Britain drained $64.82 trillion from India during colonial rule, Oxfam says

British charity Oxfam estimated that between 1765 and 1900, the UK’s richest 10% extracted $33.8 trillion in wealth from India, adjusted for today’s value

Britain drained $64.82 trillion from India during the colonial era, with $33.8 trillion—about half—ending up with the richest 10% in the UK, according to an Oxfam report.

Oxfam calculates that between 1765 and 1900, the richest 10% in the UK extracted wealth from India alone worth $33.8 trillion in today’s money. “This would be enough to carpet the surface area of London in ￡50 notes almost four times over,” the latest inequality report from the charity said.

Beyond the richest, the main beneficiaries of colonialism were the newly emergent middle class. After the richest 10%, who received 52% of this income, the new middle class received a further 32% of income, the report said.

Further, the report said that in 1750, the Indian subcontinent accounted for about 25% of global industrial output. However, by 1900, this figure had precipitously declined to a mere 2%.

“This dramatic reduction can be attributed to Britain’s implementation of stringent protectionist policies against Asian textiles, which systematically undermined India’s industrial growth potential,” it said.

Overwhelming military power enabled colonialism. During the period of East India Company rule, military expenditure accounted for nearly 75% of expenses, while public works constituted only 3% on average, the report said, adding that authorities failed to repair irrigation systems, impairing farm output and intensifying famines and droughts.

The East India Company’s army in India totaled 260,000 soldiers, twice the size of the British peacetime army.

“They engaged in land dispossession, violence, and mergers and acquisitions, driving globalization and contributing to the creation of the world’s first global financial system. Financial markets, especially in London, facilitated these colonial behemoths,” it added.

New forms of colonialism deepening inequality

Cut to the present, the privatization and financialization of public services are new forms of colonialism, deepening inequality and dependency, especially in the Global South, Oxfam’s Takers, Not Makers report said.

“They hand essential services–such as healthcare, education, and water–over to profit-driven corporations, often foreign-owned, that prioritize shareholders over public welfare,” it said, adding, “This mirrors colonial extraction, where resources and wealth flow out, leaving communities underserved and disempowered.”

The World Bank and many European development finance institutes, in partnership with private capital and investment funds in the Global North, “are promoting this privatization and financialization of public services in the Global South.”

For instance, Oxfam said it found that the World Bank’s International Finance Corporation (IFC), has financed highend private hospitals in urban centres in India, a country where 37% of Indians experience catastrophic health expenditures in private hospitals, and human rights abuses are endemic.

Similarly, education public-private partnerships (PPPs) supporting private schooling often fail the most vulnerable children and risk deepening inequality, yet Oxfam’s analysis of the World Bank’s primary and secondary education portfolio between 2013 and 2018 found more than one-fifth of projects included support to governments for private education.

Billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion last year

Billionaire wealth grew by $2 trillion in 2024 alone, equivalent to $5.7 billion a day, at a rate three times faster than the year before, the report said, adding that an average of nearly four new billionaires were minted every week. Meanwhile, the number of people living in poverty has barely changed since 1990, according to World Bank data.

In 2024, the number of billionaires rose to 2,769, up from 2,565 in 2023. Their combined wealth surged from $13 trillion to $15 trillion in just 12 months. This is the second largest annual increase in billionaire wealth since records began. The wealth of the world’s 10 richest men grew on average by almost $100 million a day—even if they lost 99% of their wealth overnight, they would remain billionaires.

Oxfam published the Takers Not Makers report on Monday, as business elites gather in the Swiss resort town of Davos and billionaire Donald Trump, backed by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, is inaugurated as president of the US.

“The capture of our global economy by a privileged few has reached heights once considered unimaginable. The failure to stop billionaires is now spawning soon-to-be trillionaires. Not only has the rate of billionaire wealth accumulation accelerated—by three times—but so too has their power,” said Oxfam International Executive Director Amitabh Behar.

“The crown jewel of this oligarchy is a billionaire president, backed and bought by the world’s richest man Elon Musk, running the world’s largest economy. We present this report as a stark wake up-call that ordinary people the world over are being crushed by the enormous wealth of a tiny few,” said Behar.

Last year, Oxfam forecasted the emergence of the first trillionaire within a decade. However, with billionaire wealth accelerating at a faster pace this projection has expanded dramatically—at current rates, the world is now on track to see at least five trillionaires within that timeframe, it added.

This ever-growing concentration of wealth is enabled by a monopolistic concentration of power, with billionaires increasingly exerting influence over industries and public opinion.

The report also shone a light on how, contrary to popular perception, billionaire wealth is largely unearned—60% of billionaire wealth now comes from inheritance, monopoly power or crony connections.

Unmerited wealth and colonialism—understood as not only a history of brutal wealth extraction but also a powerful force behind today’s extreme levels of inequality—stand as two major drivers of billionaire wealth accumulation.

Oxfam’s calculated that 36% of billionaire wealth is now inherited.

Research by Forbes found that every billionaire under 30 has inherited their wealth, while UBS estimates that over 1,000 of today’s billionaires will pass on more than $5.2 trillion to their heirs over the next two to three decades.

Many of the super-rich, particularly in Europe, owe part of their wealth to historical colonialism and the exploitation of poorer countries. For example, the fortune of billionaire Vincent Bolloré, who has put his sprawling media ‘empire’ at the service of France’s nationalist right, was built partly from colonial activities in Africa.

This dynamic of wealth extraction persists today: vast sums of money still flow from the Global South to countries in the Global North and their richest citizens, in what Oxfam’s report describes as modern-day colonialism.

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