Thread by @jasonhickel

This graph has been used to claim that virtually all of humanity, for all of history, was destitute until the 19th century, when colonialism and capitalism came to the rescue. But, according to new research, the long-term trend is empirically baseless. jasonhickel.org/blog/2021/3/28…

In Annual Review of Economics, Allen argues that high extreme poverty rates in the 20th century are not a baseline state but a modern phenomenon, induced by colonialism. In late colonial Asia, extreme poverty was driven to levels higher than under 13th century serfdom.

The story of extreme poverty is not a one-way street. Extreme poverty likely increased during periods of enclosure and colonization, before finally declining with the rise of labour movements, democracy and decolonization.

Here is Allen's article. It's behind a paywall, unfortunately, but I've summarized the main points in the blog above. annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.114…

This shouldn't come as a surprise. We know that imperialism caused demographic collapse in Latin America, serial famines in India, mass dispossession in Africa, a collapse of wages in China, etc. The notion that imperialism reduced extreme poverty is wild on the face of it.