What has been called 'the financial bleeding of Bengal' began very soon after Plassey. (pg. 164)

profits made by the East India Company [...] in Bengal, financed [...] wars that the British waged across India in the period of their colonial expansion. (pg. 164)

But for those at the top of Indian society, British rule brought an administration that was fair, uncorrupt, and comfortably distant. Indian elites in the three presidencies of Bengal, Madras, and Bombay were content to submit to the East India Company's rules, serve in its armies, and help it collect money to pay for them as long as they were left alone to get on with their normal affairs. It was for those at the bottom, especially in eastern India, that the British brought disaster. This

[P]residents of companies have gone from apologizing when they had to lay off workers to boasting of the riches... obtained through mass firings. ...[I]nvestors ...owe their wealth ...to buying companies in deals that required destroying lives and careers

The successful sale of British Telecom...reveals a vast and untapped yearning among ordinary people for a direct stake in the ownership of British enterprise. Investment in shares has begun to take its place, with ownership of a home and either a bank or building society deposit, as a way for ordinary people to participate in enterprise and wealth creation. We are seeing the birth of people's capitalism.

It is unnecessary for our pupose to go into the sordid details of the Company's early administration of their Diwani of Bengal. In brief, it may be stated that for a decade the whole power of the organized State was directed to a single purpose ‑ plunder. It was a robber State that had come into existence, and Richard Becher, a servant of the Company, wrote to his masters in London on May 24, 1769, as follows: `It must give pain to an Englishman to have reason to think that since the accession of the Company to the Diwani the condition of the people of this country has been worse than it was before .... This fine country, which flourished under the most despotic and arbitrary government, is verging towards ruin.'...

In reality, the Kashmiri Line of Control, with a battlefield at over 5000 metres of altitude and several wars over it, was the last thing the British wanted; only Jawaharlal Nehru could pursue a policy with this result. Viceroys Lord Victor Linlithgow and Lord Archibald Wavell told Muslim League leader Mohammed Ali Jinnah to his face that they were in no mind to divide their Indian Empire, so Jinnah had to impress upon their successor Lord Louis Mountbatten his determination by means of violence. The British only gave in when Muslim pressure grew too strong – on them, but also on the Hindu politicians, who one after another acquiesced in the Partition, and this well before it actually took place. Yet, the British are constantly blamed for “vivisecting India”, both by the Nehruvians and by most Hindu Nationalists, all for fear of hurting the Muslims by telling them the truth, viz. that nobody but the Muslim League (and its very comfortable majority among the Muslim electorate) was guilty of the Partition.

If the Bank of England is “independent” who took the decision to steal Venezuela's gold?

I would suggest that we use 5% of the bailout money to endow the Banks of England, which would be established in the counties and cities of England and would be constrained to lend within the county or city. The principal of the endowment would be in trust to the people of that county or city, in perpetuity so that it could not be liquidated by its members, and the balance of power in its corporate governance will be held by a third being held by the Bank of England, a third by its workforce and a third by the civic institutions of the locality. These newly constituted ‘Banks of England’ are one of the essential feature of Blue Labour statecraft built upon endowment and institution building.

By the end of the nineteenth century, India was Britain’s biggest source of revenue, the world’s biggest purchaser of British exports and the source of highly paid employment for British civil servants and soldiers all at India’s own expense. Indians literally paid for their own oppression.

bloated industrials, who were piling up fortunes abroad while they were wrecking their country at home.

The bankers got the free use of the money a part of the time, the brokers another part: the officials made money, and the brokers received a fat commission.

India’s political democracy was built on political payments. ‘Speed money,’ shakedowns, and gaining illegal access to wealth—known as ‘black money’—occupied much of the time and energy of the Congress Party while it was ruling India. For generations, corruption of government officials by Indian businessmen has bought official tolerance for hoarding, adulterating, smuggling, and black marketing. Payoffs have been an integral part of Indian business-government relations.

British finance, which had strangled German democracy by demanding impossible reparation, helped Hitler with investments and loans. Every intelligent world citizen knew that these favors were given to Hitler because British Tories saw in him their "strong-arm gangster" against the Soviets.