The British empire reached its territorial peak in about 1921. This article is more about its domestic economic decline during the late 19th century.

The insistence on explaining every successes of the UK/Europe with its colonies is politically orientated, not factual. It seems to be a common trope in India, I'd say intended for domestic political consumption.

The industrial revolution and the birth of the modern economy were not caused by the colonies.

Likewise, the decline of the UK's economy was not caused by the loss of colonies.

Hence a single mention in the article, which discusses many reasons and potential reasons of the decline relative to the US and Germany (Germany never had a significant colonial empire and what it had was lost at the end of WWI).

Spain had a very extensive colonial empire. So did, in fact, Turkey.

They didn't manage to build anything modern over it.

Putin's Russia rules over 17 million sqkm which were once conquered by the tsars, and it is an economic backwater.

Not mentioned more because it probably just wasn't that important.

The UK has always been a poor country except for a few hundred years when they were propped up by enslaving other people and looting them.

WW1 was the critical period. Part of the reason Britain was so insistent on high levels of reparations from Germany is because they needed the money to pay their war debts to the US, which they ultimately defaulted on at the start of the Depression.

With you until the last paragraph. It's unclear what you mean by "investments needed to make the next advancements", but be aware that the UK is back in the EU Horizon Research programme. It rejoined that part only a year or so after leaving, something the Remain campaign and the EU's negotiators insisted would be impossible, and the Brexit campaigners said would be an obvious and common sense move for the EU. Turned out the latter were correct, the Remainers were wrong and the EU itself was bluffing.

That said, it's not very likely that teaming up with the EU makes any difference. The UK was a full member during a time of economic stagnation. The EU is not outperforming it.

>Countries like Britain can only do it when they team up as in the EU. The Brexiters are essentially luddites who cannot see this writing on the wall

The UK remains one of the world powers and the Pound Sterling one of the reserve currencies thanks to their familial ties with the Five Eyes and the Commonwealth Realm, and select friends like Japan.

Island country and continent countries bloody hating each other is a tale older than history. If anything, it's the EU (namely France and Germany) who need to figure out how to get countries fully on board with them.

> and all have developed

Isn't that true of pretty much every country, even the few that were never colonized by European powers?

I mean, Afghanistan developed since its independence in 1919, but that's hardly attributable to some sort of intrinsic Britishness.

Same for Egypt, with its 1922 independence, or Libya in 1951.

Just like how Vietnam developed after independence from France.

While we've seen how Japan developed without being part of any colonial system. ("it was probably better in the end to be conquered by the Romans than many others" rejects the idea that it might have been better to not be conquered at all.)

> A "country" is just a lot of bits that someone conquered.

The modern definition of a "country" also requires a permanent population and a government, along with recognition by other countries. Note that this definition is of fundamentally European origin.

Further note the difficulty of using your definition for "Northern Cyprus" and "Sealand", much less the "Sovereign Military Order of Malta".

Well, in an epoch where these things matter. I can imagine we're entering an epoch where access to battery tech/resources, GPUs and cheap energy is what matters. Plus good teaching universities...

If so, the South would have been more economically developed than the North.

In the correct circumstances, slave labor can be a considerable advantage. In other circumstances...not so much. Maintaining a slavery-based society is, socially, a huge hidden cost. (That's everything from shouting down objecting moralists to putting down slave rebellions.) And for socioeconomic reason, slave labor societies often trap themselves in a relatively crappy local maximum. Such as the American South's plantation-based and agriculture-dominated system.

Well in a fair world why do some countries get to have lots of land area and resources and some don't ? Because they "got there first"? Why should Saudi Arabia or Canada be extremely wealthy?

So cultural, scientific and technical achievements should either bring zero economic benefits to a country or you believe in your fair world these things are evenly produced per capita/land area?

>In a fair world, where there is equal access to basic things required for living life (food, health services, education)

>They don't have the land area, nor the population, nor the natural resources.

These two parts framing the idea about how the "UK has no business being a top economy" were complete non-sequiturs.

> They don't have the land area, nor the population, nor the natural resources.

If those are the determining criteria, how do you explain Singapore?

The UK is a large island nation with full access to the world's oceans. This is also the main geographical advantage that the US has. This is an extreme advantage. Look to Ukraine for proof.

It is not a fair world unfortunately.

Regardless, is it so bad if the UK becomes an inconsequential country? I feel like Brexit only happened because people here thought the UK was somehow special or important.

Land area, population, and natural resources have next to nothing to do with wealth or GDP.

The UK will never be a small inconsequential country in any of our lifetimes.

It takes more than systemic fair basic access for the population to make GDP results proportional to general resources.

Imagine there's no countries.. And no religion too. You may say I'm a dreamer...

The UK does have some natural resources, also they have an Island, from my memory of playing Risk that's worth something. Can be defended and not easily invaded. The UK was a place of importance well before modern colonialism, that's why the Romans and the Vikings visited.

Culture also plays a role. It's possible the UK will become less consequential but they'll probably still have some weight for some time. Their colonial past still plays some role in terms of their relationships with various countries, connections also matter.

That's a bizarrely simplistic and reductive view. And, of course, entirely wrong.

Resources help with economic performance, but can also be a hindrance (see "Dutch disease"). Colonies were often acquired for prestige, but turned out an economic loss. They certainly did not play a part in the economic development of Germany, and countries like South Korea or Taiwan have very successfully grown their economies after being colonies.

What matters for long term economic growth is political stability and institutions that protect investments and limit corruption.

Reading about urban life in Berlin during the 1920s was kind of wild. It is so surprisingly relatable.

It can be argued that financial engineering is what enabled their trading operations to begin with. Long distance voyage was an extremely risky venture and only a ruling king/queen had money and risk appetite to finance it. The joint stock corporation enabled spreading of that risk across thousands of investors and East India Company was one of the first joint stock corporation. What's more one could sell their equity holdings in exchange for cash so one wouldn't have to wait for years before getting return on investment.

We tend to forget the financial engine along with changes to contractual laws to only focus on daring voyages, military etc.,. But of course all of that had to be financed.

In the 19th century?!

This website is produced by think-tank members who have an angle that the UK is in decline and needs to take specific (neoliberal lassez-faire) economic policy steps to regain its position in the world ie its a piece of political astroturf disguised as historical analysis. The same crowd also produced ukfoundations.co which is a similar sort of thing. For some reason people post their stuff on here from time to time.