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>There are western countries that are wealthy despite little to no involvement in slave trade. You're actually the first to mention the slave trade in the chain -- the discussion was just about wealth. Latin America is still also poor when compared to the "developed countries" at the top of the economic food chain, and their people weren't exported as slaves. But the economic and political structures left by colonialism (both internal and international) meant that the people from these countries could never get out of that hole. Ultimately, people in Finland live much better than in Bolivia because there's a lot more money going around to build nice infrastructure, pay for teachers, quality goods, food, and so on, and where this money comes from can be traced all the way to colonialism. Nokia couldn't have existed in Bolivia, even though the raw materials to make phones can be found there. It lacks absolutely everything else that is required to maintain a company like that: infrastructure, education, political stability. And the reason why this country lacks all of these things, is this "historical injustice". It's not only that the wealth was stolen, but also the capacity to create more wealth was stolen, not just the cobalt, but also the hypothetical industry that could have generated wealth for the people of the country. |
It was definitely colonised, lost all it's forests for the navies of the Empire, and yet is actually pretty rich today (although we still have a lot of post-colonial syndrome, to be fair).