[spyremeown]

>poorer side of Europe

Which is still much, much wealthier than most of colonized nations... except for Russia, due to the extreme political decline after the fall of the USSR.

>Many highly prosperous European countries of today didn't have massive overseas holdings, or only for a short time.

And I never said "colonies are needed for wealth". What is your point, exactly?

[hahaxdxd123]

> And I never said "colonies are needed for wealth". What is your point, exactly?

I think the point is that it's not this simple: "Even more so when the current economic prosperity of the colonizing countries is still very much derived from their past."

Poor countries that were colonized are definitely held back by it. The colonial powers left extremely extractive institutions that focused on funneling power and profits into small groups of people. When they left, those institutions and that culture stayed.

But isn't it difficult to say that Spain or Portugal's "wealth" today derives from colonial holdings years and years back? What did they extract that lasts today? In those 400 years, did they not spend most of their extracted silver and gold on things that are trivialities today (porcelain, tea, etc)? Or waste it buying arms during civil wars and dictatorships? I mean there was mass starvation during Franco's regime.

It seems to me likelier that their wealth comes from the things they have in common with prosperous countries that never were colonial powers (Taiwan, South Korea, etc). Educated populace, functioning capital markets, property rights, rule of law, etc.

[inglor_cz]

Russia was never rich, though some Russians certainly were. In the former Soviet Union, some subjugated nations like Ukraine and the Baltics had higher standards of living that Russia proper. Whoever came back from a USSR trip commented negatively on the standard of living of ordinary Russians: already in the 1970s and the 1980s, there were shortages of everything, including food.

Anecdotally, the Russo-Ukrainian war isn't the first opportunity when Russian soldiers marveled at the sight of flushing WCs; my ancestors saw the same in 1945 and 1968, on two occassions, when Russian soldiers could be met in Czechoslovak streets. In 1968, "we" hated them and pitied them at the same time; being a random Russian soldat was an unenviable position.

Most colonial wealth is long spent, on luxury and wars long forgotten. There may be some left in Britain, though they went broke over the two world wars, too. Otherwise, a few massive buildings are left standing (such as the colonial archive in Sevilla, impressive - I was there as a tourist), and refuse pits of former palaces are full of expensive wine bottles from the 18th century, but most of the contemporary wealthy class owes its riches to the industrial revolution and its aftereffects.

And that is why the current club of rich countries consists of a mix of former colonial powers, former non-colonial non-powers and former colonies. Places like Czechia, Poland, Ireland, Estonia, Finland, Singapore, South Korea, Israel and Taiwan were actually subjugated by stronger empires for much of their modern existence.

As another commenter said, strong rule of law, relatively free trade, ability to attract qualified workforce and protection of wealth makes countries in the 21st century prosperous much more reliably than violent land grabs that may actually cost you wealth instead of making it.