| 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. |
Most loans are for land, which mean your banking system isn't directing loans toward productive assets which increase economic activity.
So, no, the mechanism didn't change FMPOV.