From Lord Macaulay’s speech in the British Parliament on 2nd Feb 1835:

“I have traveled across the length and breadth of India and I have not seen one person who is a beggar, who is a thief. Such wealth I have seen in this country, such high moral values, people of such calibre, that I do not think we would ever conquer this country, unless we break the very backbone of this nation, which is her spiritual and cultural heritage, and, therefore, I propose that we replace her old and ancient education system, her culture, for if the Indians think that all that is foreign and English is good and greater than their own, they will lose their self-esteem, their native self-culture and they will become what we want them, a truly dominated nation.”

Contrast the vision of prosperity in India to the modern India infiltrated by the Western school system where poor rice farmers commit suicide because of failed GM crop yields and very summoning of ‘India’ catalyzes visions of desolated soil and absolute poverty. (I mean except for all the call centers right?) Cheerleaders for exploitation like Tom Friedman champion the entry of nations like India and China into the modern system of globalism, however, those countries can never reach our level of prosperity because we used up all the net energy on the way to the top. They have to play our game because we’ve forced it on them. Their sustainable farming culture of centuries must change into materialist consumerism because we’ve decimated possibilities for their lifestyle to continue.

I just felt like posting this quote because it is an excellent example of how international development through the IMF started because its really no more than modern slavery at the behest of corporate interest in developed nations.

Understanding the motivations of the architects of the modern world reveals a startling picture of greed, callousness and ignorance. Lord Macaulay provides a record of those merits.

[quote above via The Oil Drum]