UK’s Top 10% Took Half of India’s Wealth, Enough to Cover London

Oxfam’s latest report, released on Monday, revealed that the UK’s extracted $64.82 trillion from colonial India between 1765 and 1900, with the wealthiest 10% of Britons receiving $33.8 trillion.

The report stated, “This amount would be sufficient to cover the entire surface of London with £50 notes nearly four times.”

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In its report “Takers, not Makers,” Oxfam stated that the government compensated the wealthiest slave owners, and the richest Britons trace a considerable portion of their wealth back to this payment when the racist system ended.

UK’s Middle-Class Key Beneficiary of Colonial India’s Wealth

The group stated that the emerging middle class in the UK is the second-largest beneficiary of wealth that colonial India extracted over more than a century.

Oxfam stated, “Following the wealthiest 10%, who received 52% of the income, the new middle class obtained an additional 32%.”

Fabric and Pharmaceuticals

The group also attributed the decline of India’s industrial production to colonialism, which enforced strict protectionist policies against Asian textiles.

It noted, “In 1750, the Indian subcontinent contributed around 25% of global industrial output. However, by 1900, this had sharply dropped to just 2%.”

Oxfam also accused the Dutch and British colonial governments of being “drug pushers,” using the opium trade to strengthen their control over colonies. It claimed the British engaged in large-scale poppy cultivation in impoverished regions of eastern India, exporting it to China, which led to the Opium War and China’s subsequent ‘century of humiliation.’

Modern corporations are similar to the East India Company

The report referenced multiple studies and research papers to argue that modern multinational corporations are a product of colonialism.

Oxfam stated that this system has resulted in a “profoundly unequal world divided by racism” and “continues to siphon wealth from the Global South, mainly benefiting the wealthiest individuals in the Global North.”

The group pointed to the English East India Company as an example, accusing it of committing “numerous colonial crimes” and operating as a “law unto itself,” while pioneering the exploitative practices that modern multinational corporations now follow.

The report stated, “The legacies of inequality and the practices of exploitation, which began during colonial times, continue to impact modern life,” adding that wages in the Global South are 87 to 95% lower than those paid for comparable work in the Global North.

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