Free trade rhetoric concealed British imperial violence and famine causation

Evidence

In depicting the British Empire as peaceful, Robbins obscured not only the great naval force that ensured its supremacy over its rivals, but also the genocidal violence wielded against indigenous and First Nations peoples in the process of establishing its distinctive white-settler colonies. Also absent from his narrative was what Mike Davis refers to as the ‘late Victorian holocausts’ by which British exploitation and commitment to Malthusian doctrines and free trade dramatically exacerbated the effects of climate to produce extraordinary famines, notably in India. In praising the peaceful trade of the British Empire, he engaged in an imperial politics of ‘deflection’ that turned attention away from empire’s violence by insisting on its fundamental liberality. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 260

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the broader critique of liberalism’s self-image developed across Whyte’s argument; also Mike Davis’s Late Victorian Holocausts as a concrete historical source the reader plausibly knows or should consult. — connects to: Britain’s opium trade monetized addiction and monopsony to reverse its China trade deficit — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection: How Data Is…, 347; Public humanitarian language masked private economic motives in imperial expansion — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The…, 751; Totalizing explanations of colonial violence fail when reduced to single causes — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism: A Critique of…, 402 (+6 more)

Broader Connections

• Public humanitarian language masked private economic motives in imperial expansion #corroborates (0.85) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 751
• British abolitionism of the slave trade served commercial empire-building #corroborates (0.80)
• Imperial economic gain was recast as Western moral tutelage #corroborates (0.80) — Edward W. Said, Orientalism, 117
• Totalizing explanations of colonial violence fail when reduced to single causes #complicates (0.75) — Wael Hallaq, Restating Orientalism, 402
• British withdrawal unleashed clan feuds and mass starvation in the interior #expands (0.75) — I.M. Lewis, I. M. Lewis, A Modern History of the Somali_ Nation…, 228
• Jefferson’s antislavery rhetoric traced back to his own economic stake in the slave trade #epitomizes (0.72) — Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning, 408