The "3rd world countries" resources were plundered and utilized for the development of the colonizers. The "3rd world countries" if left with their resources would have traded what they had and become "developed"
No, colonialism very much happened, it’s just the impact of colonialism on colonizers was much smaller than on the colonized.
All of the colonizer countries were much wealthier and technologically advanced before they started colonizing. The disparities were already enormous in 1500, before much of colonization happened. English, Dutch and Spanish became colonizers because they were more developed, not the other way around.
The “plunderers” had way more resources than the “plundered”: look at the trade volumes between England and its Indian colonies, and compare them with the volumes of domestic production in England: the latter has always been orders magnitude bigger than the former. It’s even more lopsided with African colonies.
Next, the little that the colonizers got out of the colonies were not “treasures” that were “plundered”, hindering development by victims of colonization. Spanish got a lot of silver from Argentina, but the silver was basically worthless to the natives, and had they kept all of it, they could’ve made more plates and jewelry, which in no way could have made them richer and more developed. In fact, metal oriented policy of Spain probably was detrimental to them too. But, if not the Spanish, the indigenous would not have worked Potosi mines anyway, so it’s moot. Most of physical resources that colonizers removed from colonies were like that: of what value are minerals in the ground, if the natives cannot extract them or make use of them?
Most of the actual use of colonies was cultivation of land and exploitation of human labor, often forced. These were overwhelmingly seriously underutilized by the natives. It should not need to be said, but knowing how obstinate some people are here, I’ll say it anyway: this underutilization in no way justifies colonization. Rather, the point is that the colonizers did not “plunder” land from colonies (because you can’t carry it away), and the amount of labor exploited was in almost all cases very small relative to the total workforce of the natives.
Finally, there are many countries that successfully developed without serious colonization effort. Consider Germany: it had some colonies, but only got them in late 1800s, and only keep them for three decades. It would be ridiculous to argue that Germany is now rich and developed thanks to these three crucial decades 1890-1920, when they held some colonies in Africa. In fact, they not only did not get wealthy by exploiting these, but most likely it was a net loss to them, considering the expense required to set them up.
All of this is not meant to excuse or justify colonization. Clearly, conquering and subjugating other nations by military force is wrong, according to our today’s moral standards. The point here is that the idea that it was the colonies that allowed some nations to become wealthy and developed, is simply wrong, and betrays lack of familiarity with economic history of the world.
I hope you're trolling. This would have been a Masterpiece of trolling actually, except that it touches a sensitive topic that's literally about the death and lives of billions of people in the last 500 year of western colonialism, and about one of the most barbaric genocide in the history of humankind.
Seriously, people are in colonialism denial now?