According to a statement, the British Empire and another significant Western forces may have suffered a net loss as a result of slavery and colonialism rather than significant economic gain as a result.
Contrary to popular belief that American capitalism was based on colonialism and slavery, recent research from  says Kristian Niemietz of the Institute of Economic Affairs.
The mind of the IEA’s program on political economy contends that while some wealthy families in Britain and other imperial powers made a significant profit during the period, the general public did not take notice. Instead, they were forced to pay the exorbitant costs in excess military and administrative expenses to keep and protect distant colonial outposts, a bill that citizens of non-colonial European nations did not need to foot.
According to Niemietz,” Profits earned from abroad engagement were big enough to make some people extremely wealthy, but they were not significant enough to significantly affect economic aggregates like Britain’s investment rate and capital formation.”
He added that while the kingdom “did give some respectable gains for the American business,” it” came with eye-watering military and administrative costs, and thus may have failed any cost-benefit check.”
Although” we do not typically hear the claim that “brewing financed the Industrial Revolution” or” animal farming financed the Industrial Revolution,” the transatlantic slave trade was no more significant for the American market.
Niemietz argued that colonization itself is a poor indicator of a country’s wealth, noting that Japan was comparatively poor by Western standards during its royal period and only gained wealth after World War II, when it lost its international holdings after it properly industrialized its economy before engaging in significant attempts at colonialism.
Additionally, the researcher noted that Western nations that neither had colonial holdings nor had short-lived or minor colonial holdings industrialized at roughly the same rate as the main colonial powers, noting that “if there was an “empire bonus,” it is not apparent in the macro data.
Economic freedom and economic governance indicators like the Economic Freedom Index and the Ease of Doing Business Index are the best predictors of a country’s wealth and wealth, according to him, adding that this information “tells us a lot more than whether or not it was involved in the slave trade, how many colonies it once held on to them, or how long it held on to them.”
The notion that Western capitalism was based on colonial and slave-building plunder serves as the West’s “original sin” tale. Therefore, it perfectly fits into our awakened anti-capitalism zeitgeist.
It is also wrong.
Read my book: https: //t. co/4hJS8PW2xx— Kristian Niemietz ( @K_Niemietz ) May 1, 2024
The report found that the only “major counterexample” was the Belgian Congo, often cited as one of the more brutal examples of Western colonialism. Despite the fact that the wealth generated still mostly goes to the elites, Niemietz discovered that the Congo was quite profitable for Belgium as a whole.
However, the report noted it was a “highly unusual example” in multiple regards. The Belgian Congo, also known as the” Congo Free State,” was to begin without the government’s approval, making King Leopold II of having to run it as a “private for-profit company” of the crown without the support of the country and relying heavily on taxpayer funds. Meanwhile, the Congo was “exceptionally rich” in sought- after natural resources, such as rubber and ivory.
” It does not show that’ colonialism’ is profitable. It demonstrates to the Belgian Empire that a colony can be profitable if it is run like a profit-maximizing private business, if parliament obstinately refuses to subfinance it, and if it is extremely resource-rich,” Niemietz argued.
Before any involvement in the central African nation, Belgium was already a major industrial power, the report noted, and that “it would have been one even if no Belgian had ever set foot on Congolese territory.”
Niemietz did acknowledge that there was evidence that colonized regions of the world did have long-term detrimental effects, particularly those that were environmentally or otherwise unfriendly to Europeans at the time because they frequently established authoritarian and “extractivist” forms of government, which served as a framework for local elites ‘ continued poor governance.
Nothing in this article suggests that a nation’s colonial past and its current economic performance are deterministic. An extractivist post- colonial
A nation’s institutional legacy is not a straitjacket out of which it is impossible to leave. But the legacy exists”, he wrote.
The subsequent establishment of good institutions was less likely because of colonial extractivism or a period of significant slave trade involvement. The conclusion is that colonialism and slavery were not zero-sum games that profited from the colonisers at the expense of the colonized. It was more like a negative- sum game, which hurt the latter without really benefiting the former”, he concluded.
Barbados Prime Minister Demands$ 4.9 Trillion in Slavery Reparationshttps: //t. co/i3c1E2skSv
— Breitbart London ( @BreitbartLondon ) December 9, 2023
