> 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.
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.