In Defence of Empire: Reassessing the British Imperial Legacy in Comparative Perspective

A Guest Post, by Lipton Matthews

The British Empire, once the largest the world had ever seen, is now the object of unrelenting criticism. In the twenty-first century, it is often portrayed in monochrome terms—as a rapacious, racist, and destructive force that wrought havoc on innocent peoples across continents. This narrative is powerfully articulated in popular works such as The New Age of Empire by Kehinde Andrews and Inglorious Empire by Shashi Tharoor, both of which depict British colonialism as a calculated project of exploitation and racial domination. While emotionally compelling, this prevailing account is often analytically hollow. Empires must be judged comparatively, for imperialism was not a uniquely British enterprise. Spanish, French, Ottoman, and other empires operated under similar incentives and left behind complex legacies. Thus, to fairly evaluate the British Empire, one must compare its institutional, economic, and political consequences to those of its peers.

A growing body of scholarly research has done exactly that, offering a more nuanced—and often more favorable—portrait of British colonialism. These studies, which span education, property rights, economic growth, political institutions, and administrative responsiveness, consistently reveal that former British colonies tend to perform better than those ruled by other European or Islamic empires. These findings challenge the dominant orthodoxy and demand a reassessment of Britain’s imperial legacy.

I. Comparative Empires: The British versus the Spanish and French

In their pathbreaking paper Colonialism and Development: A Comparative Analysis of Spanish and British Colonies, Matthew Lange and co-authors systematically compare institutional legacies across the two empires. Their central finding is that British colonies developed more pluralistic institutions and stronger property rights than their Spanish counterparts. In Spanish America, colonial administration was typically monopolized by the Catholic Church and royal bureaucrats, with little regard for local agency. By contrast, British administrators often worked through existing local elites and institutions. They relied on indirect rule, particularly in Africa and Asia, which created space for institutional hybridity and adaptation.

The difference is not merely theoretical. Countries once ruled by the British are more likely to have functioning democracies and higher institutional quality today. These outcomes are partially rooted in the British Empire's willingness to devolve power to settler assemblies and native leaders, albeit often for pragmatic reasons. Even where colonial exploitation was intense, the framework of governance tended to foster rule-based administration and the expectation of legal process. In short, British imperialism, while coercive, created institutional scaffolding that was more conducive to post-colonial governance than the centralized autocracies imposed by Spain or France.

Britain’s superiority even extends into the domain of environmental management. This thesis is echoed by Deforestation and Property Rights: A Comparison between Former British and Spanish Colonies by David Corderi Novoa, which finds that British colonies had stronger property rights and were better at conserving natural resources. Environmental degradation in Spanish America, he notes, was often the product of weak governance and unclear property boundaries—legacies of extractive and highly centralized colonial administration.

French colonies, meanwhile, offer another instructive contrast. In The French Curse? On the Puzzling Economic Consequences of French Colonization, Andreas Bergh shows that former French colonies have systematically lower levels of economic development, even after controlling for other factors. French colonialism, he argues, emphasized cultural assimilation and centralized bureaucracy over institutional pluralism. Where the British allowed local vernacular languages and traditional authorities to coexist with colonial rule, the French imposed a uniform model from Paris. This rigidity often produced administrative weakness and post-colonial instability.

II. Colonial Education: British Flexibility vs Continental Centralism

The educational legacies of the empire further illustrate Britain’s relatively favorable impact. In an article entitled, “The Long Shadows of Spanish and French Colonial Education” Horst Feldmann demonstrates that former British colonies achieved higher levels of literacy and educational attainment than those ruled by France or Spain. British policies allowed for decentralized, religiously pluralistic educational systems, often collaborating with Protestant missionaries and local communities. As such, academic outcomes in British colonies were superior because the curriculum reflected local demands. In contrast, Spanish and French systems were more centralized and ideologically rigid, stifling local initiative.

This pattern is underscored in Borders That Divide: Education and Religion in Ghana and Togo Since Colonial Times by Alexander Moradi and Denis Cogneau. The authors take advantage of the natural experiment presented by Ghana and Togo—adjacent regions split between British and French colonial rule. Despite similar ethnic and geographic characteristics, the British side (Ghana) achieved far greater access to schooling and literacy. The British, less concerned with cultural assimilation, supported education in indigenous languages and allowed missionary competition. On the other hand, the French enforced uniform schooling in their language and prohibited religious plurality. This homogenising approach aimed to assimilate colonised peoples into a French cultural identity, leaving little room for vernacular knowledge or institutional diversity.

III. Institutional Consequences: Cameroon's Colonial Divide

Another natural experiment comes from Cameroon, which was split between British and French rule following World War I. In Comparing British and French Colonial Legacies: A Discontinuity Analysis of Cameroon, Alexander Lee and Kenneth Schultz examine long-run differences across the former colonial border. They find that areas under British rule have higher levels of wealth, better public service delivery, and stronger institutions. The authors attribute this to Britain’s more indirect style of rule, which incorporated local authorities and allowed institutional adaptation, as opposed to the top-down administrative style imported wholesale from France.

IV. Colonial Heritage and Economic Development: The Superior British Legacy

Furthermore, a 2008 paper authored by Andrea Asoni corroborates the assertion that British rule confers an economic advantage. In her research, Asoni proposed a novel framework to understand why former British colonies tend to outperform their French and Spanish counterparts. Rather than viewing colonialism as a homogeneous experience, Asoni emphasizes that cultural self-selection influenced where different types of European settlers chose to migrate. In particular, Protestant British settlers with strong preferences for individual liberty and rule of law gravitated toward low-mortality, high-potential regions such as North America, Australasia, and parts of sub-Saharan Africa.

This settler self-selection created a powerful feedback loop. Colonists with values conducive to property rights and contract enforcement established robust institutions—especially when backed by British common law. These institutions, in turn, became embedded in the culture and persisted well after independence. Asoni’s empirical analysis confirms that former British colonies enjoy significantly higher levels of income per capita today, even after controlling for mortality, climate, and settler composition.

Importantly, Asoni’s work complements and refines earlier theories by Acemoglu et al., who emphasized settler mortality as a driver of institutional quality. Asoni shows that mortality mattered—but primarily because it shaped the kind of settlers who came. British colonialism's comparative advantage, then, lies in its alignment of settler culture, legal institutions, and long-run development

V. Entrepreneurship and the Common Law Legacy

Tino and Nima Sanandaji’s SuperEntrepreneurs provides another empirical pillar. The authors investigate the origins of billionaire entrepreneurs across 53 countries and find that nations with British legal traditions produce disproportionately more“SuperEntrepreneurs”—self-made billionaires who create high-growth firms. Countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Singapore, and Hong Kong—each rooted in common law—rank far above civil-law peers like France, Spain, and Italy.

Their findings demonstrate that common law systems inherited from the British Empire are more conducive to innovation, venture capital, and entrepreneurial risk-taking. These legal systems tend to feature stronger property rights, more flexible business regulations, and greater judicial independence. Not coincidentally, the most dynamic technology ecosystems—from Silicon Valley to Singapore—are products of these institutional foundations.

Moreover, the Sanandajis caution against conflating self-employment with entrepreneurship. Countries like Greece and Spain, despite high self-employment rates, perform poorly in producing innovative firms. In contrast, common-law countries exhibit lower self-employment but vastly higher levels of high-impact, innovative entrepreneurship—a reflection of institutional quality, not raw hustle.

Thus, the British Empire’s enduring legacy includes the spread of legal and institutional frameworks that foster the creative destruction at the heart of capitalist dynamism.

VI. The British Empire and Political Accountability

One of the most underappreciated aspects of British imperialism is the degree to which it was subject to moral and political scrutiny from the metropole. Unlike many other empires, the British allowed colonial subjects to petition Parliament and leveraged a vibrant civil society that often challenged imperial abuses. Over time, anti-slavery movements, human rights campaigns, and parliamentary inquiries exerted real influence on colonial policy. In Colonial Petitions, Colonial Petitioners, and the Imperial Parliament, ca. 1780–1918, Richard Huzzey and Henry Miller offer extensive primary sources to show that colonial subjects could—and often did—appeal to Parliament through formal petitions. The fact that such a channel existed, and that MPs took these petitions seriously, speaks to the semi-constitutional nature of the British Empire.

Building on this theme of institutional restraint and moral self-scrutiny within the British imperial system, a particularly revealing episode is explored in Jake Subryan Richards’s essay, “Political Thought and the Emotion of Shame: John Stuart Mill and the Jamaica Committee during the Governor Eyre Controversy.” When Governor Edward Eyre violently suppressed a rebellion in Jamaica, he was not applauded but subjected to fierce criticism by leading British intellectuals, including Mill. The public campaign against Eyre exemplifies a kind of moral accountability rarely seen in other imperial systems. This was no isolated case—the British Empire’s legal and parliamentary traditions often constrained its administrators and opened avenues for redress. As Nigel Biggar documents in Colonialism: A Moral Reckoning, the colonial government routinely dismissed officials for ineptitude or misconduct, reinforcing a pattern of internal accountability that stood in contrast to the arbitrary governance characteristic of many other empires.

VII. British Mercantilism Misunderstood

Much criticism of the British Empire rests on the assumption that its economic system—mercantilism—was purely extractive. Yet this view is historically inaccurate. British mercantilism was not simply about siphoning resources from the colonies; it was a framework for creating integrated economic spaces. Laws like the Navigation Acts did limit trade, but they also stimulated colonial manufacturing, shipping, and market development. In return, colonies gained preferential access to British markets and capital.

British economic policy encouraged the creation of port infrastructure, shipbuilding industries, and commodity exchanges that tied colonies into global trade networks. While inequalities persisted, the British model often generated the conditions for economic takeoff, particularly in settler colonies and trading hubs. Continuing with the revisionist rehabilitation of the British Empire, Steven Pincus in a landmark article demonstrates that British officials and intellectuals actively debated the utility of mercantilist policies in relation to their colonies. This open contestation reveals a distinctive feature of British imperial governance—the willingness to tolerate economic pluralism and policy experimentation. Unlike more rigidly centralized empires, Britain's internal debates reflected a liberalizing impulse within its colonial policy, allowing for greater adaptation and responsiveness to local colonial interests.

VIII. The Ottoman Counterfactual: A Less Benevolent Empire

If British colonialism was relatively successful in fostering development, democracy, and education, what about non-European empires? The Ottoman Empire offers a striking counterpoint—one that further vindicates Britain’s comparative performance.

In their recent paper, “Imperial Rule and Long-Run Development: Evidence on the Role of Human Capital in Ottoman Europe” Bogdan Popescu and Mircea Popa show that regions formerly ruled by the Ottomans consistently lag behind in educational attainment and state capacity. Ottoman rule, they argue, was extractive and patrimonial, often resistant to formal education and bureaucratic meritocracy. The effects persist to this day: areas under Ottoman control have weaker institutions and lower levels of trust in government.

Similarly, Pauline Grosjean’s fascinating article, “The Institutional Legacy of the Ottoman Empire: Islamic Rule and Financial Development in South Eastern Europe” draws similar conclusions. Ottoman legal and religious institutions, particularly their emphasis on Islamic jurisprudence, hindered the development of impersonal finance and contractual enforcement. The legacy has been long-lasting: former Ottoman regions have less developed banking systems and lower access to capital, even after accounting for other variables.

These findings suggest that Ottoman imperialism—while less demonized in contemporary discourse—was more damaging to long-run development than British rule. The Ottomans offered neither liberal institutions nor educational pluralism, and their legacy is one of enduring underdevelopment.

IX. Toward a Balanced Reassessment

None of this is to romanticize the British Empire. It was, at times, brutal and exploitative. The Morant Bay Rebellion, the Amritsar massacre, and other tragic episodes deserve remembrance and critique. But to single out Britain for condemnation while ignoring the worse records of Spain, France, or the Ottomans is intellectually dishonest. The British Empire, for all its flaws, fostered institutional pluralism, educational development, and legal accountability to a degree unmatched by its rivals.

Moreover, the institutions seeded under British rule—common law, civil service exams, democratic legislatures, and independent judiciaries—have outlived the Empire and served former colonies well. Countries like Hong Kong, Singapore,Botswana, and Barbados, are not mere historical accidents. Their trajectories reflect the institutional legacies of British governance.

Even critics of colonialism must concede the empirical weight of the evidence. Whether the metric is education, environmental governance, political accountability, or economic growth, British colonies have generally outperformed their French, Spanish, and Ottoman counterparts. This is not a defense of colonialism as such, but of the British variant as comparatively less harmful—and in many cases, genuinely beneficial.

Conclusion: A Case for Comparative Empire

Calls to "decolonize history" often rest on an anachronistic moralism that ignores context and comparison. But history is not theology. It is a discipline of causes and consequences, of counterfactuals and contrasts. Judged against its imperial peers, the British Empire emerges not as a villain, but as a complex and in many respects constructive force. Its legacies are ambiguous, yes—but also rich, enduring, and in several key respects, superior to those left by other empires.

To berate British colonialism without reference to these comparative realities is not justice—it is ideology. And it does a disservice not only to the historical record, but to the former colonies themselves, whose successes are too often attributed to post-colonial struggle alone, rather than the foundations laid under British rule. If we are to understand the world we have inherited, we must begin by understanding empire not as a monolith, but as a spectrum—and by recognizing, however unfashionable it may be, that the British Empire occupies a place closer to the beneficial end.

References

Asoni, A. (2008). Colonial heritage and economic development (IFN Working Paper No. 758). Research Institute of Industrial Economics

Bergh, A. (2018). The French Curse? On the Puzzling Economic Consequences of French Colonization. IFN Working Paper.

Biggar, N. (2021). Colonialism: A moral reckoning. William Collins.

Cogneau, D., & Moradi, A. (2014). Borders That Divide: Education and Religion in Ghana and Togo Since Colonial Times. Journal of Economic History, 74(3), 694-728

Corderi Novoa, D. (2009). Deforestation and Property Rights: A Comparison between Former British and Spanish Colonies. Economic Analysis Working Papers.

Feldmann, H. (2016). The long shadows of Spanish and French colonial education. Kyklos, 69(1), 32–64.

Grosjean, P. (2011). The Institutional Legacy of the Ottoman Empire: Islamic Rule and Financial Development in South Eastern Europe. Journal of Comparative Economics, 39(1), 1-16.

Huzzey, R., & Miller, H. (2021). Colonial petitions, colonial petitioners, and the imperial Parliament, ca. 1780–1918. Journal of British Studies 61(2), 261-289.

Lange, M., Mahoney, J., & vom Hau, M. (2006). Colonialism and development: A comparative analysis of Spanish and British colonies. American Journal of Sociology, 111(5), 1412–1462.

Lee, A., & Schultz, K. A. (2012). Comparing British and French Colonial Legacies: A Discontinuity Analysis of Cameroon. Quarterly Journal of Political Science, 7 (4), 365-410.

Pincus, S. (2012). Rethinking Mercantilism: Political Economy, the British Empire and the Atlantic World in the 17th and 18th Centuries. The William and Mary Quarterly, 69(1), 3-34

Popescu, B. G., & Popa, M. (2023). Imperial rule and long-run development: Evidence on the role of human capital in Ottoman Europe. Comparative Political Studies, 55(11), 1903–1943.

Richards, J. S. (2023). Political Thought and the Emotion of Shame: John Stuart Mill and the Jamaica Committee during the Governor Eyre Controversy. Modern Intellectual History, 20(2), 417-437.

Sanandaji, T., & Sanandaji, N. (2014). SuperEntrepreneurs and how your country can get them. Centre for Policy Studies.

Lipton Matthews is a researcher and policy analyst specializing in economic, innovation, and foreign policy. His work critically examines the impact of economic freedom and government regulation on societal outcomes. Matthews has published in peer-reviewed academic journals, and his insights have been cited in scholarly works, including Fisheries Regulation in the Central Arctic Ocean: Background, Motivations and Aspirations of the 2018 CAOF Agreement (2024) by Lena J. Haas, and Religious Responses to Sex Work and Sex Trafficking: An Outrage Against Any Decent People (2022) by Lauren McGrow. His articles have also been featured in publications such as Mises, Chronicles Magazine, The Federalist, Epoch Times, Aporia Magazine, and other publications. He may be found on X here and on YouTube here. He is currently fundraising for a new revisionist book on poverty in Africa:

“I am Lipton Matthews. Join me on a journey to uncover the truth behind African poverty. Our book will challenge the common misconception that colonialism is the root cause of poverty in Africa and instead, highlight the internal factors that have contributed to it. We will embark on primary research in various African countries to gather firsthand accounts and data to support our argument. Your contribution will help us cover the costs of travel, research, and promotion. Together, we can dispel the myths and work towards a more accurate understanding of the complex issues facing Africa. With your support, we can make a positive impact on the continent and its people. Let's work together to create a better future for Africa.”