Conscript wrote:I said capitalism is not Eurocentric, it has no national character. Europe is a launching point, for reasons far more complex than muh colonialism which ironically benefited these countries as I've shown, however thanks to the nature of the market and the drive for profit capitalism quickly becomes a world system that equalizes development. Colonialism has existed across multiple modes of production, so your point on that is false, however we should note only liberal European societies voluntarily de-colonized. Granted, that was in part because it wasn't profitable, but that's just another hole in your argument justifying rent-seeking behavior.
'Capitalism is Eurocentric' is not an argument for disparities in the modern world. Not only have I shown colonialism has not set these countries back (quite the opposite), that modern world is defined by the rise of non-Western economies such as BRICS and has overall slashed poverty because capitalism, again, lacks a national character. It's a world system. It is not a conspiracy of ethnicities or races hoarding wealth, if it was the middle class wouldn't be dealing with some issues in the West.
Your grievance narratives are so full of holes it's hilarious.
You have not shown that colonialism was a benefit to the colonised. Please provide evidence that the Khoi and San benefited from having their land taken from them. Thank you.
If your argument is that they benefited because SA made money, then you are confusing the profits made by the colonisers with the supposed benefits given to the colonised. This would be like arguing that capitalism is good for a sweatshop worker because Nike made record profits.
Also, you should ask the dead colonisers in Haiti about their voluntary decolonization. Lol at history fail. Perhaps you are thinking about situations like Canada where Canada became independent from the UK without war. This is because the colonial wealth extraction system was not an issue. The people who were making money off the colonialism did so regarldess of which cournry was doing the colonising.
You're a bit of a child, aren't you? This changes nothing about my argument. You are suggesting capitalism is a system whereby one part of the world just hoards wealth. This isn't how economies work and you've yet to prove otherwise. You look at globalization, the end conclusion of the logic of capital, and you see the rise of the global south's income and slashing of its poverty levels. As I've shown with my sources, those parts of the global south more exposed to European colonialism are doing better. In fact, the annual household income of a black South African is very likely higher than that of the rest of Africa.
http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/20 ... -lifetime/
http://www.ifpri.org/publication/estima ... ub-saharan
There's other examples. Here, with GDP/c (PPP)
Haiti: 1,784
Ethiopia: 1,735
Jamaica: 8,835
Dominican Republic: 15,209
Wiki
Note that Jamaica was under colonial rule until 1962, while Ethiopia was independent outside of brief Italian rule and Haiti has been independent since 1804. This supports the conclusions of both economic research papers on colonialism's benefit, particularly the one on islands.
As for the correlation between wealth and extent of colonial empires:
2013 GDP per capita, PPP (constant 2011 international $)
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY ... &year=2013
Where colonial index is number of colonial subjects for every citizen. Strange how Portugal, one of the first colonial powers and held its colonies until everyone else gave them up, is as poor as ex-communist countries. I also find it interesting that countries with the most colonial holdings are the bottom half of the distribution, and Germany, a power that had few colonies for its size and none after 1918, is in the top half. Even more interesting, Ireland, itself formerly colonized, is doing very well. Finland's GDP/c is identical to Britain's despite being ruled by Russia until 1918.
Seems like your correlation for colonial holdings and wealth is weak or nonexistent, IQ actually has a stronger correlation at .4 (and that's not perfect), whereas the correlation between colonized country and wealth is strong. I'm just going to quote myself citing my studies on colonialism:
You seem to be making two arguments here:
1. That countries that had to deal with more colonialism are doing better economically, and
2. That the colonising countries are not wealthy now.
I have already addressed the first one, but again, you are confusing the wealth of the colonisers who live in that country with the wealth of the colonised. This is incorrect and assumes that a Khoisan person living in the streets is somehow benefiting from the vineyards owned by a white landowner. Guess what? The working class is not the same as the landowner class.
There are also other issues like the fact that Haiti has been saddled with a huge debt ever since they killed their colonial oppressors. This debt has been growing since then because of interest and other financial measures imposed upon them by international capitalism. Those countries that continued to be oppressed by colonialism did not have to deal with these punitive financial measures and therefore have stronger economies. But again, these economies benefit the developed west and their local puppets, not the actual people.
As for your second argument, yes, the money changed hands and is nomlonger in Portugal’s possession and is now in European banks. This is how Amsterdam made so much money offf colonialism without colonising anyone. It does not disporve Alchemy’s claim. It just shows that capitalism also has an impoverishing effect within Europe as well as through colonialism.
To recap, you have failed on all three major claims:
1. Colonialism is responsible for European success
2. Colonialism did not make colonial countries ultimately materially better off following legal equality and independence
3. Colonialism impoverished the people it lorded over
All of these claims ar true and you have been unable to show they are incorrect.
Nah, I think I'll stick with scholarly economic research on the measurable impacts of colonialism. Address them, because they poke serious holes in your arguments.
Your scholarly economic research completely ignores the wealth of indigenous communities and focuses solely on GDP, which measures the wealth extracted from the country, not the wealth of the indigenous communities.
It would be like arguing that since the slave trade made so much money, enslaved blacks benefited from the money that was made.
There have been many opulent empires in the past, none as innovative. Rome, for example, never industrialized. IQ and personality traits like openness, which are heritable, as well as cultural values that treasure rationalism and empiricism, individualism, abolition of slavery, and free markets are better predictors of proclivity for innovation.
Besides that, the scramble for Africa was not until the late 19th century.
Jingoism using long words is still jingoism and can be ignored. If I want to experience jingoism, I will watch the Wolf Warrior movies.
—————————
JohnRawls wrote:This is an actual question that i want to ask, because it seems you are from South Africa and i remember you starting some topics about SA some time ago:
1) Do you really believe that SA is not racist, discriminating against white people?
This is not about white and black, but about returning land to the original owners before Apartheid.
Land restitution is one of the key issues since South Africa achieved democracy in 1994 and as such an overview of what has been achieved since the promulgation of the Restitution of Land Right Act 22 is significant.
The legal basis for land restitution is provided by the 1993 Interim Constitution, section 25(7) of the 1996 Constitution and the Restitution of Land Rights Act. The South African Constitution of 1993/1996 gave people and communities who had been dispossessed of land after 19 June 1913 as a result of racially discriminatory laws or practices the right to restitution of that property or to fair compensation. The Restitution of Land Rights Act 22 was promulgated in 1994 in terms of the Interim Constitution of the Republic of South Africa Act 200 of 1993 for that purpose. The Act also established a Commission on Restitution of Land Rights in 1995 under a Chief Land Claims Commissioner and seven Regional Land Claims Commissioners representing the nine provinces with the mandate to assist claimants in submitting their land claim, receive and acknowledge all claims lodged and advise claimants on the progress of their land claim.
http://www.sahistory.org.za/article/lan ... frica-1994The only reason that race is an issue is because the original land theft was done along racial lines.
2) Do you really believe that expropriation of land from children-grand children of colonialists is the right thing to do? If yes, then when should it stop? Why are americans not returning the land to the indians? etc
Yes, it is the right thing to do. It should stop when the original owners are no longer around. Please note that land can be owend by communities and communities can last for a very long time. With this logic, the US and Cana da should also be returning land to those indigenous communities that are still around and have continued to agitate for a return of their land since it was originally stolen.
3) Do you believe that a lot of white south Africans are leaving because of this discrimination and feeling disenfranchisement?
Perhaps, but feelings are irrelevant.
4) What is the eng goal of such policies? Punishment? Economic development? Equality?
Justice, sovereignty, equality, and an end to the legacy of colonialism.
5) Is the policy itselfs allows you to achieve the goal from question 4? Do you consider the goal from question 4 to be humane?
Returning stolen goods to their rightful owner is consistent with the goals described in the answer to question four, and is humane even though the current land owners (who are about to lose their stolen land) may not agree.
——————————
Saeko wrote:They literally enjoyed something like 200,000 years of European free existence. What was stopping them from mining gold, diamonds, ivory, and farming?
Africans did do all of these things, except mine ivory.
Many African communities did not do these things because they did not need to. Why would a herder need diamonds?
——————————
foxdemon wrote:There are very few places in the world where the original inhabitants weren’t removed. So is it just the case that those holding the land when recorded history begins become the supposed rightful owners?
Do you believe that the whites are the rightful owners of the land? Why?
[/quote]
Past injustices haven’t stopped the Far East from catching up and even overtaking Europe. At no point have their ever stopped to demand restorative justice. Rather they got educated and industrialised. They took responsibility for their own fate rather that become a bunch of hopeless victims who will forever blame someone else for their failure.
[/quote]
This is not an argument. This is just you being judgemental about blacks.
foxdemon wrote:The interesting thing about this thread is that members who usually oppose each other agree that global south communists like @Alchemy , @Pants-of-dog and Pol Pot are simply beyond the pale.
Lol. It is amusing how offended you are by me. It is almost as if you cannot help following me around the forum and making these petty insults.
There is simply no justice in seizing land from productive people and then to divide it amongst inefficient but politically favoured people. Taxation to subsidise technical education to get people into industry would be far more sensible.
Considering the fact that it was probably blacks who actually made the land productive, while the white landowners simply sat around and called the cops to come kill any blacks who complained, I also think thatnthere is simply no justice in seizing land from productive people and then to divide it amongst inefficient but politically favoured people, as the SA government did when they seized land from blacks abd gave it to whites,
And this is why there is a movment to restore the land.
Clearly the problem is SA’s black elites are incompetent and corrupt. They are incapable of managing the European state they have taken control of. It will serve as a tragic example to posterity of what not to do.
Racism against blacks is not an argument.
——————————
JohnRawls wrote:1) It is a racial issue because 1 group of white people is being targeted. It is also a "restorative justice" issue. It can be both at the same time. But you are forgetting something: Restorative justice is an approach to justice that personalizes the crime by having the victims and the offenders mediate a restitution agreement to the satisfaction of each, as well as involving the community. This contrasts to other approaches such as retribution, deterrence, rehabilitation, or incapacitation.
What is currently being done is not a discussion. It is a dictate of one side on top of the other. What is currently being done can be only described as retributive justice or incapacitation basically. On top of that, the descendants of the colonialists are not the colonialists themselves. So you are implying that they the children and grand children of the colonialists are responsible for what their grandparents and parents did.
There are two different ideas being discussed here.
The first is the claim that this is not restorative justice because the solution is not mediated or to the satisfaction of all parties. How do you propose convincing the whites who own stolen land to return it to their rightful owners willingly? Unless there is an answer to that question, we will simply have to reconcile ourselves to the fact that not everyone will be satisfied.
The second idea is that individuals originally stole the land, and since these individuals are no linger around, it would be an unjust form of collective punishment to demand the land back from the descendants of these individuals. But individuals did not steal the land. The white colonial government and community did. And this same community is now being told they have to return it.
2) There can be many justification for stealing land: For you it is "restorative justice", for communists it was to "liberate the means of production", for capitalists it was "to make the land productive" etc. Your justice is not better than any other presented before or after. You just happened to believe your side of the story compared to everybody else.
Also, if the land gets liberated, then what are the new liberators gonna do with it? Do you honestly believe that it will bring any economic development? How will the new owners of that land be any better than the old owners who have been farming it and have experience with business and production?
If it can be shown that the land was legally owned by a black before Apartheid was enforced, and that the land was taken from the owner due to racist laws, and the original owners are still around, it seems pretty justified to me.
3) You do not build an inclusive country when you dictate your terms from one side, blame the other for colonialism and take the land away.
It seems a bit much to ask black South Africans to be inclusive and satisfy the feelings of the people who stole from them.
4) There can be situation when minorities own the majority of land, production, factories, banking for many historical reason which includes colonial conquest. Most of the world outlived the repression part against those minorities(West, Russia, Asia) but if you want to behave like uneducated mob about that then fine, have your "pogroms" or "Remove the Kulaks" or whatever you want to call it this time.
Do not expect people to be silent about it though.
The west has never had to deal with colonialism.
- By Tainari88
- By Skynet
- By wat0n