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Why colonialism happened, a thread:
Human resources have always been limited by how much we can extract from the environment. In hunter gatherer societies that meant possessing just enough to be mobile with. Excess food, debt, etc can't get too high in an economy with only enough resources for a week or two
That all changed with the agricultural revolution. With the creation of farms came the accumulation of excess food, which allowed some people to not be farmers and begin innovating in different fields. As well as large stores of food that could be traded for other goods
But there was a catch to this. Humans were still limited to how much food and goods they could produce, this time by the sun. As well as land area, soil quality, etc
The amount of sun you got determined how much crops you could produce. How much crops you could produce determined how many people you could support. How many ppl you could support determined how much labor you had. And how much labor you had determined the size of your economy
So the size of your countries economy was literally decided by the amount of sun you got. As well as how much land you controlled, the quality of your soil, etc. This is why China and India had the largest populations and economies throughout history. They produced the most crops
This is why Europe was working so hard to gain direct access to Asia's wealth. Because they had the largest economy in the world by far. This is why they warred with the Middle East. Because they controlled the shipping roots, and therefore the wealth, that flowed into Europe
This why they worked so hard to find another route to Asia. Because the Middle East were their gate keepers to Asia's wealth. Europe gets way less sun, less land, and lower quality soil than Asia. They can't produce as many crops, so they had to go conquer other lands to compete
In doing this, they stumbled upon much more than they bargained for. An entire new world, two continents to exploit. In an agriculture based economy world, this was their ticket to #1. But they needed labor to work these lands to make them rich. That's where slaves came in
The natives were dying of European diseases/genocide, so they needed a new source of slave labor. Europeans had already been trading slaves w/ Africa and running plantations in The Canaries, so they had all the experience and connections they needed to apply it on a larger scale
A new world and slave labor allowed them to produce way more food/resources than they could've ever dreamed of in Europe. This, plus all the wealth they stole from the previous empires of the Americas, ballooned their economy past anything they could've ever done by themselves
When the industrial revolution happened, this put their economies into over drive. Instead of needing humans to pick crops and produce things, they could tap stored sun energy through fossil fuels (coal, oil, etc) to run machines that could work harder than any human ever could
So with their newly stolen land and labor, they were able to supply their countries and industrial factories with food and resources at increasingly cheaper prices. Eventually so low that they could ship them to Asia and undercut their domestic markets
This was the beginning of the European controlled world. All the new wealth they got from stealing land/labor allowed them to increase their population and military, which allowed them to conquer and subjugate even more lands and people. Which gave them even more labor and wealth
This is also why many former colonies are still largely agricultural or other resource economies with export subsidies. Because Europe had no interest in developing them, they were just siphoning their labor and resources. Colonies were kept poor and underdeveloped on purpose
This is why I think it's so ironic the hate ethnic people get. The new world and Europe's wealth was literally built on slave labor and colonialism . Our ancestors built Europe's wealth with their backs. Slaves and colonies were literally the capital for capitalism
They stole our freedom, labor, profit, language, religion, denied us jobs, home loans, forced us into ghettos, terrorized us. Then have the nerve to hate on us 
. The effects of systematic oppression still exist, even though we're the ones who produced all the wealth they enjoy
. The effects of systematic oppression still exist, even though we're the ones who produced all the wealth they enjoy
If you like this thread I recommend reading The Origins of the Modern World by Robert B. Marks. It really opened my eyes to the reality of how and why the world's economy/politics came to be the way it is now
