The rise of capitalism, rather than delivering improvements in human welfare, was associated with plummeting wages, a reduction in human stature, and a marked upturn in the incidence of famine.

' How British colonialism killed 100 million Indians in 40 years' with Dylan Sullivan (2 December 2022), Al Jazeera.

It is larger than the combined number of deaths that occurred during all famines in the Soviet Union, Maoist China, North Korea, Pol Pot’s Cambodia, and Mengistu’s Ethiopia. This is among the largest policy-induced mortality crises in human history.

While the precise number of deaths is sensitive to the assumptions we make about baseline mortality, it is clear that somewhere in the vicinity of 100 million people died prematurely at the height of British colonialism.Extreme Poverty isn't Natural, it's Created (28 March 2021).If the whole population were to consume and emit like Ireland and Switzerland, we would be living on a dead planet right now.He couldn’t be more wrong' (29 January 2019), The Guardian ' Bill Gates says poverty is decreasing.This way of life was violently destroyed by colonisers who forced people off the land and into European-owned mines, factories and plantations, where they were paid paltry wages for work they never wanted to do in the first place. They had little if any money, but then they didn’t need it in order to live well – so it makes little sense to claim that they were poor. Prior to colonisation, most people lived in subsistence economies where they enjoyed access to abundant commons – land, water, forests, livestock and robust systems of sharing and reciprocity.1.3 The Handbook of Neoliberalism (2016).1.2 The Divide: Global Inequality from Conquest to Free Markets (2018).1.1 Less is More: How Degrowth Will Save the World (2021).

The divide jason hickel