[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?

[ldhough]

People might debate how much of the killing was intentional but I wouldn't have thought it controversial to say that American natives, by and large, did not reap the benefits of colonization and actually incurred major losses.

[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.