Comment by 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.