The East India Company taxed 93.7 million South Asian subjects annually

Evidence

Indians have plenty of reason to be suspicious of foreign corporations. Founded in 1600, the East India Company by the year 1833 controlled five hundred thousand square miles of territory in South Asia, encompassing 93.7 million subjects paying 22,718,794 pounds a year to the British empire in taxation. At its height, the Company controlled about half of the world’s trade, specializing in basic commodities such as tea, textiles, and spices. The power of the East India Company was secured by its own military and paramilitary armies, which served not only to protect its interests and enforce compliance with its decrees but also to collect revenue and perform police duties. — Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, 317

Categorization

• XREF: The corporate-army-extraction model is the historical template the coloniality frame of platform power leans on; resonates with Zuboff’s surveillance-capital account of private-actor sovereignty.