It's rather difficult to find a whole lot that's positive about colonialism, when you look into the details. For example, it's true that the British colonials brought railway technology to India, which has of course become a signature feature of modern Indian civilization. However, the rationale at the time was more about having the ability to rapidly move large numbers of troops and guns from one rebellious hotspot to another. However, this also had many economic benefits for other sectors, aided in moving food and preventing famines, etc.
> "After a slow start in 1853, the construction of the railway network envisaged by Lord Dalhousie was sped up rapidly after the 1857 Rebellion. The railways were an instrument of control. The stations became fortresses, the white and, later, the Eurasian, staff became an auxiliary army, and the tracks became lines of communication in the event of conflict. The 1857 Rebellion, coming as it did at a crucial stage in railway development, had an enormous impact on the railways’ eventual shape and the attitude of the British colonial rulers to their Indian subordinates. This was a nakedly military project, but not solely one. There were immeasurable economic benefits, too, and though the very design of the railways was as conduits to and from the ports to help British imports and exports, inevitably the Indian economy received a stimulus through their construction."
The argument that such colonialism was necessary to spread knowledge and technology (which is really the only pro-colonialism argument I can think of) is belied by the example of Japan, which strongly resisted colonial efforts for many centuries, but was still able to rapidly adopt and develop things like train technology.
It's interesting that you accuse me of "faux outrage" when you're the one using language suggesting moral indignation and making broad generalizations, whereas I try to be specific with my criticism. I didn't say "critical lense" in the sense that we should view it as bad, I said it in the sense that we should be less superficial and more nuanced than the article is.
Colonialism is a broad complex issue. It's impossible to separate the mass deaths from the operation of colonial power structures because they are closely tied to each other. For insights to be transferrable they need to be applicable.
The Company sustained itself with access to a practically infinite pool of cheap/free labor and natural resources guaranteed by an army more powerful than any resistance they could face.
The learnings aren't particularly groundbreaking either and mostly come in a form that heavily suggests an "ought" rather than merely describing an "is" (or "was"):
> People knew when they could ignore the rules so they could do things that helped the Company
Given the context (as "the rules" were mostly an artefact of English domestic law and ettiquette) this translates directly to Western companies skirting/bending/changing labor protection laws in the Global South to reduce production costs. Most people consider this a bad thing.
> They ran with a much smaller bureaucracy centrally than what we’d think necessary, even with multiple committees to devolve decision making into
Almost everything ran with a much smaller central bureaucracy at the time. Large bureaucracies are a fairly recent development and a result of easier access to vastly more data and its analysis. If you want to make a point against micromanagement, there are better and more applicable examples that don't involve an underclass of forced labor.
> In many cases the employees could trade for themselves on the side, i.e., helping the Company helped themselves - like a franchise model in miniature, or even a version of equity shares
This is embezzlement at worst and an MLM scheme at best. Again, how is this transferrable? Do you want SaaS sales people running a sidebusiness as a whitelabel reseller? Tesla managers selling spare parts off-brand? This would require rolling back centuries of consumer protection and liability laws.
> When you ask a lot from employees, its good to give them a lot - whether its salary, perks, nap rooms or better working conditions
This is just a vague appeal to provide perks, high pay and benefits. Hardly novel.
> You need at least a few people who are freelance gunslingers to go unlock opportunities you can’t know about, to explore more of the territory
This would be groundbreaking advice if large enough companies wouldn't already know to invest heavily in R&D and hire ICs. Arguably this has actually been disproven as the hype about Google "moonshots" has died down because it's more profitable to let startups do the hard work of testing the waters and just acquire or outcompete them if their new ideas become profitable.
> There’s an increase in focus on assessments (and punishment) after the fact rather than permission to perform an action
Again, this was novel when Facebook promoted this as "It's better to ask for forgiveness than permission" and "Move fast and break things". After a decade and a half of this it turns out that this is actually rarely good advice if you want to avoid causing irrepairable damage.
So pay your worker aristocracy well to retain them, maintain a pool of willing cheap labor, fight laws and regulations that impact your freedom to conduct business and everybody should be an enterpreneur. This is literally just right-wing libertarianism you could have equally arrived at by reading Atlas Shrugged.
