[Steven_Vellon]

Dire poverty by modern standards, sure. But the 19th century saw a spectacular rise in living standards even for average Britons. The literacy rate in Britain was ~60% for men and 40% for women in 1800, by the end of the century it was near universal for both genders. Life expectancy at birth rose from ~40 to 50. Median wages rose, too, climbing ~50% from 1800 to 1850 (https://www.researchgate.net/figure/Real-wages-during-the-pe...).

It is simultaneously true that the average Briton (arguably wealthy Britons, too) in 1900 lived in abject poverty compared to 2025, and the 19th century saw one of the fastest rises in living standards in Britain even among average Britons.

[asdff]

Was that due to the british empire, or was that broadly happening across the western world during that same time period?

[0xDEAFBEAD]

It's instructive to compare the wealthiest nations in Europe, with the largest colonial-era European empires. There is not much overlap.

Wealthiest countries in Europe: Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, San Marino, Sweden...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...

Largest European colonial empires: Britain, Russia, Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Belgium...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires#Empire...

Some historians believe that once you account for the costs of subjugation and development, empire is not usually net profitable for the sovereign. Basically just a gigantic monument to the ruler's ego.

As Carl Sagan put it: Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

[wqaatwt]

Britain was much richer per capita than every other major European country and almost all smaller ones. Whether that was because of its much bigger industrial sector or its enpire is debatable.

[dijit]

You’ve rather missed my point. I’m not saying nothing improved. I’m saying the imperial profits didn’t go to the people doing the dying for empire.

50% wage growth over fifty years whilst Britain’s running the largest empire in history? Compare that to the United States over the same period. The US saw 60% real wage growth from 1860-1890 with no empire whatsoever. If imperial profits were trickling down, you’d expect Britain to outpace non-imperial industrialising nations. It didn’t, if anything it was worse.

The literacy and life expectancy gains you’re citing came from industrialisation and public health reforms, not imperial dividends. Meanwhile the landed gentry who actually controlled the imperial trade were getting obscenely wealthy.

Life expectancy of 50 in 1900 still meant working-class Londoners in overcrowded tenements with open sewers, whilst their supposed countrymen lived in townhouses with servants. The Victorian poor saw industrial revolution gains, not imperial ones.

[dijit]

I’ve done more digging now because even though its apples to oranges, the UK itself is now no longer an empire, and we have a 50 year window on when it wasn’t…

So just for additional context on how wage growth compares across different periods (I’ve average across decades):

Victorian Britain (with empire):

- 50% real wage growth over 50 years (1800-1850)

Modern Britain (post-empire):

- 1970s-1980s: 2.9% annual real wage growth

- 1990s: 1.5% annual growth

- 2000s: 1.2% annual growth

- 2010s-2020s: essentially zero growth

Real wages grew by roughly 33% per decade from 1970 to 2007, then completely stagnated. By 2020, median disposable income was only 1% higher than in 2007; less than 1% growth over 13 years.

The really depressing bit? Workers actually did far better in the post-imperial period (1970-2005) than they ever did during the height of empire.

Which tells you everything you need to know about who was actually pocketing the imperial profits.

And the post-2008 wage stagnation shows the same pattern's still alive and well, just without colonies to extract from. Capital finds new ways to capture the gains; financialisation, asset inflation, whatever: whilst labour still gets the scraps.

Different methods, same fucking result.

The Victorian poor weren't sharing in empire's spoils, and modern workers aren't sharing in productivity gains either. I guess mechanisms change, but the outcome doesn't.

[wqaatwt]

> US saw 60% real wage growth from 1860-1890 with no empire whatsoever

Yes, having infinite farmland in a still mostly agrarian economy gives you a massive head start.

Before the 20th century the link between the population and the amount of productive land was very direct.

[bregma]

Did something happen after 1860 in the USA that suddenly caused a large proportion of the working population to start receiving wages, thus boosting "average wage growth" artificially?

[triceratops]

> The US saw 60% real wage growth from 1860-1890 with no empire whatsoever

I understand what you mean. But also: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Manifest_destiny

You are right that common people in Britain didn't get as much out of Pax Brittanica as America's did during its own period of expansion.

[r_hoods_ghost]

Yes. America had no empire. Except for the giant land empire that was, and is, America. Or does invading and occupying thousands of square miles of land, annihilating entire nations, and enslaving and slaughtering the natives, a process that was still very much ongoing between 1860 and 1890 not count as empire building?

[rayiner]

You’re absolutely correct. The UK built an empire because it industrialized early and had the money and technology to do so. But the empire isn’t what made it rich in the first place.

[eru]

The Empire wasn't profitable.

[flir]

> The US saw 60% real wage growth from 1860-1890 with no empire whatsoever.

Um. Weren't they carving one out of the American West? I mean, there were people there beforehand... it feels like a not-dissimilar situation.

[saalweachter]

Wasn't the literacy rate in New England substantially higher than the literacy rate in Old England, both in 1800 and in the years prior to its declaration of independence?

[Steven_Vellon]

New England had a male literacy rate of around 70% compared to Britain's 60% in 1800. But New England was one of the most literate regions in America around the time of the founding, including the other American regions into the literacy rate would bring the literacy rate down (even more so when if one includes the enslaved population). Comparing the literacy rate one specific region of one country, to the national average of another country is comparing apples to oranges.

But the important thing is, the 1900 Britain's male literacy rate was 97%. Illiteracy went from something that was fairly common to exceptionally rare.