[quotz]

If Europeans were to argue about theft and slavery between themselves we would have endless wars and constant World War scenarios. Europe, since Ancient Greek time, was at war with itself literally all the time. I believe not a single day has passed in the history of Europe were there wasnt war waged up until modern times. Slavery and war treasures were omnipresent. its just the name of the game.

[rocknor]

Bad argument, not even comparable. Colonization of Africa, Asia and Americas was orders of magnitude worse, and more importantly, incredibly recent. Which is why the lingering effects are still there.

[simonh]

Well of course there are lingering effects. Sure. They're just not having macroscopic economic impact today.

If Europe was able to develop off the back of exploiting African resources, how come in the several generations since, Africa hasn't been able to develop off the back of African resources? What about all the developed countries that never had any significant empire? There are plenty of them.

[rocknor]

> They're just not having macroscopic economic impact today.

Nope. Sorry, you can't whitewash the facts so easily, us from the former colonies won't let you!

https://voxeu.org/article/economic-impact-colonialism

> If this is right, then a third of income inequality in the world today can be explained by the varying impact of European colonialism on different societies. A big deal.

> how come in the several generations since, Africa hasn't been able to develop off the back of African resources

Who says it hasn't? I invite you to look at graphs at https://gapminder.org/tools. You must avoid the natural binary thinking tendency, there is a whole spectrum between "developing" and "developed". Don't forget that factors like geographical/religious/linguistic etc affect speed of development. Why are black people in the US still not doing well, despite living in the richest country in the world? It is hard to get out of the vicious cycle of poverty.

> What about all the developed countries that never had any significant empire

Hmm, sneaky attempt at changing goal posts - I never said colonization was necessary for development!