famine hit, 0:15:34.000 --> 0:15:37.280 everybody worked for the company. Nobody had anything extra. There 0:15:37.280 --> 0:15:39.760 were no more insurance policies. They'd all been taken in 0:15:39.840 --> 0:15:44.480 taxes and sold. Quote from that same chapter. Bengali society 0:15:44.520 --> 0:15:47.760 was divided between the Zamindars, the hereditary revenue collectors of 0:15:47.760 --> 0:15:50.040 the Mughal Empire, and a broad base consisting of some 0:15:50.120 --> 0:15:52.920 landless laborers and a large number of poor cultivators. Most 0:15:52.960 --> 0:15:56.240 of them were sharecroppers, so taxes started to ratch it 0:15:56.320 --> 0:15:58.200 up on these people in the late seventeen hundreds. The 0:15:58.200 --> 0:16:01.040 company started jacking up to acts is really hard in 0:16:01.040 --> 0:16:03.800 the seventeen fifties, and by the mid seventeen sixties they 0:16:03.800 --> 0:16:07.200 were like doubling every couple of years. The agricultural reforms 0:16:07.240 --> 0:16:09.920 the Corporation put in place didn't really work out. Yields 0:16:09.960 --> 0:16:13.000 started to fall, so they're actually growing feware crops because 0:16:13.000 --> 0:16:15.400 it turns out a bunch of British guys ideas on 0:16:15.440 --> 0:16:17.520 how to farm Indian land did not work as well 0:16:17.560 --> 0:16:19.880 as what the Indians that are going to a totally 0:16:19.880 --> 0:16:23.880 different culture with different land and just telling them do this, 0:16:24.000 --> 0:16:27.040 I think this would work for you for farming. You 0:16:27.160 --> 0:16:31.280 have to do it or will shoot you try it out? Yeah, 0:16:31.520 --> 0:16:33.240 give it a shot, let us know it works, but 0:16:33.280 --> 0:16:35.600 don't tell us if it doesn't, we're not really interested 0:16:35.600 --> 0:16:38.000 in that. So would they ration food back because it 0:16:38.080 --> 0:16:40.560 is in their interests to keep people alive? And that 0:16:40.760 --> 0:16:43.840 right now, you would think that, right, you think it's 0:16:43.960 --> 0:16:48.520 it's in your interest that, yeah, you you would think 0:16:48.560 --> 0:16:54.520 that other people did not. So the price of grains 0:16:54.520 --> 0:16:57.360 started to rise right as the company takes over UM. 0:16:57.360 --> 0:16:59.120 And the company has no less in interest in selling 0:16:59.160 --> 0:17:01.080 cheap grain to the people growing grain to pay them 0:17:01.080 --> 0:17:04.199 grain taxes. So when the famine hit, the company just 0:17:04.280 --> 0:17:06.840 reacted with a kind of sociopathy. I think we're coming 0:17:06.840 --> 0:17:10.119 to expect from the British East India Company. Oh, because 0:17:10.160 --> 0:17:12.119 they're not even paying a portion of their income they 0:17:12.240 --> 0:17:15.000 pay in grain anyway. Yeah, exactly. So they're like, well, 0:17:15.040 --> 0:17:16.960 you're going to give us all your grain anyway, why 0:17:17.000 --> 0:17:18.919 should we even give you some back when we just 0:17:18.960 --> 0:17:20.560 get it all anywhere. We're just going to get it 0:17:20.600 --> 0:17:25.080 all like um, so that I continue living and they're 0:17:25.119 --> 0:17:30.200 already gone, they're already walking off with the grain. Yea. 0:17:31.800 --> 0:17:34.720 So here's another quote from that chapter. The effect of 0:17:34.720 --> 0:17:37.520 the famine was to enshrine free market economics as part 0:17:37.560 --> 0:17:40.840 of the colonial policy all over the Empire, periodic famines 0:17:40.880 --> 0:17:43.320 were seen as a check to population growth. As Mike 0:17:43.400 --> 0:17:46.280 Davis notes, by the nineteenth century, these Malthusian ideas, which 0:17:46.280 --> 0:17:48.960 were voiced all throughout the colonial period, resulted in the 0:17:48.960 --> 0:17:52.840 pursuit of free market economics and quote, India, like Ireland, 0:17:52.880 --> 0:17:56.320 became a utilitarian laboratory where millions of lives were wagered 0:17:56.359 --> 0:18:00.560 against a dogmatic faith in omnipotent markets, overcoming the convenience 0:18:00.560 --> 0:18:03.040 of dearth. This was a policy that was to become 0:18:03.160 --> 0:18:07.359 quote a mask for colonial genocide. So you want to 0:18:07.400 --> 0:18:11.919 talk about colonial genocide, first, let's talk about some ads, 0:18:12.080 --> 0:18:16.880 because it is time. I need something the gird myself. 0:18:16.920 --> 0:18:19.240 I need some time heared yourself with these products and 0:18:19.400 --> 0:18:29.040 or services that support the shades, and we're back. Fabulous ads. 0:18:29.600 --> 0:18:32.560 They like wrapped me in such a cozy feeling that 0:18:32.600 --> 0:18:35.320 I feel like I have the buffer I need for 0:18:35.440 --> 0:18:37.600 what's gonna come now. But what's gonna come now is 0:18:37.600 --> 0:18:40.199 we're gonna talk about how free market economics became a 0:18:40.320 --> 0:18:43.200 mask for colonial genocide. We're getting to the genocide part 0:18:43.200 --> 0:18:46.399 of that. Again, to Charles Cooke Bonner, he would have 0:18:46.480 --> 0:18:51.840 loved this period. Just a pig in plot, just stealing money, 0:18:52.359 --> 0:18:56.920 watch selling people into slips, defying it with bizarre, nonsensical statements. 0:18:57.040 --> 0:18:58.400 It would have been great. He would have been super 0:18:58.400 --> 0:19:01.400 good at this. Really was born in the wrong time, 0:19:01.520 --> 0:19:04.800 although making this time, that time, doing his best. It's 0:19:04.840 --> 0:19:07.160 just business. This is like the beginning of that ethos. 0:19:07.200 --> 0:19:11.840 It's just business, just business. So it's worth getting into 0:19:11.840 --> 0:19:15.359 exactly how different the famines caused by the East India 0:19:15.400 --> 0:19:17.840 Company's management were from the famines that had come before 0:19:17.960 --> 0:19:20.720 in India and in every society in human history. There 0:19:20.720 --> 0:19:23.359 had been famines in India shortly before the company's period 0:19:23.359 --> 0:19:26.280 of dominance, including one that lasted from sixteen seventy to 0:19:26.359 --> 0:19:29.280 sixteen seventy one. Thousands of people had died one to 0:19:29.359 --> 0:19:31.320 three hundred every day during the months that the famine 0:19:31.400 --> 0:19:34.560 was active. It was a terrible time, but the Mughal government, 0:19:34.600 --> 0:19:36.639 shitty as it was by that point, had taken action 0:19:36.680 --> 0:19:39.119 to mitigate it. The government had repaired and built new 0:19:39.160 --> 0:19:41.960 irrigation works. They'd created reservoirs to make sure they'd be 0:19:42.000 --> 0:19:44.440 able to grow crops during the next dry season. They 0:19:44.480 --> 0:19:46.800 cut taxes so farmers would be able to keep more 0:19:46.840 --> 0:19:49.480 of the food they'd grown, they'd set up free kitchens 0:19:49.480 --> 0:19:51.480 and given out grain to try and reduce the number 0:19:51.480 --> 0:19:53.800