Major modern colonizer countries are the United States, China, Russia, and France. Criteria for being considered a colonizer have to be a little bit more strict then “I have wasted toons of money trying to control a country between 1936 and 1941 for prestige”.
I have said “Major” meaning the form of colonialism that have the biggest economic impact. Belgium neocolonialism and Dutch neocolonialism are not nearly on the same scale as the others I have shared.
France colonialism is not fully backed by allies. Heck, Italy nearly went into a proxy war with France in Libya after they decided that Gaddafi was not good for “humanitarian reasons” and backed LNA against UN-supported GNA.
If those are allies supporting each other then I need to rethink the meaning of the world. See Meloni blasting France on national television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NBf1C4YMNw
Criteria for being considered a colonizer have to be a little bit more strict then “I have wasted toons of money trying to control a country between 1936 and 1941 for prestige”.
Congo, Angola, Mozambique aren’t past tense. Over half the EU built colonial systems and still benefit from their evolved forms.
Also France backed the LNA in Libya, undermined the UN-recognized GNA, and faced zero material consequences. Not an accident. Their allies sustain and support their colonialism and neocolonialism.
France remains a core member of NATO, EU, G7, UNSC. Also France maintains the CFA franc. Military bases across West and Central Africa. Corporate access secured through policy shaped in Brussels and Paris. Whether Meloni yells on TV, the structure which is supported through integration into the EU and NATO doesn’t change. No sanctions. No budget cuts. No accountability.
Words don’t dismantle systems. Material support sustains them. And that support never stops for the major powers. Lives on the periphery absorb the cost.
Yes, welcome to realpolitik. You face consequences if someone stronger than you wants you to face consequences.
Do you think Italy would ever sanction France and leave the EU, destroying their entire economy in the process, on principle?
Europe kept being dependent on Russia giving them money fueling their war of conquest in Ukraine for years, and they still do that despite the sanctions and billions of euros spent to arm Ukraine. Do you really think they are not willingly letting the shadow fleet exist? Are you really that naive?
You realize what you’re saying just confirms my point? Supporting colonialism because it serves your national interest is still supporting colonialism. Realpolitik is simply the justification.
The EU and NATO are led by imperialist powers and their allies. The social, economic, and military stability of the West is built directly on neocolonial extraction from the periphery. Of course they support it. The system reproduces itself.
And lol at “naive.” I don’t expect those who benefit directly from imperialism to take meaningful steps to stop it.
My issue is with you pretending colonial powers are something they’re not. I’m just pointing out the reality.
Plenty of rapists justify their crimes to themselves. Doesn’t make them not rapists.
No I am not confirming your point at all.
Not attaching another country that is exploiting neocolonialism is not the same as supporting: it is tolerating an abuse. Thats it.
The social, economic and military stability of the West is absolutely not built on neocolonial extraction. That is utterly absurd.
You need to frame this statement. If a german company is providing capital, jobs and infrastructure to a developing country via foreign direct investment is it neocolonial extraction for you? What exactly is the neocolonial extraction of Spain for example? Are we talking bought assets of telephone companies and banks in latin America?
The West is rich because it developed a highly productive, technology advanced, well-governed domestic economy.
Germany was one of the strongest industrial economy by 1880 without a single colony. The same was true for Italy.
Nobody deny that some western and non western countries have some strong form of control and direct power projection on developing countries (as I said already, mainly US, Russia, China and France). But that comes with being a powerful country (or powerful company) that has the means to impose themself on other. That has always been the case.
Not attaching another country that is exploiting neocolonialism is not the same as supporting: it is tolerating an abuse.
That is a distinction without a material difference. If your economy runs on cheap resources secured by French military bases, and your banks profit from CFA franc transactions, and your corporations get preferential access through EU trade deals shaped in Paris and Brussels, you are not “tolerating” anything. You are benefiting. That is support.
The West is rich because it developed a highly productive, technology advanced, well-governed domestic economy. Germany was one of the strongest industrial economy by 1880 without a single colony.
This is propaganda slop. Germany industrialized on cotton from colonized Africa, rubber from the Congo, minerals from occupied territories. Its banks financed colonial ventures. Its firms sold into colonial markets protected by British and French guns. Italy likewise. No direct colonies does not mean no colonial benefit. The entire European system was integrated. Extraction in the periphery subsidized accumulation in the core. That is the material record.
If a german company is providing capital, jobs and infrastructure to a developing country via foreign direct investment is it neocolonial extraction for you?
When that investment secures resource access, repatriates profits, shapes local policy to favor foreign capital, and leaves the host economy dependent, yes. That is the form extraction takes now. It does not need flags or governors.
What exactly is the neocolonial extraction of Spain for example? Are we talking bought assets of telephone companies and banks in latin America?
Yes. Exactly that. Spanish banks and telecoms dominate markets in Latin America not because of superior efficiency, but because of historical ties, language, and financial structures that replicate colonial patterns. Capital flows one way. Profits flow back. Local development stays constrained. That is not coincidence. It is continuity.
You are not wrong that powerful countries impose themselves. But that power was built on centuries of extraction. To pretend the West got rich by being smarter, better governed, or more innovative while ignoring the enslaved labor, stolen land, and plundered resources that funded that rise is either naive (the irony) or dishonest.
I know you probably have a thought terminating cliche to dismiss what I’m about to say but, you really should read Lenin, Fanon, Walter Rodney, Kwame Nkrumah, Samir Amin, and Aimé Césaire.
So in the end of all of this discussion we are more or less agreeing on reality.
The only difference is that you think that somewhat private companies should refrain from increasing their value by any means that could introduce a dependency between two separate countries, and that means in practice you want to ban foreign direct investment globally.
I simply say that there is no support for this in the current capital based society by both the companies and the countries receiving the investment. There is nothing forced in China neocolonialism for example. That is pure foreign investment exploitation.
But just to clarify some points, Europe is actually richer because it was smarter, better governed and more innovative. How the fuck do you think was possible for an island of 10 million people to control half the world? Why does the world let them do it? Do you think that this was not the same as the time Rome, a city state in the middle of Italy, controlled the entirety of Europe and Nord Africa? Colonialism is a consequence of being richer, innovative and better governed, not a driver.
This is propaganda slop. Germany industrialized on cotton from colonized Africa, rubber from the Congo, minerals from occupied territories. Its banks financed colonial ventures. Its firms sold into colonial markets protected by British and French guns. Italy likewise. No direct colonies does not mean no colonial benefit. The entire European system was integrated. Extraction in the periphery subsidized accumulation in the core. That is the material record.
No, the material record says that most important drivers for early Germany industrialization were coal and steel, railways, chemical and electrical engineering and agriculture. Raw materials import on the global market accounted for at most 10% of the GDP. Certainly relevant, but to say that Germany industrialization was built on colonialism is simply false. It was built on locally sourced pure german coal mined by poor german people.
Major modern colonizer countries are the United States, China, Russia, and France. Criteria for being considered a colonizer have to be a little bit more strict then “I have wasted toons of money trying to control a country between 1936 and 1941 for prestige”.
The Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Mozambique, Suriname etc. would probably disagree with you.
Not to mind the fact that much of the US and France colonialism and neocolonialism is fully backed by allies.
I have said “Major” meaning the form of colonialism that have the biggest economic impact. Belgium neocolonialism and Dutch neocolonialism are not nearly on the same scale as the others I have shared.
France colonialism is not fully backed by allies. Heck, Italy nearly went into a proxy war with France in Libya after they decided that Gaddafi was not good for “humanitarian reasons” and backed LNA against UN-supported GNA. If those are allies supporting each other then I need to rethink the meaning of the world. See Meloni blasting France on national television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NBf1C4YMNw
You said
Congo, Angola, Mozambique aren’t past tense. Over half the EU built colonial systems and still benefit from their evolved forms.
Also France backed the LNA in Libya, undermined the UN-recognized GNA, and faced zero material consequences. Not an accident. Their allies sustain and support their colonialism and neocolonialism.
France remains a core member of NATO, EU, G7, UNSC. Also France maintains the CFA franc. Military bases across West and Central Africa. Corporate access secured through policy shaped in Brussels and Paris. Whether Meloni yells on TV, the structure which is supported through integration into the EU and NATO doesn’t change. No sanctions. No budget cuts. No accountability.
Words don’t dismantle systems. Material support sustains them. And that support never stops for the major powers. Lives on the periphery absorb the cost.
Yes, welcome to realpolitik. You face consequences if someone stronger than you wants you to face consequences.
Do you think Italy would ever sanction France and leave the EU, destroying their entire economy in the process, on principle?
Europe kept being dependent on Russia giving them money fueling their war of conquest in Ukraine for years, and they still do that despite the sanctions and billions of euros spent to arm Ukraine. Do you really think they are not willingly letting the shadow fleet exist? Are you really that naive?
You realize what you’re saying just confirms my point? Supporting colonialism because it serves your national interest is still supporting colonialism. Realpolitik is simply the justification.
The EU and NATO are led by imperialist powers and their allies. The social, economic, and military stability of the West is built directly on neocolonial extraction from the periphery. Of course they support it. The system reproduces itself.
And lol at “naive.” I don’t expect those who benefit directly from imperialism to take meaningful steps to stop it.
My issue is with you pretending colonial powers are something they’re not. I’m just pointing out the reality.
Plenty of rapists justify their crimes to themselves. Doesn’t make them not rapists.
No I am not confirming your point at all. Not attaching another country that is exploiting neocolonialism is not the same as supporting: it is tolerating an abuse. Thats it.
The social, economic and military stability of the West is absolutely not built on neocolonial extraction. That is utterly absurd. You need to frame this statement. If a german company is providing capital, jobs and infrastructure to a developing country via foreign direct investment is it neocolonial extraction for you? What exactly is the neocolonial extraction of Spain for example? Are we talking bought assets of telephone companies and banks in latin America?
The West is rich because it developed a highly productive, technology advanced, well-governed domestic economy. Germany was one of the strongest industrial economy by 1880 without a single colony. The same was true for Italy.
Nobody deny that some western and non western countries have some strong form of control and direct power projection on developing countries (as I said already, mainly US, Russia, China and France). But that comes with being a powerful country (or powerful company) that has the means to impose themself on other. That has always been the case.
That is a distinction without a material difference. If your economy runs on cheap resources secured by French military bases, and your banks profit from CFA franc transactions, and your corporations get preferential access through EU trade deals shaped in Paris and Brussels, you are not “tolerating” anything. You are benefiting. That is support.
This is propaganda slop. Germany industrialized on cotton from colonized Africa, rubber from the Congo, minerals from occupied territories. Its banks financed colonial ventures. Its firms sold into colonial markets protected by British and French guns. Italy likewise. No direct colonies does not mean no colonial benefit. The entire European system was integrated. Extraction in the periphery subsidized accumulation in the core. That is the material record.
When that investment secures resource access, repatriates profits, shapes local policy to favor foreign capital, and leaves the host economy dependent, yes. That is the form extraction takes now. It does not need flags or governors.
Yes. Exactly that. Spanish banks and telecoms dominate markets in Latin America not because of superior efficiency, but because of historical ties, language, and financial structures that replicate colonial patterns. Capital flows one way. Profits flow back. Local development stays constrained. That is not coincidence. It is continuity.
You are not wrong that powerful countries impose themselves. But that power was built on centuries of extraction. To pretend the West got rich by being smarter, better governed, or more innovative while ignoring the enslaved labor, stolen land, and plundered resources that funded that rise is either naive (the irony) or dishonest.
I know you probably have a thought terminating cliche to dismiss what I’m about to say but, you really should read Lenin, Fanon, Walter Rodney, Kwame Nkrumah, Samir Amin, and Aimé Césaire.
So in the end of all of this discussion we are more or less agreeing on reality.
The only difference is that you think that somewhat private companies should refrain from increasing their value by any means that could introduce a dependency between two separate countries, and that means in practice you want to ban foreign direct investment globally. I simply say that there is no support for this in the current capital based society by both the companies and the countries receiving the investment. There is nothing forced in China neocolonialism for example. That is pure foreign investment exploitation.
But just to clarify some points, Europe is actually richer because it was smarter, better governed and more innovative. How the fuck do you think was possible for an island of 10 million people to control half the world? Why does the world let them do it? Do you think that this was not the same as the time Rome, a city state in the middle of Italy, controlled the entirety of Europe and Nord Africa? Colonialism is a consequence of being richer, innovative and better governed, not a driver.
No, the material record says that most important drivers for early Germany industrialization were coal and steel, railways, chemical and electrical engineering and agriculture. Raw materials import on the global market accounted for at most 10% of the GDP. Certainly relevant, but to say that Germany industrialization was built on colonialism is simply false. It was built on locally sourced pure german coal mined by poor german people.
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