There are European nations that are very rich, like Switzerland and Austria, that did no or almost no colonization. And there are nations that had a lot of colonization that have fallen into mediocrity, like Spain and Portugal.

Germany also did a very small of amout of colonialism (Tansania and Namibia for some Years).

The modern wealth is more tied to the industrial revolution and its consequences. Of course colonialism and slavery are tied to industrial revolution but also innovative trading and manufacturing logistics.

In a philosophical way the industrial revolution is also tied with the european enlightenment (Kant/Hegel/Rousseau/Marx) which effected the birth of states, human rights and also economic innovations.

European Countries (Japan too -> ending of the Samurai society) reformed themselves in this time, while many asian empires like china fell off. Countries who were stuck in feudalism or in feudal society had it very hard of course

But funny part, Japan colonialized too, even in a different way. Korea, some part of China, Singapure, Malaysia etc were under japanese dominion.

And now they are all rich mfs

colonialism of america (Hernan Cortes/Francisco Pizarro)
yes, but the african colonialism started 1880 (by King Leopold from Belgium) .

Fun Fact: European countries with less colonial tendencies (scandinavians, swiss, germans, austrians, irish) are richer than ones that are more so (english, spanish, portuguese, french)

That second sentence is partially true but lol things arent that black and white lmfao

who deleted all those posts at the beginning yall were cooking him

Yeah they had to find new ways to make their economies grow that made sense in the 20th/21th century while ex colonial powers sat back and enjoyed their old money without ever thinking about reinventing themselves

ex colonial powers lost also much money while dealing with natives/rebels in civil wars and other disputes.

After the second world war many europan colonial were so broke, they couldnt hold the administration for their colonies, especially UK. This why India, Pakistan and later the african states were born.

I wouldn’t say s***hole, the Islamic world was far more competitive and in some cases had a overall superior civilization but there was still plenty of innovation and power in Europe. Holy Roman and Byzantine Empires come to mind. Many Renaissance innovations came before colonization also. But you are right that after colonizing they basically became superpowers of their times

The arts in the s***tier societies were pretty significant too, Gothic tribes were making complex jewelry since round 300 AD

I always felt it was the opposite and their head start made the second wave of imperialism possible and they were able to keep that #1 position by delaying colonies from being independent and then maintaining power over them after decolonization

I mean they had to be somewhat rich to be able to colonize in the first place, no?

Idk if they didn’t gain from this cause armed conflits are always linked with important economic interests in the region so maybe they broke even in the end

But when you have a whole continent to extract wealth from with uneven deals it becomes less of a priority to educate your own population to become skilled workers

less than they're now

Thing is China is worse and they taking USA spot

Like basically everyone is leeching off Africa and their corrupt leaders

Except for The Netherlands..

Bro the scramble for Africa when they were f***ing up our s*** on a mass scale started in the 1870s

Yeah Europeans had been involved in Africa much earlier but they really on kept their asses to the coast and were mainly there to export manual labor.

Resource stealing and then cutting up our s*** like cake and truly f***ing the continent ain’t happen until 1870s when all those white folks decided they would make more money going directly into Africa and not having to export labor (since most western countries ended slavery by this time, but they needed another way of making their money)

True. Then again the correlation between colonial empires and present day wealth isn't that clear. For example Germany is richer than the UK and France, but was much less involved in colonialism (though still involved).

germany had colonies in China, am I wrong?

A very small region/town called kiatschou for 20 years. They lost it after the end of the first world war.

I guess so China basically colonising Africa for the lithium for it

Worse domestically but much better for other countries

the movie Uncut Gems had a part in the beginning of the movie where there was some ethiopians protesting the deplorable way the chinese guys treated them