The Application of the Combination Modes Approach to a Cross-Cultural Comparison of 19th Century Britain and 20th Century Malaya and China

Mainstream economics and development economics lacks a neutral cross-cultural model that may be applied to changing socioeconomic circumstances spanning historical periods at numerous levels. A combination modes theoretical model with a neutral methodology is suggested that may be used to assess socioeconomic change from all three major levels of analysis used in economics, the world economic order, the nation state and the family/household, cross-culturally and over differing historical periods. The combination modes analysis is used in this context to assess how the uniting factor of British Imperialism at the level of the world economic order caused women, against the tradition of their cultures, to become the main, independent breadwinners of their families causing resentment among their menfolk. It is also argued that the connection to the British Empire tended to make women the foundation of nascent capitalist industrialisation processes.