The report argues that the British Empire and other major European powers did not gain significant wealth through slavery or colonialism, but may have actually suffered net losses as a result.
Contrary to the discourse advanced by “anti-colonial” scholars and promoted by left-wing commentators, Western capitalism was not built on the back of colonialism and slavery. the study Argument from Christian Niemietz of the Institute for Economic Affairs.
The IEA’s Director of Political Economy said that while some selected elite families in Britain and other colonial powers reaped huge benefits at the time, the general public did not feel any such benefits, and instead of benefiting from them. They claim that they were forced to pay exorbitant taxes. The cost of additional military and administrative expenditures required to maintain and protect distant colonial outposts, costs that the citizens of non-colonial Western countries did not have to bear.
“Profits from overseas engagement were large enough to make some individuals very rich, but not large enough to have a serious impact on Britain’s macroeconomic aggregates, such as investment rates and capital formation.” ” Niemietz said.
He added that while the Empire “brought some modest benefits to the British economy, it came at an eye-watering military and administrative cost and may have failed the cost-benefit test.” added.
“Although the transatlantic slave trade was less important to the British economy than brewing or sheep farming, you don’t usually hear claims that ‘brewing financed the Industrial Revolution’ or ‘sheep farming financed the Industrial Revolution.'”
Niemietz also argues that colonialism itself is not a good predictor of a nation’s wealth, noting that while Germany succeeded in industrializing its economy before seriously engaging in colonialism, Japan He pointed out that the country was relatively poor by Western standards and only became wealthy after World War II. II After that, I lost my overseas holdings.
The researchers further point out that Western countries that had no colonial holdings, or had short-lived or small colonial holdings, industrialized at about the same rate as their dominant suzerains; Stated. It is not displayed in macro data. ”
“The best predictors of how rich or poor a country is today are economic policy and governance indicators such as the Economic Freedom Index and the Ease of Doing Business Index,” he said, adding: added. Whether a country was involved in the slave trade, how many colonies it once owned, or how long it held colonies. ”
The idea that Western capitalism was built on slavery and colonial dispossession functions as an “original sin” narrative for both capitalism and the West. Therefore, it fits perfectly into our woke anti-capitalist zeitgeist.
That’s also wrong.
Read my book:https://t.co/4hJS8PW2xx— Christian Niemietz (@K_Niemietz) May 1, 2024
The report found that the only “major counterexample” was the Belgian Congo, often cited as one of the most brutal examples of Western colonialism. Niemitz found that the Congo was highly beneficial to Belgium as a whole, even though most of the wealth generated still went to the elite.
However, the report noted that this was a “very unusual case” on several counts. First, the Belgian Congo, also known as the “Congo Free State,” is not officially recognized by the Brussels parliament, and King Leopold II has decided to operate it as a “private commercial company” without state support. I was forced to. What is extremely important is taxpayers’ money. Congo, on the other hand, was “extremely rich” in popular natural resources such as rubber and ivory.
“This does not show that “colonialism” is profitable. “It shows the Belgian Empire that colonies can be profitable if they are extremely abundant,” Niemietz argued.
The report also notes that despite benefiting greatly from Congo, Belgium was already a major industrial power before becoming involved in the Central African country, and that “even if Belgians set foot on Congolese territory, Even if he hadn’t done so, Belgium would have become such a country.”
Niemiets pointed out that colonized parts of the world tended to establish authoritarian and “extractivist” forms of government, and therefore were environmentally or otherwise inhospitable to Europeans at the time. He acknowledged there was evidence that he had experienced long-term adverse effects. When they left, they served as a power structure for continued poor governance by local elites.
“None of this means that there is a definitive relationship between a country’s colonial past and its current economic performance. Postcolonial Exploitationists
Institutional legacy is not a bondage that a country cannot escape from. But the legacy exists,” he wrote.
“A history of colonial exploitation, or a period of deep involvement in the slave trade, made the subsequent development of good institutions less likely. Slavery was not a zero-sum game that benefited the colonizer at the expense of the colonized; it was more like a negative-sum game, benefiting the former. ”, he concluded.
Barbados Prime Minister demands $4.9 trillion in slavery reparationshttps://t.co/i3c1E2skSv
— Breitbart London (@BreitbartLondon) December 9, 2023
