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?
Can you provide factual evidence that is necessarily the case and not something that happen sometimes?
Ok again for the 3rd time:
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery: profits from the transatlantic slave trade directly financed British industrialization. Textile mills, the leading sector of the Industrial Revolution, ran on cotton produced by enslaved labor in the US South and Caribbean. That is not “sometimes.” That is the foundation.
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: documents how colonial infrastructure was built to extract, not develop. Railways went from mines to ports, not between African cities. Capital flowed out. Profits repatriated. Local industry stifled.
The Belgian Congo: rubber and mineral extraction under Leopold II generated massive surplus. That surplus funded Belgian industry, public works, financial institutions. Same pattern across French West Africa, Portuguese Angola, British India.
Capital accumulation is not just about raw input percentages. It is about profit rates, reinvestment capacity, market control, financial infrastructure. Colonial trade provided protected markets for European manufactures. It supplied cheap inputs. It generated super-profits that funded further innovation. That is how the system worked. Please actually engage with what I’m saying and the books I am recommending.
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
But those “choices” were materially conditioned. You cannot separate “innovation” from the capital that funded it. That capital came from extraction. To credit “smart choices” while ignoring the material basis of those choices is idealism. It is the same logic that says a factory owner is “smart” for getting rich while ignoring the workers who produced the value.
Major example of this is Elon Musk, by all accounts a complete fucking idiot, yet thanks to his parents apartheid mine he had the material basis to reach where he is now. Remove that foundation and all his “genius” disappears, same with the EuroAmerikan hegemony.
Why are you fighting me on opinion we share already?
Because you are not sharing the opinion. You said colonialism is a consequence of being richer, not a driver. That reverses cause and effect. You equated Chinese investment with Western neocolonialism, ignoring the material difference in mechanism. You framed “tolerating abuse” as distinct from support, ignoring how benefit constitutes complicity.
If we actually shared the analysis, you would not be defending the “smarter Europe” framing. You would not be asking for evidence after I already recommended multiple books that cover these points in far more detail than I can in a comment.
Britain and Belgium are brutal example of growth driven by colonial exploitation. Germany and Italy are not. So while we agree that is the case for Britain and Belgium, those are not good sources to explain why this is “necessary”.
Why are you fighting me on opinion we share already? - Because you are not sharing the opinion.
We fucking do in the context of that sentence. Obviously I did not meant that we share “all” the opinion we discussed in this conversation! The lack of context awareness of each of your sentences is so frustrating, and is exactly the same problem highlighted at the start of this message
Finally, I do not understand why you give China a pass. When China gets billions in capital from the World Bank, or trillions in FDI after they joined the WTO why are they not benefiting from colonial exploitation, but 1880 Germany was a colonial exploiter because they bought raw material on the open market? When China force the “One China” principle, the “No Paris Club”, and tied procurement clauses (no skill transfer and no job creation) it is fine, but EU lending frameworks conditions likes anti-corruption, green transitions, and finance sustainability are bad? Why the double standard?
Britain and Belgium are brutal example of growth driven by colonial exploitation. Germany and Italy are not.
We really are going in circles.
Germany and Italy did not exist in a vacuum. They operated inside an integrated European imperial system. German banks financed colonial ventures in Africa. German firms sold manufactured goods into markets protected by British and French guns. German industry ran on rubber, cotton, and minerals extracted under colonial conditions. That “open market” was not neutral. It was structured by colonial power relations that set prices, controlled shipping, and enforced contracts through gunboats. Buying raw materials from a colony means benefiting from the exploitation that produced them.
And Germany had the third largest colonial empire in the 19th century, behind only Britain and France. Lost those holdings after WW1, but the benefit remained. Italy held the AOI and other territories until 1941. No direct colonies at a given moment does not mean no colonial benefit. The core-periphery relation is systemic.
Finally, I do not understand why you give China a pass.
I am not giving anyone a pass. I am analyzing material differences in mechanism.
Chinese investment does not come with structural adjustment programs. No demands for privatization, austerity, or deregulation. No regime change tied to loans. Debt renegotiations happen without military intervention. Infrastructure-for-resources deals at least build physical capital in the host country. That is a material difference from Western lending frameworks.
The “One China” principle is about territorial sovereignty, not extraction. The policy is no more colonial than the US federal government defeating the Confederacy.
EU conditionalities like “anti-corruption” or “green transition” often function to open markets for European firms, enforce neoliberal reforms, and maintain dependency.
When China force the “No Paris Club”, and tied procurement clauses (no skill transfer and no job creation) it is fine
The Paris Club is a Western creditor cartel that enforces repayment on terms favorable to core capital. Chinese lending may have tough terms at times, but it does not demand political restructuring to serve foreign capital interests.
Tied procurement is not unique to China. Western aid and investment do the same. The difference is in the superstructure: Western conditionalities reshape domestic policy. Chinese contracts are bilateral and commercial. Not perfect. But not identical.
You are conflating all foreign capital as the same. That ignores how power actually operates. Mechanism and outcome matter.
Please actually engage. Stop the circular deflection. So much of this misunderstanding and malformed analysis, (if it’s not simply bad faith debate-bro bullshit) would clear up if you took the time to read the seminal works of the authors I recommended.
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?
Ok again for the 3rd time:
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery: profits from the transatlantic slave trade directly financed British industrialization. Textile mills, the leading sector of the Industrial Revolution, ran on cotton produced by enslaved labor in the US South and Caribbean. That is not “sometimes.” That is the foundation.
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: documents how colonial infrastructure was built to extract, not develop. Railways went from mines to ports, not between African cities. Capital flowed out. Profits repatriated. Local industry stifled.
The Belgian Congo: rubber and mineral extraction under Leopold II generated massive surplus. That surplus funded Belgian industry, public works, financial institutions. Same pattern across French West Africa, Portuguese Angola, British India.
Capital accumulation is not just about raw input percentages. It is about profit rates, reinvestment capacity, market control, financial infrastructure. Colonial trade provided protected markets for European manufactures. It supplied cheap inputs. It generated super-profits that funded further innovation. That is how the system worked. Please actually engage with what I’m saying and the books I am recommending.
But those “choices” were materially conditioned. You cannot separate “innovation” from the capital that funded it. That capital came from extraction. To credit “smart choices” while ignoring the material basis of those choices is idealism. It is the same logic that says a factory owner is “smart” for getting rich while ignoring the workers who produced the value.
Major example of this is Elon Musk, by all accounts a complete fucking idiot, yet thanks to his parents apartheid mine he had the material basis to reach where he is now. Remove that foundation and all his “genius” disappears, same with the EuroAmerikan hegemony.
Because you are not sharing the opinion. You said colonialism is a consequence of being richer, not a driver. That reverses cause and effect. You equated Chinese investment with Western neocolonialism, ignoring the material difference in mechanism. You framed “tolerating abuse” as distinct from support, ignoring how benefit constitutes complicity.
If we actually shared the analysis, you would not be defending the “smarter Europe” framing. You would not be asking for evidence after I already recommended multiple books that cover these points in far more detail than I can in a comment.
Read the sources like I said last comment.
ok, again, I was very specific in my sentence.
Britain and Belgium are brutal example of growth driven by colonial exploitation. Germany and Italy are not. So while we agree that is the case for Britain and Belgium, those are not good sources to explain why this is “necessary”.
We fucking do in the context of that sentence. Obviously I did not meant that we share “all” the opinion we discussed in this conversation! The lack of context awareness of each of your sentences is so frustrating, and is exactly the same problem highlighted at the start of this message
Finally, I do not understand why you give China a pass. When China gets billions in capital from the World Bank, or trillions in FDI after they joined the WTO why are they not benefiting from colonial exploitation, but 1880 Germany was a colonial exploiter because they bought raw material on the open market? When China force the “One China” principle, the “No Paris Club”, and tied procurement clauses (no skill transfer and no job creation) it is fine, but EU lending frameworks conditions likes anti-corruption, green transitions, and finance sustainability are bad? Why the double standard?
We really are going in circles.
Germany and Italy did not exist in a vacuum. They operated inside an integrated European imperial system. German banks financed colonial ventures in Africa. German firms sold manufactured goods into markets protected by British and French guns. German industry ran on rubber, cotton, and minerals extracted under colonial conditions. That “open market” was not neutral. It was structured by colonial power relations that set prices, controlled shipping, and enforced contracts through gunboats. Buying raw materials from a colony means benefiting from the exploitation that produced them.
And Germany had the third largest colonial empire in the 19th century, behind only Britain and France. Lost those holdings after WW1, but the benefit remained. Italy held the AOI and other territories until 1941. No direct colonies at a given moment does not mean no colonial benefit. The core-periphery relation is systemic.
I am not giving anyone a pass. I am analyzing material differences in mechanism.
Chinese investment does not come with structural adjustment programs. No demands for privatization, austerity, or deregulation. No regime change tied to loans. Debt renegotiations happen without military intervention. Infrastructure-for-resources deals at least build physical capital in the host country. That is a material difference from Western lending frameworks.
The “One China” principle is about territorial sovereignty, not extraction. The policy is no more colonial than the US federal government defeating the Confederacy.
EU conditionalities like “anti-corruption” or “green transition” often function to open markets for European firms, enforce neoliberal reforms, and maintain dependency.
The Paris Club is a Western creditor cartel that enforces repayment on terms favorable to core capital. Chinese lending may have tough terms at times, but it does not demand political restructuring to serve foreign capital interests.
Tied procurement is not unique to China. Western aid and investment do the same. The difference is in the superstructure: Western conditionalities reshape domestic policy. Chinese contracts are bilateral and commercial. Not perfect. But not identical.
You are conflating all foreign capital as the same. That ignores how power actually operates. Mechanism and outcome matter.
Please actually engage. Stop the circular deflection. So much of this misunderstanding and malformed analysis, (if it’s not simply bad faith debate-bro bullshit) would clear up if you took the time to read the seminal works of the authors I recommended.