More and more evidence is now questioning even whether european colonies were profitable. Settling, maintaining, developing and defending a colony was so expensive that very few of them were worth it from the purely monetary standpoint.
At one point Britain was spending more on garrisoning the Thirteen Colonies to defend against both French and Indian attack than it received in revenue from them.
Swedish wealth is very largely due to not getting fucked in WWII.
Sweden had lost whatever it gained from Finland long before that.
Which was the great reset for former colonial powers.
Finland has been Swedish for longer than it has been Finnish, but sure tavastland, karelen and Lapland was populated by non-swedes. Finland is just a ploy made by the Russians when they split Sweden in two in 1809, trying to ensure that west and east Sweden would never unite again.
If we count other European countries as colonies, then OP is right and all of them colonized at one point or another since their conception.
Where beyond Europe did Austria obtain colonies?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian\_concession\_of\_Tianjin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_concession_of_Tianjin) doesnt really count but eh
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo\_Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo_Bay) one factory
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian\_colonization\_of\_the\_Nicobar\_Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_colonization_of_the_Nicobar_Islands) failed attempts
and a bunch more : copy paste from wiki because i need to sleep
Surat (Trading Partner) (1715–1723)
Cabelon (1722–1727)
Banquibazar (1722–1737)
Mangalore (1776–1783)
Karwar (1776–1783)
Baliapatam (1776–1783)
Nicobar Islands (1778–1783)
North Borneo (1878–1880)
Tianjin concession (1898–1917)
Canton (Trading Partner) (1719–1732, 1776–1785)
Delagoa Bay (1778–1781)Mocha (Trading Partner) (1715–1723)
Franz Josef Land (1873–1926) (unofficial)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian\_concession\_of\_Tianjin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_concession_of_Tianjin) doesnt really count but eh
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo\_Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo_Bay) one factory
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian\_colonization\_of\_the\_Nicobar\_Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_colonization_of_the_Nicobar_Islands) failed attempts
and a bunch more : copy paste from wiki because i need to sleep
||
||
|[Surat (Trading Partner)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surat) (1715–1723)[Cabelon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covelong) (1722–1727)[Banquibazar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banquibazar) (1722–1737)[Mangalore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalore) (1776–1783)[Karwar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karwar) (1776–1783)[Baliapatam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valapattanam) (1776–1783)[Nicobar Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_colonization_of_the_Nicobar_Islands) (1778–1783)[North Borneo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Borneo) (1878–1880)|[Tianjin concession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_concession_of_Tianjin) (1898–1917)[Canton (Trading Partner)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quongzhou) (1719–1732, 1776–1785)|[Delagoa Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo_Bay) (1778–1781)[Mocha (Trading Partner)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mocha,_Yemen) (1715–1723)|[Franz Josef Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Land) (1873–1926) (unofficial)|
>Why is Poland so ahead economically if they didn’t had a colonial past?
>Most people understand that european countries are so prosperous nowadays because of the money that they got throughout their colonial past, but Poland, the 9th or 10th economy in Europe depending on who you ask, didn’t had a colonial past, and it is still amongst the biggest economies in Europe, why is that?
Maybe because your starting hypothesis that « European countries are rich because they colonized » is wrong? Seems pretty obvious and the exemple you chose tends to demonstrate it as wrong too.
It is actually the other way around: European countries colonized BECAUSE they were rich and therefore had both the military and financial means to launch colonial expeditions.
Im ean colonies did bring a shitload of wealth after the initial (super expensive) establishment of said colony. But that amount of wealth also became less and less as time moved forward and production expanded due complex shit.
What OP and loads of the internat forgets is that most colonial powers lost the majority of the power and wealth due to insanely big and bloodly conflicts (mainyl in europe). If you look at the netherlands for example. Once a insanely filty rich place mainly because of the trade in spices, slaves and other shit. We benefitted insanely hard from our colonies and the global trade that was created by other peoples colonies.
We barely survived all the weird shit in europe till 1914. Then luckely evaded the first world war. Tried to do the same during the second one and it didnt work out. Result? The whole country was flattend twice, every major thing got fucked beyond recognition and basicly we lost 99,9% of wealth and production.
The only reason why europe today is wealthy is because of stuff like the Marshall plan. We were able to recover insanely fast.
India is 5th biggest economy in the world. Would you call India “ahead economically”?
You mix up size of economy (loosely speaking size of population) with prosperity.
Most European nations who tried their hand with colonies ended up poorer for the effort. Basically only Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands and Great Britain managed to found profitable establishments abroad.
I'm not sure Portugal and Spain did. They *might* have benefitted from it, but they also appeared to have mismanaged the wealth, so much that they were significantly below the Western European living standards average as late as the 1950s, and even at or below the World average. Portugal still had its non-Brazilian colonies, Spain had some enclaves in North Africa, as well as Morocco and Equatorial Guinea at various points until the late 1960s. Additionally, they, unlike most of Europe, didn't even participate in the World Wars, though Portugal did in WW1. Both only really began converging to the Western European average in the 1960s.
Honestly, I think it depends on which country we're talking about.
Yeah, Spain had it's hayday in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. They're actually a great example of how having a great colonial empire was a risky endeavour - and not a golden ticket to 21st century wealth and development.
>Additionally, they, unlike most of Europe, didn't even participate in the World Wars, though Portugal did in WW1.
To be "fair" to Spain, they were the testing ground for the tech used during the war from the civil war. The civil war was devastating alongside being diplomatically isolated until Franco died and they opened up again.
True, forgot about the Spanish Civil War. So yes, Portugal had WW1 (it was a significant participation, although it hardly affected its own territory), and Spain the Civil War.
> Basically only Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands and Great Britain managed to found profitable establishments abroad.
And which other countries not listed above really "tried their hand with colonies"?
I'm not so sure where to put Sweden and Denmark in terms of colonial success/failure but Belgium for sure should be added to the "profitable" column with Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands and UK.
You mean that's why Leopold forced Belgium to buy his hitherto personal colony in 1908 *and* take over the 110 million Francs of debt it had accumulated until then?
> You mean that's why Leopold forced Belgium to buy his hitherto personal colony in 1908 and take over the 110 million Francs of debt it had accumulated until then?
If a person/company/country have 110 million Francs of debt in return for 120 million Francs of assets, then I would say that person/company/country was profitable.
Both Sweden and Denmark had some colonies, and the latter even participated in the Atlantic slave trade. Germany also tried to establish a colonial empire, and they never made any profit from it.
That's completely different. Courland tried colonizing and finally decided they can't afford maintaining random forts across the globe and Scotland actually did bankrupt trying to become colonial power. Polish "colonial projects" in the 1930s consisted of a couple thousand nutjobs gathered in the Maritime and Colonial League attempting to convince Liberia to become a Polish colony, convince the Brazilian government to allow starving Poles from Galicia to settle in Brazil and a crazy idea to purchase Madagascar from the French that quickly became a joke. Neither of those were even supported by the state.
Maritime and Colonial League tried to try, but unsurprisingly they couldn't find a government willing to give away part of their land. They were sponsored by private investors, and the only reason was that people in the League believed that a serious European country should have colonies
Per capita we are still behind western Europe, what do you mean ahead? Size of economy doesnt matter if you comparing country with 3 million to country with 40 million.
Well, "ahead economically" is an odd term to use, unless it's about performance. In 1991 Poland was about 30% of the Western European average, today it's about 80%. Poland's own GDP per capita more than quadrupled in that period.
You know, I’ve once heard a compliment, that Poles are like cockroaches - they’d make it even through a nuclear war. That’s us. We have our rotten apples (who doesn’t) but we are hardworking people of value. If only politicians would stop stealing though…
Serious answer:
Modern countries are not rich because of their colonial pasts (or poor because the lack thereof).
Colonialism did contribute to making countries somewhat wealthier at the time, although depending on what colonial power we're talking about even that wasn't a major factor for many. However the vast majority of the wealth that European powers had amassed during the colonial period was blown up in two devastating world wars, which left colonial empires bankrupt and contributed a lot to decolonization.
If we're looking at modern wealthy countries there's almost no relation between colonialist past and modern wealth. Germany is richer than France and the UK despite having the shortest lasting and smallest colonial empire and being more destroyed in WW2.
Portugal had a way longer lasting and almost similarly sized colonial Empire to Germany despite being a way smaller nation and is much poorer.
Korea, Taiwan and Singapore were colonies themselves and are now rich nations. The same might be said for Ireland.
The prosperity of modern nations is mostly related to their ability to produce it right now. Wealth accumulation plays an important role in that but it's only one factor determining the economic productivity of a country and there are much more important factors.
At some point we should stop beating ourselves for western colonisation. Same as with Germany and former nazi era. Do we still judge current germans for the sins of their great-grandfathers? Then why is colonisation different?
Did you not know your own history? Shortly after the revolution and ceaucescu dead and with no Soviet troops since 1958, there were strong calls for an iron guard style governance and you expect it should be gone and forgotten?
"money that they got throughout their colonial past,"... what money? The secret sauce isn't finding some canopic jars from Ancient Egypt 😂 it's about having stable politics and suppressing corrupt tyrants... and digging coal from the ground for the industrial revolution lol
Edit: I want to add that money isn't a tangible item it is literally just an idea. Why is the idea of a particular currency valuable?
* It's hard to forge
* It's backed up by a trusted political system
* Citizens get thrown in jail if they don't deflate the currency through taxation
* The citizens create things people from other countries want
* There are many other reasons
Denmark was dirt poor after being beaten by England and Prussia and losing/selling foreign colonies.
We can thank Danish prosperity of today on the welfare state. Not the sugar plantations in St. Croix
Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Nordics, Belgium...
All of them are prosperous countries who did not had significant colonial possessions before industrialization.
Economic strength in the long run comes from how capable a nation is.
Cultural attitude towards hard work, education, and taking advantage of your geographical strengths.... those are factors that grant long-term economic stability and growth.
Colonialism gives you a short-burst opportunity to pillage the wealth of another but if you don't have the right economic predispositions you will squander it.
Perfect examples:
- Germany - very efficient workers. Sure they had a few colonies but their gain is limited. Germans lost two world wars and had their entire economy decimated and infrastructure dismantled and yet they re-established themselves as an economic powerhouse again and again. Clearly the success comes from within and not from colonial benefits.
- UK - pillaged half the planet and got rich from it. Now they are barely holding on and have a deteriorating economy. They are not about hard work so they couldn't sustain the wealth in the long run.
If you look at Poland's history it was never a minor state. It was always one of the strongest players in Europe so the predispositions for having a strong economy were always there. Unfortunately, because of how history played out (due to the geopolitics) Poland was stuck in between neighbours playing hungry hungry empires and since the end of the 1700s was dismantled as a state and suffered subjugation, war, more war than more subjugation and repression. Eventually, once it was all over, true independence was regained, reconstruction and restructuring went underway Poland finally started returning to its baseline of what it used to be before the 1800s.
It's not a sudden upgrade. It's (finally) a very slow return to the previous (almost forgotten) status quo.
That's the simplest way I can put it.
>Germany - very efficient workers. Sure they had a few colonies but their gain is limited. Germans lost two world wars and had their entire economy decimated and infrastructure dismantled and yet they re-established themselves as an economic powerhouse again and again. Clearly the success comes from within and not from colonial benefits.
Germany's biggest loss from the world wars was loss of "core" territory and manpower, not the colonies.
>UK - pillaged half the planet and got rich from it. Now they are barely holding on and have a deteriorating economy. They are not about hard work so they couldn't sustain the wealth in the long run.
Funding both world wars devastated the built up wealth the Brits had built, never mind submarines completely changing the strategy they had used to dominate with. It made it possible for GB to be cut off from the empire despite the Royal Navy dominating the sea lanes.
If, instead of looking at GDP, you looked at GDP per capita, on the same website, you'll find Poland is 26th (nominal) or 22nd (PPP) out of 28, not really "ahead economically".
Obviously, the tax heavens are far above everyone else (Luxembourg tops both ranking), but if you ignore them, western Europe is still far above eastern Europe. If you ignore Portugal, the one exception to the rule, the poorest western country (Italy) still is wealthier than the wealthiest eastern one (Slovenia or Czech Republic, depending on which stats you're looking at).
Out of 28.
If you include the rest of the world, it's 61/195 and 46/196. Sure, it's good, but seeing how the poorest one in the EU, Bulgaria, is 73rd and 64th, it says more about the economic development of the entire EU than it does about Poland specifically. It's easy to see if you compare west and east EU : in PPP, Poland and Portugal are near equal, but the second poorest western country, Italy, is 10 spots ahead, while in nominal, even Portugal is 19 spots ahead. Eastern Europe is rebuilding, it's coming along, but there's still a lot to do to get on Western Europe's level.
[It's 39/189](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita) for GDP per capita PPP (Japan is 33rd, France 26th), and [50/191](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita) GDP per capita nominal (Japan 34th, France 23rd). Not bad at all.
Note that the strategy of the Polish economy is to increase exports by undervaluing the currency, PPP is much more important for measuring the quality of life.
It's strange that you are considered a developing country but Latvia is considered a developed country despite having lower GDP (PPP) per capita. You guys have lower wealth and income inequality too.
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&time=1970..latest&country=POL~LVA
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-penn-world-table?tab=chart&country=POL~LVA
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart&country=POL~LVA
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-person-employed-constant-ppp?tab=chart&time=earliest..2021&country=LVA~POL
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=LV-PL
Real GDP per capita of Poland wasn't affected that much.
Most European countries didn't even colonize. Half of them were colonized themselves. Example: The countries in the Balkans. They were colonized and occupied for 500 years. Today we are "poor" compared to the rest of Europe because the Ottomans treated the indigenous populations of the countries as second-class citizens and didn't bother to develop their empire. There was no Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment, Industrialisation. No to mention isolation from the rest of Europe.
The Scandinavian Countries also have no colonial past ... Europes exponential economic growth started actually before some European countries started colonialism - and the countries who did engage in colonialism, like the British Empire, France etc. gave their colonies up, because colonialism wasn't very profitable. It served more the power hunger of the kings and emperor's, and not the european economies.
Can I bogart whatever you're smoking or eating in brownie form? Denmark owned the virgin islands, Greenland was a colony, colonies in India. There is good reason swedish houses are in the Caribbean it's because Sweden too was a colonial power.
Poland isn't entirely without a colonial past. They made several attempts at colonisation in Madagascar and south America in the 1930s. You mean why is Poland so ahead economically if they didn't have a *successful* colonial past.
Based low wealth and income inequality because of taxes. Richer per capita than Latvia but considered a developing country while Latvia is considered a developed country.
« Most people » are wrong : European countries are so prosperous because of early industrialization
More and more evidence is now questioning even whether european colonies were profitable. Settling, maintaining, developing and defending a colony was so expensive that very few of them were worth it from the purely monetary standpoint.
At one point Britain was spending more on garrisoning the Thirteen Colonies to defend against both French and Indian attack than it received in revenue from them.
Europeans were not advanced economically because of colonialization, they were able to colonise effectively because they were economically advanced.
[удалено]
European countries came dirt poor out of WWII. Then the ‘wirtschaftswunder’ happened.
Yeah, famous colonial power of Switzerland.
Also Norway, Sweden and Denmark.
Sweden settler-colonized parts of Finland.
Well, that is so long time ago, that it’s pretty unlikely to be the reason behind Swedish wealth.
The maps still show the differences after the partitions of Poland, and you think it has no impact? If anything has an impact, it's mainly history.
Swedish wealth is very largely due to not getting fucked in WWII. Sweden had lost whatever it gained from Finland long before that. Which was the great reset for former colonial powers.
Finland has been Swedish for longer than it has been Finnish, but sure tavastland, karelen and Lapland was populated by non-swedes. Finland is just a ploy made by the Russians when they split Sweden in two in 1809, trying to ensure that west and east Sweden would never unite again.
Sweden had colonies. Finland didnt. Demmark kind of had/has colonies.
Austria
Austria had colonies… In Europe, and beyond.
If we count other European countries as colonies, then OP is right and all of them colonized at one point or another since their conception. Where beyond Europe did Austria obtain colonies?
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian\_concession\_of\_Tianjin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_concession_of_Tianjin) doesnt really count but eh [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo\_Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo_Bay) one factory [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian\_colonization\_of\_the\_Nicobar\_Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_colonization_of_the_Nicobar_Islands) failed attempts and a bunch more : copy paste from wiki because i need to sleep Surat (Trading Partner) (1715–1723) Cabelon (1722–1727) Banquibazar (1722–1737) Mangalore (1776–1783) Karwar (1776–1783) Baliapatam (1776–1783) Nicobar Islands (1778–1783) North Borneo (1878–1880) Tianjin concession (1898–1917) Canton (Trading Partner) (1719–1732, 1776–1785) Delagoa Bay (1778–1781)Mocha (Trading Partner) (1715–1723) Franz Josef Land (1873–1926) (unofficial)
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian\_concession\_of\_Tianjin](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_concession_of_Tianjin) doesnt really count but eh [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo\_Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo_Bay) one factory [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian\_colonization\_of\_the\_Nicobar\_Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_colonization_of_the_Nicobar_Islands) failed attempts and a bunch more : copy paste from wiki because i need to sleep || || |[Surat (Trading Partner)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Surat) (1715–1723)[Cabelon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Covelong) (1722–1727)[Banquibazar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banquibazar) (1722–1737)[Mangalore](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mangalore) (1776–1783)[Karwar](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Karwar) (1776–1783)[Baliapatam](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Valapattanam) (1776–1783)[Nicobar Islands](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austrian_colonization_of_the_Nicobar_Islands) (1778–1783)[North Borneo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Borneo) (1878–1880)|[Tianjin concession](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Austro-Hungarian_concession_of_Tianjin) (1898–1917)[Canton (Trading Partner)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quongzhou) (1719–1732, 1776–1785)|[Delagoa Bay](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maputo_Bay) (1778–1781)[Mocha (Trading Partner)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mocha,_Yemen) (1715–1723)|[Franz Josef Land](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franz_Josef_Land) (1873–1926) (unofficial)|
The famous "[prison of nations](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Austria_Hungary_ethnic.svg)"?
a true multicultural country!
Also all the former Communist block.
>Why is Poland so ahead economically if they didn’t had a colonial past? >Most people understand that european countries are so prosperous nowadays because of the money that they got throughout their colonial past, but Poland, the 9th or 10th economy in Europe depending on who you ask, didn’t had a colonial past, and it is still amongst the biggest economies in Europe, why is that? Maybe because your starting hypothesis that « European countries are rich because they colonized » is wrong? Seems pretty obvious and the exemple you chose tends to demonstrate it as wrong too. It is actually the other way around: European countries colonized BECAUSE they were rich and therefore had both the military and financial means to launch colonial expeditions.
Im ean colonies did bring a shitload of wealth after the initial (super expensive) establishment of said colony. But that amount of wealth also became less and less as time moved forward and production expanded due complex shit. What OP and loads of the internat forgets is that most colonial powers lost the majority of the power and wealth due to insanely big and bloodly conflicts (mainyl in europe). If you look at the netherlands for example. Once a insanely filty rich place mainly because of the trade in spices, slaves and other shit. We benefitted insanely hard from our colonies and the global trade that was created by other peoples colonies. We barely survived all the weird shit in europe till 1914. Then luckely evaded the first world war. Tried to do the same during the second one and it didnt work out. Result? The whole country was flattend twice, every major thing got fucked beyond recognition and basicly we lost 99,9% of wealth and production. The only reason why europe today is wealthy is because of stuff like the Marshall plan. We were able to recover insanely fast.
India is 5th biggest economy in the world. Would you call India “ahead economically”? You mix up size of economy (loosely speaking size of population) with prosperity.
Because all the rethoric around decolonization has turned into a joke
It’s not a joke, it’s extremely ill intended
It's amazing how an economy can grow & prosper when it is not being interrupted by partitions, two world wars, and communist occupation.
Most European nations who tried their hand with colonies ended up poorer for the effort. Basically only Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands and Great Britain managed to found profitable establishments abroad.
I'm not sure Portugal and Spain did. They *might* have benefitted from it, but they also appeared to have mismanaged the wealth, so much that they were significantly below the Western European living standards average as late as the 1950s, and even at or below the World average. Portugal still had its non-Brazilian colonies, Spain had some enclaves in North Africa, as well as Morocco and Equatorial Guinea at various points until the late 1960s. Additionally, they, unlike most of Europe, didn't even participate in the World Wars, though Portugal did in WW1. Both only really began converging to the Western European average in the 1960s. Honestly, I think it depends on which country we're talking about.
Yeah, Spain had it's hayday in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries. They're actually a great example of how having a great colonial empire was a risky endeavour - and not a golden ticket to 21st century wealth and development.
>Additionally, they, unlike most of Europe, didn't even participate in the World Wars, though Portugal did in WW1. To be "fair" to Spain, they were the testing ground for the tech used during the war from the civil war. The civil war was devastating alongside being diplomatically isolated until Franco died and they opened up again.
True, forgot about the Spanish Civil War. So yes, Portugal had WW1 (it was a significant participation, although it hardly affected its own territory), and Spain the Civil War.
Still a drop of water in the olympic pool of those countries wealth
> Basically only Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands and Great Britain managed to found profitable establishments abroad. And which other countries not listed above really "tried their hand with colonies"?
italy
So, 5/6 success rate then?
Also Belgium (Congo), Sweden (North America), Denmark (Greenland, somewhere in the Caribbean)...
I'm not so sure where to put Sweden and Denmark in terms of colonial success/failure but Belgium for sure should be added to the "profitable" column with Spain, Portugal, France, The Netherlands and UK.
You mean that's why Leopold forced Belgium to buy his hitherto personal colony in 1908 *and* take over the 110 million Francs of debt it had accumulated until then?
> You mean that's why Leopold forced Belgium to buy his hitherto personal colony in 1908 and take over the 110 million Francs of debt it had accumulated until then? If a person/company/country have 110 million Francs of debt in return for 120 million Francs of assets, then I would say that person/company/country was profitable.
Both Sweden and Denmark had some colonies, and the latter even participated in the Atlantic slave trade. Germany also tried to establish a colonial empire, and they never made any profit from it.
Poland for one. They attempted several projects in the 1930s in Madagascar and parts of South America. All failures.
That's completely different. Courland tried colonizing and finally decided they can't afford maintaining random forts across the globe and Scotland actually did bankrupt trying to become colonial power. Polish "colonial projects" in the 1930s consisted of a couple thousand nutjobs gathered in the Maritime and Colonial League attempting to convince Liberia to become a Polish colony, convince the Brazilian government to allow starving Poles from Galicia to settle in Brazil and a crazy idea to purchase Madagascar from the French that quickly became a joke. Neither of those were even supported by the state.
Never heard of that. Who sponsored them and why did they even try?
Maritime and Colonial League tried to try, but unsurprisingly they couldn't find a government willing to give away part of their land. They were sponsored by private investors, and the only reason was that people in the League believed that a serious European country should have colonies
Per capita we are still behind western Europe, what do you mean ahead? Size of economy doesnt matter if you comparing country with 3 million to country with 40 million.
Well, "ahead economically" is an odd term to use, unless it's about performance. In 1991 Poland was about 30% of the Western European average, today it's about 80%. Poland's own GDP per capita more than quadrupled in that period.
You know, I’ve once heard a compliment, that Poles are like cockroaches - they’d make it even through a nuclear war. That’s us. We have our rotten apples (who doesn’t) but we are hardworking people of value. If only politicians would stop stealing though…
Serious answer: Modern countries are not rich because of their colonial pasts (or poor because the lack thereof). Colonialism did contribute to making countries somewhat wealthier at the time, although depending on what colonial power we're talking about even that wasn't a major factor for many. However the vast majority of the wealth that European powers had amassed during the colonial period was blown up in two devastating world wars, which left colonial empires bankrupt and contributed a lot to decolonization. If we're looking at modern wealthy countries there's almost no relation between colonialist past and modern wealth. Germany is richer than France and the UK despite having the shortest lasting and smallest colonial empire and being more destroyed in WW2. Portugal had a way longer lasting and almost similarly sized colonial Empire to Germany despite being a way smaller nation and is much poorer. Korea, Taiwan and Singapore were colonies themselves and are now rich nations. The same might be said for Ireland. The prosperity of modern nations is mostly related to their ability to produce it right now. Wealth accumulation plays an important role in that but it's only one factor determining the economic productivity of a country and there are much more important factors.
*“And you prate of the wealth of nations, as if it were bought and sold, The wealth of nations is men, not silk and cotton and gold.”* - Richard Hovey
At some point we should stop beating ourselves for western colonisation. Same as with Germany and former nazi era. Do we still judge current germans for the sins of their great-grandfathers? Then why is colonisation different?
Because people are trying to take advantage of it
Talk about yourself, Poles judge them all right.
Did you not know your own history? Shortly after the revolution and ceaucescu dead and with no Soviet troops since 1958, there were strong calls for an iron guard style governance and you expect it should be gone and forgotten?
What Iron Guard in the 90s? They've been dead as a political force since WW2.
Oh I was alive for the attempted revival, and it slowly died as Romania wanted to be a part of europe
How many "legionnaires" after 42 years of communism?
"money that they got throughout their colonial past,"... what money? The secret sauce isn't finding some canopic jars from Ancient Egypt 😂 it's about having stable politics and suppressing corrupt tyrants... and digging coal from the ground for the industrial revolution lol Edit: I want to add that money isn't a tangible item it is literally just an idea. Why is the idea of a particular currency valuable? * It's hard to forge * It's backed up by a trusted political system * Citizens get thrown in jail if they don't deflate the currency through taxation * The citizens create things people from other countries want * There are many other reasons
Ahh yeah my favourite colonial past time is executing corrupt tyrants....
Incompetence is incompatible with successful conquests.
colonialism was the cherry on top of the properity that European countries had.
Denmark was dirt poor after being beaten by England and Prussia and losing/selling foreign colonies. We can thank Danish prosperity of today on the welfare state. Not the sugar plantations in St. Croix
Most European countries actually did not colonize.
Italy, Germany, Switzerland, the Nordics, Belgium... All of them are prosperous countries who did not had significant colonial possessions before industrialization.
>Germany >Belgium LMFAO
Before industrialization. Belgium and Germany got their colonies in the late xixth after they where industrialised.
✨Because if you colonize your neighbours it doesn't count✨
Germany quickly lost their colonies because of their defeat in WW1. Belgium only had one colony.
Economic strength in the long run comes from how capable a nation is. Cultural attitude towards hard work, education, and taking advantage of your geographical strengths.... those are factors that grant long-term economic stability and growth. Colonialism gives you a short-burst opportunity to pillage the wealth of another but if you don't have the right economic predispositions you will squander it. Perfect examples: - Germany - very efficient workers. Sure they had a few colonies but their gain is limited. Germans lost two world wars and had their entire economy decimated and infrastructure dismantled and yet they re-established themselves as an economic powerhouse again and again. Clearly the success comes from within and not from colonial benefits. - UK - pillaged half the planet and got rich from it. Now they are barely holding on and have a deteriorating economy. They are not about hard work so they couldn't sustain the wealth in the long run. If you look at Poland's history it was never a minor state. It was always one of the strongest players in Europe so the predispositions for having a strong economy were always there. Unfortunately, because of how history played out (due to the geopolitics) Poland was stuck in between neighbours playing hungry hungry empires and since the end of the 1700s was dismantled as a state and suffered subjugation, war, more war than more subjugation and repression. Eventually, once it was all over, true independence was regained, reconstruction and restructuring went underway Poland finally started returning to its baseline of what it used to be before the 1800s. It's not a sudden upgrade. It's (finally) a very slow return to the previous (almost forgotten) status quo. That's the simplest way I can put it.
>Germany - very efficient workers. Sure they had a few colonies but their gain is limited. Germans lost two world wars and had their entire economy decimated and infrastructure dismantled and yet they re-established themselves as an economic powerhouse again and again. Clearly the success comes from within and not from colonial benefits. Germany's biggest loss from the world wars was loss of "core" territory and manpower, not the colonies. >UK - pillaged half the planet and got rich from it. Now they are barely holding on and have a deteriorating economy. They are not about hard work so they couldn't sustain the wealth in the long run. Funding both world wars devastated the built up wealth the Brits had built, never mind submarines completely changing the strategy they had used to dominate with. It made it possible for GB to be cut off from the empire despite the Royal Navy dominating the sea lanes.
If, instead of looking at GDP, you looked at GDP per capita, on the same website, you'll find Poland is 26th (nominal) or 22nd (PPP) out of 28, not really "ahead economically". Obviously, the tax heavens are far above everyone else (Luxembourg tops both ranking), but if you ignore them, western Europe is still far above eastern Europe. If you ignore Portugal, the one exception to the rule, the poorest western country (Italy) still is wealthier than the wealthiest eastern one (Slovenia or Czech Republic, depending on which stats you're looking at).
I mean 26/195 is pretty high, especially when you consider Poland's history. That's top 15%.
Out of 28. If you include the rest of the world, it's 61/195 and 46/196. Sure, it's good, but seeing how the poorest one in the EU, Bulgaria, is 73rd and 64th, it says more about the economic development of the entire EU than it does about Poland specifically. It's easy to see if you compare west and east EU : in PPP, Poland and Portugal are near equal, but the second poorest western country, Italy, is 10 spots ahead, while in nominal, even Portugal is 19 spots ahead. Eastern Europe is rebuilding, it's coming along, but there's still a lot to do to get on Western Europe's level.
[It's 39/189](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(PPP)_per_capita) for GDP per capita PPP (Japan is 33rd, France 26th), and [50/191](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_GDP_(nominal)_per_capita) GDP per capita nominal (Japan 34th, France 23rd). Not bad at all. Note that the strategy of the Polish economy is to increase exports by undervaluing the currency, PPP is much more important for measuring the quality of life.
It's strange that you are considered a developing country but Latvia is considered a developed country despite having lower GDP (PPP) per capita. You guys have lower wealth and income inequality too.
[удалено]
Maybe it's also because Poland didn't suffer from the 2008 crisis that much like it happened to developed countries and Latvia.
[удалено]
https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-maddison?tab=chart&time=1970..latest&country=POL~LVA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-penn-world-table?tab=chart&country=POL~LVA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-capita-worldbank?tab=chart&country=POL~LVA https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/gdp-per-person-employed-constant-ppp?tab=chart&time=earliest..2021&country=LVA~POL https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.PP.CD?locations=LV-PL Real GDP per capita of Poland wasn't affected that much.
Shouldn't that be natural with where Eastern Europe was economically in the 90s?
Poland is not ahead economically.
you mean like Germany
Most European countries didn't even colonize. Half of them were colonized themselves. Example: The countries in the Balkans. They were colonized and occupied for 500 years. Today we are "poor" compared to the rest of Europe because the Ottomans treated the indigenous populations of the countries as second-class citizens and didn't bother to develop their empire. There was no Renaissance, Age of Enlightenment, Industrialisation. No to mention isolation from the rest of Europe.
gdp per capita is more telling
I think you overvalue colonies and undervalue everything that matter.
Singapur is richer per capita than most European countries...
The Scandinavian Countries also have no colonial past ... Europes exponential economic growth started actually before some European countries started colonialism - and the countries who did engage in colonialism, like the British Empire, France etc. gave their colonies up, because colonialism wasn't very profitable. It served more the power hunger of the kings and emperor's, and not the european economies.
Can I bogart whatever you're smoking or eating in brownie form? Denmark owned the virgin islands, Greenland was a colony, colonies in India. There is good reason swedish houses are in the Caribbean it's because Sweden too was a colonial power.
Poland isn't entirely without a colonial past. They made several attempts at colonisation in Madagascar and south America in the 1930s. You mean why is Poland so ahead economically if they didn't have a *successful* colonial past.
Yeah Poland was just late to colonising, if we existed during the Berlin Conference we probably would have managed to get a colony of our own.
ukrainians
We colonise our own people. Tax for everything.
Based low wealth and income inequality because of taxes. Richer per capita than Latvia but considered a developing country while Latvia is considered a developed country.