Would the world be a better place if Britain had retained its Empire?

[Max Power]

Just got me wondering whilst watching another of TV's obsession with Nazi's and sharks.

Assuming that Britain and France had followed Churchill's warnings and invaded Germany in the early part of Hitler's reign, putting a stop to him and his Nazi party, which Hitler was sure that they could have. We may never have seen such a rapid rise in American power and our standing in the world would have been assured.

If Britain had evolved its Empire into a benign trading community whilst assisting those countries which needed help in setting up administrations, would it be seen as a more benevolent force in the world. This was Prince Albert's vision for the Empire, but Victoria wasn't exactly a visionary and loved being an Empress. Would the world be a better place? 

My own feeling is that nobody wants to be 'ruled' by another country and Britain adopted completely the wrong approach when insisting that they had colonised their Empire. The use of force to protect interests may still have been required in certain situations but I think a huge opportunity was squandered. I think that dealing with the many different cultures presented a challenge which we were not capable of at times.  

[philwebs]

Take it back further. What if WW1 had been avoided, and all those interlocking treaties were not activated.

That war impoverished many of the aging empires and brought about their destruction (whilst at the same time enriching the banksters and "Central Banks"). It was also the root of all that followed to this day.

Change and independence was demanded, and the old system had to go. Said to be unavoidable, maybe it was.

Or go back a little earlier to the establishment of the "Federal Reserve" in 1913. Powerful interests and a famous quote about controlling the money supply. On the Titanic which sank in 1912 were the three people who allegedly could have stopped this. I understand only about 20 ships have been sunk by icebergs, odd. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ships_sunk_by_icebergs )

What-ifs are a recipe for madness. What was done was done.

[Sheldon]

If your auntie had balls she'd be your uncle.

[Declan]

Is your scenario?

1. Britain and France quickly killed off the Nazi threat around 1936
2. The empire restructures as a trading union
3. The UK benevolently assisting the various constituent parts to become self-governing

That's not really an empire. It's the EU with different countries. 

Would the world be better off? 

WWII and the Nazi's would have claimed fewer lives.

The former Empire countries would be about where they are now but perhaps have more trading power. What about the other European Empires  would they create their own trading blocks within their empires rather than the EU?

Maybe America would have been less dominant during the end of the 20th C. Is that a good thing? Britain and France, I think would need to fulfil that role.

But the Soviets would still be in place in Russia. Would that be better than Putin? Where would the Iron Curtain fall. 

Germany, I guess would fall under British and French influence. But is will the post war settlement be fair? Would it return to the same situation it was in the early thirties. 

Then there's Japan. I think the world's better off with democratic Japan than it was with the Japanese Empire. Maybe America would still have gone to war with them?

Technological advancement in the 40's would have been slower without the War. Would we have caught up now?

By the time the world reached 2024, I think Britain would be quite similar to what it is now. We'd have still have had inward immigration from the former empire. Would Britain be any happier seeding it's sovereignty to an alliance with Canada, India, Australia than it was EU. 

 

 

 

[TheTeapot]

Could make it the plot of a novel, sort of like Fatherland by Robert Harris, but different.

[woolley]

How interesting. Nice idea. It would certainly have been better for us, and the world would be a safer place - for us. It's all part of the cycle of rise and fall of empires and civilisations. Someone stronger and ruthless will always come along and knock you off your perch when you get soft, cuddly and complacent. It happened to the Greeks, the Romans, it's certainly happening to us and the old European powers as we speak, and it will happen to America soon.

You're either the boss of your own and others' destiny, or someone else will move in to the vacuum. Global equality is a fantasy.

[Barlow]

Difficult to say it, but maybe the country would have been better if we allowed Germany to just take over, bit of a tw@t as Hitler was.

All those lives lost.

 

Edited January 18 by Barlow

[Bombay Bad Boy]

7 minutes ago, Barlow said:

Difficult to say it, but maybe the country would have been better if we allowed Germany to just take over, bit of a tw@t as Hitler was.

All those lives lost.

 

I have in my hand a piece of paper. 

Actually, I'm going to need some more, that was a bad curry. 

[Barlow]

1 hour ago, Bombay Bad Boy said:

I have in my hand a piece of paper. 

Actually, I'm going to need some more, that was a bad curry. 

People of today have no concept of those young lives lost, people conscripted and dragged into a war. Was it worth it? I wonder if those souls could look back and say it was, this is what I fought and died for.

(this post might be 10 years early)

[Albert Tatlock]

1 hour ago, Barlow said:

Difficult to say it, but maybe the country would have been better if we allowed Germany to just take over, bit of a tw@t as Hitler was.

All those lives lost.

 

NHS would certainly be in profit...

...at the expense of probably half a billion people having being exterminated had Hitler won.

[The Bastard]

Certainly the IOM would have been different. People come to the IOM and complain that it's quiet, there's not much to do and that there are few shops. Part of the reason for that is that the IOM lost two generations of young men supporting the empire in WW1 and WW2, when they were just cannon fodder. The effect of such a loss of young men and women who would have supported and founded businesses, and had children,  is still being felt today.

Air travel, driven by WW2 innovation, would never have happened, so the tourists wouldn't have disappeared off to Spain instead.  No doubt without WW1/2, the IOM would have been very different. It would still be a busy little seaside resort for the working classes. It would have been an even more class-conscious, formal, religious and staid place than it is now, and there would have been no welfare state, no penicillin, no vaccines, no NHS, no place for women in enterprise, no post-war immigration in the wider UK, no computers, phones or internet. Life would be tend to be short and full of illness, rather formal, religious and conservative, and you'd either be working hard in a rural idyll or the tourist mecca.

[woolley]

43 minutes ago, The Bastard said:

Certainly the IOM would have been different. People come to the IOM and complain that it's quiet, there's not much to do and that there are few shops. Part of the reason for that is that the IOM lost two generations of young men supporting the empire in WW1 and WW2, when they were just cannon fodder. The effect of such a loss of young men and women who would have supported and founded businesses, and had children,  is still being felt today.

Air travel, driven by WW2 innovation, would never have happened, so the tourists wouldn't have disappeared off to Spain instead.  No doubt without WW1/2, the IOM would have been very different. It would still be a busy little seaside resort for the working classes. It would have been an even more class-conscious, formal, religious and staid place than it is now, and there would have been no welfare state, no penicillin, no vaccines, no NHS, no place for women in enterprise, no post-war immigration in the wider UK, no computers, phones or internet. Life would be tend to be short and full of illness, rather formal, religious and conservative, and you'd either be working hard in a rural idyll or the tourist mecca.

It's one scenario, but that's all. Anything can happen in parallel universes. If those wars hadn't happened it doesn't mean to say that other cataclysmic changes wouldn't have occurred instead. Human experience is like herding cats - totally random.

[The Bastard]

3 minutes ago, woolley said:

It's one scenario, but that's all. Anything can happen in parallel universes. If those wars hadn't happened it doesn't mean to say that other cataclysmic changes wouldn't have occurred instead. Human experience is like herding cats - totally random.

That's a given, doesn't need to be stated. But this is a thread about speculation, so expect speculation.

[Passing Time]

5 hours ago, The Bastard said:

Certainly the IOM would have been different. People come to the IOM and complain that it's quiet, there's not much to do and that there are few shops. Part of the reason for that is that the IOM lost two generations of young men supporting the empire in WW1 and WW2, when they were just cannon fodder. The effect of such a loss of young men and women who would have supported and founded businesses, and had children,  is still being felt today.

Air travel, driven by WW2 innovation, would never have happened, so the tourists wouldn't have disappeared off to Spain instead.  No doubt without WW1/2, the IOM would have been very different. It would still be a busy little seaside resort for the working classes. It would have been an even more class-conscious, formal, religious and staid place than it is now, and there would have been no welfare state, no penicillin, no vaccines, no NHS, no place for women in enterprise, no post-war immigration in the wider UK, no computers, phones or internet. Life would be tend to be short and full of illness, rather formal, religious and conservative, and you'd either be working hard in a rural idyll or the tourist mecca.

Do you have a source for that statement?

[The Bastard]

26 minutes ago, Passing Time said:

Do you have a source for that statement?

Edited January 18 by The Bastard