The U.S. Goverment

[Potjeh]

Yeah, Germany built it's wealth on trade with those colonial powers, which was made possible by the syphoning of resource from places like India, China and South Africa to Europe. I might be mistaken, but I think Sweden mainly got rich on exporting iron and iron products to the colonial powers. And I'm sure it's industry's decline had something to do with the shift of heavy industry to third world countries with cheap labour.

[jorb]

And the 19th century growth in Europe had nothing to do with exploitation of the colonies?

Yes. All the factories growing on trees in Africa were stolen and brought to Europe.

The bringing of the colonies into the world wide global system of division of labor was of course an economic boon both for them and for their colonizers, but Germany for example didn't get any until very late, Sweden never had them (in any meaningful sense). In order to get colonies one must first be affluent enough to undertake the taking of them. You'll notice that no African colonies were established in Europe.

There was no poverty or hunger among the lower classes either, nono.

Of course there was! Resources are scarce! They always were, are and will be! But please look at the alternative. Compare the 19th century to earlier eras. Do not buy into some marxist pipe-dream of a rural society where all was good and well and everyone had food. The population *doubled* during the 19th century. That is the most telling sign of increasing general prosperity. At the end of it everyone was richer, better fed and healthier than any human generation before it. This is the foundation of our false modern belief of eternal and necessary progress. During previous centuries there was very little progress at all.

People weren't hungry because capitalists are evil and bad people, but because there was not enough food to feed them. If you had taken all of the surplus away from the higher classes and distributed it equally among the lower you would have given everyone a handful of crumbs each at the end of it.

The alternative was not McDonald's for everyone.

[Potjeh]

The bringing of the colonies into the world wide global system of division of labor was of course an economic boon both for them and for their colonizers

Yeah, it's just that those ungrateful inferior races didn't understand that opium is good for them.

[SacreDoom]

Yeah, it's just that those ungrateful inferior races didn't understand that opium is good for them.

Lol.

[jorb]

The bringing of the colonies into the world wide global system of division of labor was of course an economic boon both for them and for their colonizers

Yeah, it's just that those ungrateful inferior races didn't understand that opium is good for them.

No schools were established in Africa, no railroads were built, no rule of law maintained, no mining projects undertaken, no dams built, no suez canal, no hospitals, no missionaries teaching the people how to read, Gordon never taught any Ugandans how to burn bricks, no steam ships were brought to the continent. Teaching people how to read, write and count was not a European concern. Europeans did not believe that they had a mission to uplift these places.

I do not want to white-wash the record of colonialism because its history contains abuses, and it would be pointless to deny that. You, on the other hand, need to work a bit on your intellectual honesty.

EDIT: Malaria was not combated, no swamps were drained, no roads were built, no maps and geological surveys, nothing, nothing, nothing of any boon to anyone.

[jorb]

School in German East Africa. Oh, noes, there is a picture of the Kaiser on the Wall! Damn European barbarians!

[Potjeh]

And Africa is such a shithole now because black people just weren't smart enough to maintain the wonderful society that Europeans built them?

[pyrale]

Ok, now we know that you're trolling.
inb4 Jorb explains us how slavery was a good thing for everyone - including slaves, and why soviet china is the best country evah.

[jorb]

Unlike the Belgian, British, French and Portuguese colonial masters in central Africa, Germany developed an educational program for Africans that involved elementary, secondary and vocational schools. "Instructor qualifications, curricula, textbooks, teaching materials, all met standards unmatched anywhere in tropical Africa."[8] In 1924, ten years after the beginning of the First World War and six years into British rule, the visiting American Phelps-Stokes Commission reported: "In regards to schools, the Germans have accomplished marvels. Some time must elapse before education attains the standard it had reached under the Germans."

[jorb]

And Africa is such a shithole now because black people just weren't smart enough to maintain the wonderful society that Europeans built them?

And I am the one who can't find my shoes because I'm blinded by ideology? Things are never that simple.