Why? I think there's a definite argument to be made that a large part of the West's foundation of economic power is rooted in a history of colonialism and global oppression.
Yip, they sure stole a lot of stuff - as of course did the Mongols and the Aztecs who are now dirt poor. In addition, the Ventians and Swiss never colonised anyone and are/were dripping cash.
But your comment is already a lot more nuanced than the OP's lazy clichéd statements.
A hell of a lot of their wealth also came from, amongst other things:
- individual rights - e,g, Magna caerta - no theft involved
- invention of limited liability corporations
- cadastas and private property rights (no theft involved)
- common law based on precedent (no theft involved)
- investment in mechanised warfare (to keep what they made and stole, see Mongols above)
- etc. etc.
Once only has to compare Singapore (colonised by British and Japanese) with Ghana since independence in the 1960s. Singapore has no water, no resources, no power, is surrounded by hostile neighbours, but is absolutely loaded. Ghana is resource rich and dirt poor.
You can decide for yourself who implemented the list above and who did not. You can also guess who is going to keep digging the hole they are in.
But I guess in certain progressive circles, "they stole it" passes for a rigourous analysis. [ And they get the bonus of claiming the moral high ground of being the perpetual victim ].
It has been noticed that resource rich countries in Africa actually do worse on average than those without. There's a lot of theories as to why: a common one is that it leads to brittle economies with all their eggs in one basket. If your country is rich in emeralds let's say, it doesn't take the entire countries population to mine enough to sell, so what does everyone else do when the whole economy is built around emerald mining? This leads to higher unemployment that's been seen in the mineral rich African states. It also means the economy is very sensitive to the market of the few goods they are rich in.
In essence: it is the effect of the entire European world coming in, taking whatever they want, and then absolutely ensuring that independence would be doomed to fail. These economies fail because they're not modern. If Europe wanted Africa to succeed post-colonialisn: it could have helped train people, build infrastructure, etc. Instead they secured rights for foreign companies to continue the work of imperialism even today.
As yet another African, the logic is pretty solid to me: the literal Crown Jewels of the United Kingdom have gems plundered from the colonies, most notable is the biggest gem of the entire collection: the diamond known as "The Star of Africa".
And how do the Crown Jewels give any level of wealth to the common person of the UK?
Do the Crown Jewels produce billions of dollars daily that gets handed out to each citizen?
Or was it actually the British creating ships, goods, establishing trading posts, furthering science and creating the newest machinery etc... that created their wealth? (And still creates it to this day)
And since we are on the topic of the South African 'Star of Africa', the astute investor should note that those muppets in South Africa are busy changing their constitution to allow the expropriation of private property from their own citizens (never mind evil foreigners) a) without compensation, and b) just for kicks - without recourse to the courts.
So I ask you: would you be happy if your pension administrator sold up in Switzerland and USA invested your retirement in South African farms and factories?
It will impoverish them further, and yet it will be someone else's fault.
Extreme inequality and polarization has consequences. The "rainbow nation" never came to be because wealthy South Africans do not see themselves as having the same destiny as their fellow citizens, and the poor have cottoned on.
> It will impoverish them further, and yet it will be someone else's fault.
I've noticed certain parallels between segments of South African and American society: people who feel they have been left behind by a wealthy elite that doesn't care about them, and are willing to burn everything to the ground and start anew. Cue a charismatic politician who radically panders to them (despite being part of the elite), the only differences are that South Africa has objectively worse inequality, and has a longer political cycle.
You did not dispute the point I was making: that wealth was plundered. If the crown jewels do not (directly) benefit UK citizens, that doesn't mean other plundered wealth doesn't benefit the average citizen. For that, you can dig into the infrastructure, bequests, scholarships, to mention a few examples that were funded by plundering and exploiting colonies.
Ok, so can you show that directly plundered/stolen wealth actually helped much?
Setting up trading posts and controlling the beginnings of truly international trade over 200-300 years ago... I would think that would set a country up well moving forward, and somebody eventually had to do it. British were one of the first.