[trextrex]

Very interesting and insightful article. But I always find it odd when historical articles omit the role of massive resource extraction from the colonies that provided the driving force in European economies to be able to convert all the ideas into actual reality.

[abecedarius]

When people assert that extractive empires, which go back to the beginning of civilization, are the "driving force" behind the order-of-magnitude per-capita wealth increase of the last couple of centuries -- and often put it like it needs no argument -- that's what struck me as odd when I first started seeing this claim a lot in recent years.

(I agree the sins of the colonizers and their role in European growth are worth talking about, of course. But the view where they were obviously the key factor behind a phase change in the rate of progress now shared with the majority of the world, that's really alien. I guess we both find each other odd.)

[zeteo]

European growth was propelled by a diversity of extracted resources. Previous empires extracted mostly food. A system such as the Dutch East Indies in the 1600s, where the natives were forced to neglect growing food for themselves and tend to the production of spices instead (to be sold halfway across the world) [1], would have been completely out of place as the way to run a province of the Roman or the Ottoman Empire. Another example is that the Indians were forced to stop producing their own textiles ("calicoes" that were quite popular on the world market) in order to buy inferior English products instead (for which they would ship the raw cotton); again, something never encountered at this scale in the classical or medieval worlds [2].

[1] https://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/server/api/core/bitstr...

[2] https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w10586/w105...

[SpicyLemonZest]

The article covers a large enough chunk of time that it gets very awkward to talk about "colonialism" as such. One of the incidents the article describes was the Dutch Revolt, where the people of the Netherlands overthrew their oppressive foreign rulers and began to flourish as an independent country. A shining example of an anti-colonial revolt, except that for historiographical reasons we don't call it that.

[p0d]

Do you think the extraction of resources created wealth and progress at home and abroad?

I have it fixed in my head that progress generally requires an external catalyst. In 2023, it would be very controversial to suggest Europe and the historical colonies are both wealthier as a result.

I have seen how the Spanish destroyed La Paz's natural environment yet it is a bustling city. What do you think?

[trextrex]

No, I think the extraction of resources from the colonies created a lot of wealth in Europe. In fact, a very strong argument could be made that that's where our (euro-centric) belief in abundance comes from.

Why the colonies were so adversely affected is a bit more complicated, and I think is more related to destruction of existing societal institutions and the installation of deliberately extractive institutions.

[jayGlow]

Wealth was definitely created in some colonies, the wealthiest country in the world is made up of former colonies.

[ppsreejith]

Wealth was definitely created in the colonies but the native inhabitants were almost always adversely affected. In the current wealthiest country in the world, it was the European migrants that benefited while the natives were mostly killed or eliminated.

[ldhough]

How is this being downvoted enough to be greyed out?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Population_history_of_the_Indi...

[barbazoo]

Is that a controversial thing to talk about in the US?

[brightlancer]

> In the current wealthiest country in the world, it was the European migrants that benefited while the natives were mostly killed or eliminated.

The aboriginal peoples of the Americas mostly died from diseases which they hadn't been exposed to. It was tragic but not unique and rarely deliberate.

But what about the smallpox blankets? Well, smallpox isn't spread through bedding, and that single story happened in the late 1800s after centuries of the aboriginal peoples dying of disease.

Sure, they were monsters for _trying_ to kill those people with smallpox, but it didn't work.

There was plenty of war, also, and later displacement and Indian Schools and other atrocities, but we shouldn't promote a "noble savage" myth or misrepresent what killed the aboriginal peoples: it was disease as a natural consequence of contact with foreign peoples.

[fnimick]

Not just native inhabitants, people like to forget the whole "slavery" thing.

[goodbyesf]

There is a difference between traditional colonies that were exploited for resources and some of their wealth was stolen and those like the US where the natives were outright exterminated and all the wealth stolen outright.

A world of difference between say the philippines or india and 'settler colonies' of the US, Canada, etc.

When people talk europeans exploiting their colonies, most are talking about traditional colonies, not settler colonies which are ultimately european nations themselves.

[zeteo]

> Wealth was definitely created in some colonies, the wealthiest country in the world is made up of former colonies.

Insofar as the mother country was inexperienced at having colonies and lax at imposing its will on them. The British tried hard to prevent America from establishing any industries and reduce it to just importing everything at the cost of raw resources. They got a bit distracted in the 1600s with civil war and religious strife, and in the 1700s with fighting the French; so a bit of wealth accumulated in America anyway. (Much if not most of it belonged to smugglers.)

In the 1800s the British imperialists got their act together and became much more efficient at extracting wealth from their colonies, as evidenced by massive famines ( Ireland, India), opium wars etc.

[dragonwriter]

> The British tried hard to prevent America from establishing any industries and reduce it to just importing everything at the cost of raw resources. They got a bit distracted in the 1600s with civil war and religious strife, and in the 1700s with fighting the French; so a bit of wealth accumulated in America anyway. (Much if not most of it belonged to smugglers.)

Its kind of odd that people miss this (and particularly the first sentence) since that’s the big picture behind essentially each of the specific grievances that led to the rebellion.

[p0d]

I imagine this is true. It was strange passing a mine in Bolivia owned by a company local to myself in the UK. Who got wealthy and who lost out due to the colonies is another question I imagine.

[fallingknife]

Were they so adversely affected? Doesn't seem to hold up to scrutiny. Why is south Africa which was the most heavily colonized part of Africa not any worse off than Ethiopia which wasn't colonized? Why are the different countries in south America so different economically today even though they were mostly colonized by the same regime?

Also take Ireland, which is now richer than it's colonizer.

[local_issues]

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskHistory/comments/hy9gqo/europe_i...

The colonies were a burden. They were useful for military and political reasons, but not for economic reasons. The reason Europe is so wealthy is Capitalism and early industrialization. The reason the colonies are so poor is colonialism.

It was a shitty deal for everyone involved

[trextrex]

But it seems to miss the point that capitalism requires cheap resources and also markets, and the European countries got these resources at huge concessions from the colonies which also provided a market for them. For example the British used Indian tax to buy cotton with tax collected from India, send it to the industrialised production centres (while deliberately destroying the traditional ones in India), and then sell it back to the Indians.

An easier way to understand it is imagine if the US got a 5% discount on Chinese imports -- would that help the US economy? British got close to a 90% discount (by force) on imports from India.

[local_issues]

Capitalism doesn't require anything besides a court system capable of enforcing contracts.