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Looking at the actual situation in countires, though, this is kind of a false argument. Take Africa. Given that there were only two uncolonized countries, the sample size there is too small to be meaningful, though the fact that neither Liberia nor Ethiopia fall into the lowest group of African countries in terms of either HDI, and there are a number of countries below both in Africa that did fall under colonial rule (Central African Republic, DR Congo, Malawi, Burindi below Liberia, plus Niger, Mozambique, Eritria, Guinea, Togo, Madagascar, and Guinea-Bissau below Ethiopia), would seem to indicate that colonial areas can be quite bad off. Lets also look at your example of Hong Kong. The issue there is that you're conflating a single city, one that was used as primarily a trading and financial hub for the British Empire, with an entire country. Cities across the world tend to be more prosperous in general than the rest of the country. Plenty of Latin American capital cities are quite modern, and many other coastal Chinese cities are as well, but that belies the widespread poverty that might exist in rural area. |