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.
So in the end of all of this discussion we are more or less agreeing on reality.
No. You are describing the appearance. I am pointing to the essence.
Europe is actually richer because it was smarter, better governed and more innovative.
This is pure idealism (a fairytale). Ideas do not float above material conditions. Innovation is not spontaneous. It is produced by specific relations of production. Britain did not control half the world because of superior governance. It controlled half the world because it had accumulated capital through enslaved labor, stolen land, and plundered resources. That capital funded the railways, the factories, the universities you credit for “innovation.” To reverse this is to confuse effect for cause.
Colonialism is a consequence of being richer, innovative and better governed, not a driver.
This is a core error. Colonialism was not a side effect. It was a primary mechanism of primitive accumulation. The enclosure of commons, the transatlantic slave trade, the extraction of rubber, cotton, minerals, these were not incidental. They were foundational to the rise of European capital. The periphery was not “left behind.” It was actively underdeveloped to serve accumulation in the core. Again you should read Walter Rodney.
No, the material record says that most important drivers for early Germany industrialization were coal and steel, railways, chemical and electrical engineering and agriculture.
Yes. And where did the capital for those railways come from? Who bought the chemicals and electrical goods? German industry developed within a global system structured by colonial extraction. The “10% of GDP” argument is a fetish of the statistic. Capital is not just raw inputs. It is profit, reinvestment, market access, financial infrastructure. All of which were shaped by colonial relations. To isolate one variable is to ignore the totality.
There is nothing forced in China neocolonialism for example. That is pure foreign investment exploitation.
This is propaganda slop. Chinese investment operates differently. No structural adjustment programs. No conditionalities demanding privatization, austerity, or deregulation. No regime change tied to loans. Debt renegotiations happen without military intervention. That is a material difference. It does not mean China is “pure.” But to equate it with Western neocolonialism is to ignore how power actually functions in each case.
Western capital extracts through institutions it controls: IMF, World Bank, WTO. These enforce rules that reproduce dependency. Chinese capital operates through bilateral contracts. The mechanism matters. The outcome is not identical. To conflate them is either ignorance or bad faith.
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?
False equivalence. Rome was a pre-capitalist empire extracting tribute. European colonialism was capitalist imperialism restructuring entire economies for accumulation. Different mode of production. Different logic. Different relation to the periphery. Conflating them erases the specificity of capitalist exploitation.
You are not wrong that companies and recipient countries accept FDI. But acceptance under structural constraint is not consent. It is survival within a system not of their making. That is not a defense of the system. It is a description of how power operates.
You are an idiot for peddling this “smarter Europe” nonsense (one level removed from phrenology style nazi race science). The facts are not on your side.
I’ll say again you really should read Lenin on imperialism, Fanon on colonial violence, Walter Rodney on how Europe underdeveloped Africa, Kwame Nkrumah on neocolonialism, Samir Amin on unequal development, Aimé Césaire on the dialectic of civilization and barbarism, CLR James on the black Jacobins. After that you may have enough of an understanding to have a proper conversation instead of what you are doing now.
You are just stating that colonial relationship is the main driver of capital accumulation.
Your entire argument depend on this. And I do not see enough evidence to justify this.
Can you provide factual evidence that is necessarily the case and not something that happen sometimes?
Lacking that this entire discussion is based on nothing.
You are an idiot for peddling this “smarter Europe” nonsense (one level removed from phrenology style nazi race science). The facts are not on your side.
I will happily say “smarter Mongols” when they were in an hegemonic position (because of innovative military technology, strong administrative capacity and command of economy and trade). There is nothing racist in that sentence. I am not claiming that European people are biologically more intelligent. That is absurd. I am saying that the cumulation environmental, cultural and historical events made it so in that moment in time they made choices we now consider smart because enabled objective we now consider valuable. You are an idiot for interpreting something so clear, in a “race” kind of way.
You are fighting straw man and making unjustified assumption about what I think. Should I read on how Europe underdeveloped Africa to have this conversation? That is an universal truth that most sane person agree on. Why are you fighting me on opinion we share already?
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.
No. You are describing the appearance. I am pointing to the essence.
This is pure idealism (a fairytale). Ideas do not float above material conditions. Innovation is not spontaneous. It is produced by specific relations of production. Britain did not control half the world because of superior governance. It controlled half the world because it had accumulated capital through enslaved labor, stolen land, and plundered resources. That capital funded the railways, the factories, the universities you credit for “innovation.” To reverse this is to confuse effect for cause.
This is a core error. Colonialism was not a side effect. It was a primary mechanism of primitive accumulation. The enclosure of commons, the transatlantic slave trade, the extraction of rubber, cotton, minerals, these were not incidental. They were foundational to the rise of European capital. The periphery was not “left behind.” It was actively underdeveloped to serve accumulation in the core. Again you should read Walter Rodney.
Yes. And where did the capital for those railways come from? Who bought the chemicals and electrical goods? German industry developed within a global system structured by colonial extraction. The “10% of GDP” argument is a fetish of the statistic. Capital is not just raw inputs. It is profit, reinvestment, market access, financial infrastructure. All of which were shaped by colonial relations. To isolate one variable is to ignore the totality.
This is propaganda slop. Chinese investment operates differently. No structural adjustment programs. No conditionalities demanding privatization, austerity, or deregulation. No regime change tied to loans. Debt renegotiations happen without military intervention. That is a material difference. It does not mean China is “pure.” But to equate it with Western neocolonialism is to ignore how power actually functions in each case.
Western capital extracts through institutions it controls: IMF, World Bank, WTO. These enforce rules that reproduce dependency. Chinese capital operates through bilateral contracts. The mechanism matters. The outcome is not identical. To conflate them is either ignorance or bad faith.
False equivalence. Rome was a pre-capitalist empire extracting tribute. European colonialism was capitalist imperialism restructuring entire economies for accumulation. Different mode of production. Different logic. Different relation to the periphery. Conflating them erases the specificity of capitalist exploitation.
You are not wrong that companies and recipient countries accept FDI. But acceptance under structural constraint is not consent. It is survival within a system not of their making. That is not a defense of the system. It is a description of how power operates.
You are an idiot for peddling this “smarter Europe” nonsense (one level removed from phrenology style nazi race science). The facts are not on your side.
I’ll say again you really should read Lenin on imperialism, Fanon on colonial violence, Walter Rodney on how Europe underdeveloped Africa, Kwame Nkrumah on neocolonialism, Samir Amin on unequal development, Aimé Césaire on the dialectic of civilization and barbarism, CLR James on the black Jacobins. After that you may have enough of an understanding to have a proper conversation instead of what you are doing now.
You are just stating that colonial relationship is the main driver of capital accumulation. Your entire argument depend on this. And I do not see enough evidence to justify this. Can you provide factual evidence that is necessarily the case and not something that happen sometimes? Lacking that this entire discussion is based on nothing.
I will happily say “smarter Mongols” when they were in an hegemonic position (because of innovative military technology, strong administrative capacity and command of economy and trade). There is nothing racist in that sentence. I am not claiming that European people are biologically more intelligent. That is absurd. I am saying that the cumulation environmental, cultural and historical events made it so in that moment in time they made choices we now consider smart because enabled objective we now consider valuable. You are an idiot for interpreting something so clear, in a “race” kind of way.
You are fighting straw man and making unjustified assumption about what I think. Should I read on how Europe underdeveloped Africa to have this conversation? That is an universal truth that most sane person agree on. Why are you fighting me on opinion we share already?