Colonialism, Exploitation and Independence

[Lexicus]

you'd laugh at him.

EDIT: Even though it does not take a Nobel laureate to raise and prove a hypothesis that having a well-off grandpa makes it statistically somewhat more likely for his grandkids to be well off as well.

...thus making the earlier laughter appear a bit foolish. This is funny on multiple levels, because even taken at face value I'd be inclined to get more information before dismissing the grandpa story out of hand. But, to make a broader point, many Americans will be looking at this hypothetical and scratching their heads because (to invoke only one dimension of injustice) of course it's patently obvious that our grandparents living in a racially segregated society has massive impacts on how wealth is distributed today. My paternal grandfather went to college and got a mortgage through government programs that were unavailable to black people! The idea that this has no impact on my present situation vs a black person whose grandpa couldn't have those things is actually quite absurd and indeed worthy of dismissive laughter.

 

[choxorn]

the wise man bowed his head and said solemnly, "past events actually have no impact on the present"

 

[Samson]

Randomly stumbled upon a chart today that shows how Polish GDP per capita today is 6 times higher than Venezuela's, despite being only 2/3 of it mere 30 years ago.

Forgive me if I can not take people who attribute poor performance of a country to "bad institutions left behind by colonizers 200 years ago" entirely seriously.

View attachment 746211

The interpretation here would be that the USSR provided protection of property rights, efficient institutions and/or the ability to commit to an economic policy that was absent in Venezula.

 

[Arwon]

It certainly reads that Poland was left better prepared for independence under the Warsaw Pact than countries under the imperialism of capitalist colonial states were. Not sure that's what's trying to be suggested here but hey.

Edit: or rather, specifically under Spanish imperialism and later American hemispheric domination I suppose.

 

[Yeekim]

The interpretation here would be that the USSR provided protection of property rights, efficient institutions and/or the ability to commit to an economic policy that was absent in Venezula.

That would be the interpretation if you either:
1) have zero knowledge about USSR;
2) are willing to ignore everything you actually know about USSR to "win" an argument.

 

[Klaus Hergersheimer]

@ Klaus

If you give them handouts, they merely think you are stupid and demand more money.


I find that the concept that the citizens of the UK today and in the future should own the historical guilt and seek
to expunge themselves of that by paying reparations or accepting de facto reverse colonisation quite absurd.

Curious: does the UK get many complaints from Hong Kong or Singapore about this reparations thing? ...Ireland?

 

[Senethro]

Curious: does the UK get many complaints from Hong Kong or Singapore about this reparations thing? ...Ireland?

Did you know Ireland's population just recently grew past the previous high point that was prior to a particular time Britain was extracting food from a famine struck nation?

 

[Yeekim]

The idea that this has no impact on my present situation

the wise man bowed his head and said solemnly, "past events actually have no impact on the present"

Not what was said.
"I have not been able to improve because of what happened before I was born" or
"I have screwed up everything because of what happened before I was born"
is markedly different from:
"What happened before I was born has had no impact on me".

 

[danjuno]

That would be the interpretation if you either:
1) have zero knowledge about USSR;
2) are willing to ignore everything you actually know about USSR to "win" an argument.

Actually it's the result of a crappy sample. You posted two former colonies and two former Eastern Bloc states, and said graph showed the former Eastern Bloc states doing better. You only have yourself to blame.

Curious: does the UK get many complaints from Hong Kong or Singapore about this reparations thing? ...Ireland?

Hong Kong and Singapore are basically city states, so I don't know how'd you compare them to a regular country.

As for Ireland, most of smaller European countries that never colonized or were colonies themselves benefited post-independence from being in the EU economic bloc and having access to the wealthier market the old colonial powers had created for themselvesin their metropoles.

"I have screwed up everything because of what happened before I was born"

No one is defending the logic as you phrase here, that is a strawman.

 

[Yeekim]

Actually it's the result of a crappy sample. You posted two former colonies and two former Eastern Bloc states, and said graph showed the former Eastern Bloc states doing better. You only have yourself to blame.

I am sorry for assuming people would have and apply some elementary knowledge of the world outside of what I'm including in my posts.
Or do you also wish to claim that USSR was a great champion of property rights?

No one is defending the logic as you phrase here, that is a strawman.

If people are arguing that today's Argentina is a basket case because it is a former colony, then that is exactly the logic they are defending.

 

[amadeus]

I’m not sure what the comparison is trying to say about colonialism, both Poland and Venezuela have radically different histories leading up to the present and I don’t see how their respective development can be isolated to a few variables.

 

[Yeekim]

Did you know Ireland's population just recently grew past the previous high point that was prior to a particular time Britain was extracting food from a famine struck nation?

Yes.
How unfortunate they were never able to recover from that.
Oh, wait...

 

[Yeekim]

I’m not sure what the comparison is trying to say about colonialism, both Poland and Venezuela have radically different histories leading up to the present and I don’t see how their respective development can be isolated to a few variables.

Precisely.
Each country is unique.
A single generation can be enough to turn things around in either direction.
Reducing issues of entire global South onto one single variable of "colonization... once upon time" is intellectually weak.

 

[caketastydelish]

Civilization IV: Colonization

Sid Meier's Civilization IV: Colonization (called Civilization IV: Colonization, Civ4Col, or C4C for short) is a standalone title in the Civilization series based on Civilization IV, using the same engine and a similar interface. It does not require you to have Civilization IV (nor the original...

civilization.fandom.com

 

[danjuno]

I am sorry for assuming people would have and apply some elementary knowledge of the world outside of what I'm including in my posts.
Or do you also wish to claim that USSR was a great champion of property rights?

Nope, people are having a go at you because you posted a bad chart that not only doesn't prove your point but can also be twisted into ways you obviously do not want.

Precisely.
Each country is unique.
A single generation can be enough to turn things around in either direction.
Reducing issues of entire global South onto one single variable of "colonization... once upon time" is intellectually weak.

Focusing on the effects of colonialism or arguing that countries that have been recently (within the scope of history) colonized are still significantly effected because this is a colonialism thread is not "reducing the issues of the entire global South onto one single variable".

Yes.
How unfortunate they were never able to recover from that.
Oh, wait...

Again with the strawmanning.

 

[Lexicus]

Not what was said.
"I have not been able to improve because of what happened before I was born" or
"I have screwed up everything because of what happened before I was born"
is markedly different from:
"What happened before I was born has had no impact on me".

What was said was, precisely:

any present shortcomings or successes will have much more immediate causes than whatever transpired centuries ago.

This is not necessarily a correct statement. As anyone who knows anything about history will understand, it depends!

What we are trying to do here is establish the baseline that the global south is starting from behind in part because the first-to-industrialize countries went out and conquered them. The ongoing dynamics that continue to constrain the global south are a different conversation!

 

[Yeekim]

Nope, people are having a go at you because you posted a bad chart that not only doesn't prove your point but can also be twisted into ways you obviously do not want.

Anything can be "twisted", if people have zero knowledge on what they are arguing about, or are willing to ignore it to "win".

But all right - I can post a different chart.
Spain vs certain former colonies.
Strange how quite a few were doing better than Spain for most of XX century...

 

[choxorn]

Precisely.
Each country is unique.
A single generation can be enough to turn things around in either direction.
Reducing issues of entire global South onto one single variable of "colonization... once upon time" is intellectually weak.

okay then

so why do you think the global south is generally poorer than eastern europe if it's not mainly the after-effects of colonization

what do you think is unique about them

what do poland and spain and estonia have going for them that venezuela and argentina and uruguay don't

 

[danjuno]

Anything can be "twisted", if people have zero knowledge on what they are arguing about, or are willing to ignore it to "win".

But all right - I can post a different chart.
Spain vs certain former colonies.
Strange how quite a few were doing better than Spain for most of XX century...
View attachment 746242

Interesting chart, but how does Spain and their former colonies stack up to the other colonial powers and their colonies over the same time period?

 

[amadeus]

What we are trying to do here is establish the baseline that the global south is starting from behind in part because the first-to-industrialize countries went out and conquered them.

Not as a gotcha question, but how would you characterize the disparity between those countries that were not conquered—namely Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Japan, Thailand, and Turkey? I guess I could include China in this list, despite the unequal treaties, none of which forbade economic development (unlike the Qing dynasts…!)

To the thread: social sciences are not science in the way that we can empirically test and evaluate things with controls. Every country and situation is going to be different, but I think what would be an interesting study would be to take a look at the post-USSR states and compare those that were similar at the time of the Warsaw Pact’s dissolution and how the fare now.

Off the top of my head, I think Belarus was one of the wealthier Soviet republics towards the end of the Brezhnev era, within a degree of countries like Poland and Czechoslovakia. Post-breakup though, both have surged far ahead of Belarus which is sputtered along in its Lada. Taking these places from a relatively equal baseline, it seems like factor of how they are governed after they are independent is much more important than if they were colonized.