Welfarist colonial policy substituted social justice rhetoric for political independence

Evidence

At the ILO’s 1947 Convention, the Indian workers’ delegate, Shanta Mukherjee, noted the almost total absence of workers from the colonies. ‘Can any policy which has not freedom as its declared objective secure the well-being and happiness of dependent peoples?’, she asked. By updating older civilisational and racial hierarchies for new welfarist times, the ‘progressive’ colonial policy of the period sought to forestall such questions. … ‘British socialists are not so concerned with ideals like independence and self-government, but with the idea of social justice.’ By taking the emphasis off the political question of independence, the Fabians portrayed colonial rule as necessary to protect colonial subjects from market fluctuations. — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market, 242

Categorization

• XREF: Connects to the reader’s work on human-rights discourse being used to depoliticize economic questions; also echoes Amartya Sen’s ‘development as freedom’ debates. — connects to: Colonial labor coercion was rhetorically rebranded as progress rather than slavery; Colonial poor-relief commissions substituted race for class in their moral calculus — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 814; Neoliberals rejected Millian social democracy more than colonial rule itself — Jessica Whyte, The Morals of the Market: Human Rights…, 246 (+2 more)
• SEED: Angle: how ‘social justice’ language served as a depoliticizing substitute for self-determination in postwar British colonial discourse — a template for how humanitarian framing can mask power relations.
• DEFINE: Clarifies the distinction between Fabian ‘social justice’ welfarism and the colonial independence question.

Broader Connections

• Colonial labor coercion was rhetorically rebranded as progress rather than slavery #expands (0.83)
• Colonial poor-relief commissions substituted race for class in their moral calculus #expands (0.82) — Ann Laura Stoler, Along the Archival Grain_ Epistemic…, 814