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The entire west is parasitic. Full of colonizing profiteers.
Major modern colonizer countries are the United States, China, Russia, and France. Criteria for being considered a colonizer have to be a little bit more strict then "I have wasted toons of money trying to control a country between 1936 and 1941 for prestige".
The Congo, Equatorial Guinea, Angola, Mozambique, Suriname etc. would probably disagree with you.
Not to mind the fact that much of the US and France colonialism and neocolonialism is fully backed by allies.
I have said "Major" meaning the form of colonialism that have the biggest economic impact. Belgium neocolonialism and Dutch neocolonialism are not nearly on the same scale as the others I have shared.
France colonialism is not fully backed by allies. Heck, Italy nearly went into a proxy war with France in Libya after they decided that Gaddafi was not good for "humanitarian reasons" and backed LNA against UN-supported GNA. If those are allies supporting each other then I need to rethink the meaning of the world. See Meloni blasting France on national television: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NBf1C4YMNw
You said
Congo, Angola, Mozambique aren't past tense. Over half the EU built colonial systems and still benefit from their evolved forms.
Also France backed the LNA in Libya, undermined the UN-recognized GNA, and faced zero material consequences. Not an accident. Their allies sustain and support their colonialism and neocolonialism.
France remains a core member of NATO, EU, G7, UNSC. Also France maintains the CFA franc. Military bases across West and Central Africa. Corporate access secured through policy shaped in Brussels and Paris. Whether Meloni yells on TV, the structure which is supported through integration into the EU and NATO doesn't change. No sanctions. No budget cuts. No accountability.
Words don't dismantle systems. Material support sustains them. And that support never stops for the major powers. Lives on the periphery absorb the cost.
Yes, welcome to realpolitik. You face consequences if someone stronger than you wants you to face consequences.
Do you think Italy would ever sanction France and leave the EU, destroying their entire economy in the process, on principle?
Europe kept being dependent on Russia giving them money fueling their war of conquest in Ukraine for years, and they still do that despite the sanctions and billions of euros spent to arm Ukraine. Do you really think they are not willingly letting the shadow fleet exist? Are you really that naive?
You realize what you're saying just confirms my point? Supporting colonialism because it serves your national interest is still supporting colonialism. Realpolitik is simply the justification.
The EU and NATO are led by imperialist powers and their allies. The social, economic, and military stability of the West is built directly on neocolonial extraction from the periphery. Of course they support it. The system reproduces itself.
And lol at "naive." I don't expect those who benefit directly from imperialism to take meaningful steps to stop it.
My issue is with you pretending colonial powers are something they're not. I'm just pointing out the reality.
Plenty of rapists justify their crimes to themselves. Doesn't make them not rapists.
No I am not confirming your point at all. Not attaching another country that is exploiting neocolonialism is not the same as supporting: it is tolerating an abuse. Thats it.
The social, economic and military stability of the West is absolutely not built on neocolonial extraction. That is utterly absurd. You need to frame this statement. If a german company is providing capital, jobs and infrastructure to a developing country via foreign direct investment is it neocolonial extraction for you? What exactly is the neocolonial extraction of Spain for example? Are we talking bought assets of telephone companies and banks in latin America?
The West is rich because it developed a highly productive, technology advanced, well-governed domestic economy. Germany was one of the strongest industrial economy by 1880 without a single colony. The same was true for Italy.
Nobody deny that some western and non western countries have some strong form of control and direct power projection on developing countries (as I said already, mainly US, Russia, China and France). But that comes with being a powerful country (or powerful company) that has the means to impose themself on other. That has always been the case.
That is a distinction without a material difference. If your economy runs on cheap resources secured by French military bases, and your banks profit from CFA franc transactions, and your corporations get preferential access through EU trade deals shaped in Paris and Brussels, you are not "tolerating" anything. You are benefiting. That is support.
This is propaganda slop. Germany industrialized on cotton from colonized Africa, rubber from the Congo, minerals from occupied territories. Its banks financed colonial ventures. Its firms sold into colonial markets protected by British and French guns. Italy likewise. No direct colonies does not mean no colonial benefit. The entire European system was integrated. Extraction in the periphery subsidized accumulation in the core. That is the material record.
When that investment secures resource access, repatriates profits, shapes local policy to favor foreign capital, and leaves the host economy dependent, yes. That is the form extraction takes now. It does not need flags or governors.
Yes. Exactly that. Spanish banks and telecoms dominate markets in Latin America not because of superior efficiency, but because of historical ties, language, and financial structures that replicate colonial patterns. Capital flows one way. Profits flow back. Local development stays constrained. That is not coincidence. It is continuity.
You are not wrong that powerful countries impose themselves. But that power was built on centuries of extraction. To pretend the West got rich by being smarter, better governed, or more innovative while ignoring the enslaved labor, stolen land, and plundered resources that funded that rise is either naive (the irony) or dishonest.
I know you probably have a thought terminating cliche to dismiss what I'm about to say but, you really should read Lenin, Fanon, Walter Rodney, Kwame Nkrumah, Samir Amin, and Aimé Césaire.
So in the end of all of this discussion we are more or less agreeing on reality.
The only difference is that you think that somewhat private companies should refrain from increasing their value by any means that could introduce a dependency between two separate countries, and that means in practice you want to ban foreign direct investment globally. I simply say that there is no support for this in the current capital based society by both the companies and the countries receiving the investment. There is nothing forced in China neocolonialism for example. That is pure foreign investment exploitation.
But just to clarify some points, Europe is actually richer because it was smarter, better governed and more innovative. How the fuck do you think was possible for an island of 10 million people to control half the world? Why does the world let them do it? Do you think that this was not the same as the time Rome, a city state in the middle of Italy, controlled the entirety of Europe and Nord Africa? Colonialism is a consequence of being richer, innovative and better governed, not a driver.
No, the material record says that most important drivers for early Germany industrialization were coal and steel, railways, chemical and electrical engineering and agriculture. Raw materials import on the global market accounted for at most 10% of the GDP. Certainly relevant, but to say that Germany industrialization was built on colonialism is simply false. It was built on locally sourced pure german coal mined by poor german people.
No. You are describing the appearance. I am pointing to the essence.
This is pure idealism (a fairytale). Ideas do not float above material conditions. Innovation is not spontaneous. It is produced by specific relations of production. Britain did not control half the world because of superior governance. It controlled half the world because it had accumulated capital through enslaved labor, stolen land, and plundered resources. That capital funded the railways, the factories, the universities you credit for "innovation." To reverse this is to confuse effect for cause.
This is a core error. Colonialism was not a side effect. It was a primary mechanism of primitive accumulation. The enclosure of commons, the transatlantic slave trade, the extraction of rubber, cotton, minerals, these were not incidental. They were foundational to the rise of European capital. The periphery was not "left behind." It was actively underdeveloped to serve accumulation in the core. Again you should read Walter Rodney.
Yes. And where did the capital for those railways come from? Who bought the chemicals and electrical goods? German industry developed within a global system structured by colonial extraction. The "10% of GDP" argument is a fetish of the statistic. Capital is not just raw inputs. It is profit, reinvestment, market access, financial infrastructure. All of which were shaped by colonial relations. To isolate one variable is to ignore the totality.
This is propaganda slop. Chinese investment operates differently. No structural adjustment programs. No conditionalities demanding privatization, austerity, or deregulation. No regime change tied to loans. Debt renegotiations happen without military intervention. That is a material difference. It does not mean China is "pure." But to equate it with Western neocolonialism is to ignore how power actually functions in each case.
Western capital extracts through institutions it controls: IMF, World Bank, WTO. These enforce rules that reproduce dependency. Chinese capital operates through bilateral contracts. The mechanism matters. The outcome is not identical. To conflate them is either ignorance or bad faith.
False equivalence. Rome was a pre-capitalist empire extracting tribute. European colonialism was capitalist imperialism restructuring entire economies for accumulation. Different mode of production. Different logic. Different relation to the periphery. Conflating them erases the specificity of capitalist exploitation.
You are not wrong that companies and recipient countries accept FDI. But acceptance under structural constraint is not consent. It is survival within a system not of their making. That is not a defense of the system. It is a description of how power operates.
You are an idiot for peddling this "smarter Europe" nonsense (one level removed from phrenology style nazi race science). The facts are not on your side.
I'll say again you really should read Lenin on imperialism, Fanon on colonial violence, Walter Rodney on how Europe underdeveloped Africa, Kwame Nkrumah on neocolonialism, Samir Amin on unequal development, Aimé Césaire on the dialectic of civilization and barbarism, CLR James on the black Jacobins. After that you may have enough of an understanding to have a proper conversation instead of what you are doing now.
You are just stating that colonial relationship is the main driver of capital accumulation. Your entire argument depend on this. And I do not see enough evidence to justify this. Can you provide factual evidence that is necessarily the case and not something that happen sometimes? Lacking that this entire discussion is based on nothing.
I will happily say "smarter Mongols" when they were in an hegemonic position (because of innovative military technology, strong administrative capacity and command of economy and trade). There is nothing racist in that sentence. I am not claiming that European people are biologically more intelligent. That is absurd. I am saying that the cumulation environmental, cultural and historical events made it so in that moment in time they made choices we now consider smart because enabled objective we now consider valuable. You are an idiot for interpreting something so clear, in a "race" kind of way.
You are fighting straw man and making unjustified assumption about what I think. Should I read on how Europe underdeveloped Africa to have this conversation? That is an universal truth that most sane person agree on. Why are you fighting me on opinion we share already?
Ok again for the 3rd time:
Eric Williams, Capitalism and Slavery: profits from the transatlantic slave trade directly financed British industrialization. Textile mills, the leading sector of the Industrial Revolution, ran on cotton produced by enslaved labor in the US South and Caribbean. That is not "sometimes." That is the foundation.
Walter Rodney, How Europe Underdeveloped Africa: documents how colonial infrastructure was built to extract, not develop. Railways went from mines to ports, not between African cities. Capital flowed out. Profits repatriated. Local industry stifled.
The Belgian Congo: rubber and mineral extraction under Leopold II generated massive surplus. That surplus funded Belgian industry, public works, financial institutions. Same pattern across French West Africa, Portuguese Angola, British India.
Capital accumulation is not just about raw input percentages. It is about profit rates, reinvestment capacity, market control, financial infrastructure. Colonial trade provided protected markets for European manufactures. It supplied cheap inputs. It generated super-profits that funded further innovation. That is how the system worked. Please actually engage with what I'm saying and the books I am recommending.
But those "choices" were materially conditioned. You cannot separate "innovation" from the capital that funded it. That capital came from extraction. To credit "smart choices" while ignoring the material basis of those choices is idealism. It is the same logic that says a factory owner is "smart" for getting rich while ignoring the workers who produced the value.
Major example of this is Elon Musk, by all accounts a complete fucking idiot, yet thanks to his parents apartheid mine he had the material basis to reach where he is now. Remove that foundation and all his "genius" disappears, same with the EuroAmerikan hegemony.
Because you are not sharing the opinion. You said colonialism is a consequence of being richer, not a driver. That reverses cause and effect. You equated Chinese investment with Western neocolonialism, ignoring the material difference in mechanism. You framed "tolerating abuse" as distinct from support, ignoring how benefit constitutes complicity.
If we actually shared the analysis, you would not be defending the "smarter Europe" framing. You would not be asking for evidence after I already recommended multiple books that cover these points in far more detail than I can in a comment.
Read the sources like I said last comment.
ok, again, I was very specific in my sentence.
Britain and Belgium are brutal example of growth driven by colonial exploitation. Germany and Italy are not. So while we agree that is the case for Britain and Belgium, those are not good sources to explain why this is "necessary".
We fucking do in the context of that sentence. Obviously I did not meant that we share "all" the opinion we discussed in this conversation! The lack of context awareness of each of your sentences is so frustrating, and is exactly the same problem highlighted at the start of this message
Finally, I do not understand why you give China a pass. When China gets billions in capital from the World Bank, or trillions in FDI after they joined the WTO why are they not benefiting from colonial exploitation, but 1880 Germany was a colonial exploiter because they bought raw material on the open market? When China force the "One China" principle, the "No Paris Club", and tied procurement clauses (no skill transfer and no job creation) it is fine, but EU lending frameworks conditions likes anti-corruption, green transitions, and finance sustainability are bad? Why the double standard?
We really are going in circles.
Germany and Italy did not exist in a vacuum. They operated inside an integrated European imperial system. German banks financed colonial ventures in Africa. German firms sold manufactured goods into markets protected by British and French guns. German industry ran on rubber, cotton, and minerals extracted under colonial conditions. That "open market" was not neutral. It was structured by colonial power relations that set prices, controlled shipping, and enforced contracts through gunboats. Buying raw materials from a colony means benefiting from the exploitation that produced them.
And Germany had the third largest colonial empire in the 19th century, behind only Britain and France. Lost those holdings after WW1, but the benefit remained. Italy held the AOI and other territories until 1941. No direct colonies at a given moment does not mean no colonial benefit. The core-periphery relation is systemic.
I am not giving anyone a pass. I am analyzing material differences in mechanism.
Chinese investment does not come with structural adjustment programs. No demands for privatization, austerity, or deregulation. No regime change tied to loans. Debt renegotiations happen without military intervention. Infrastructure-for-resources deals at least build physical capital in the host country. That is a material difference from Western lending frameworks.
The "One China" principle is about territorial sovereignty, not extraction. The policy is no more colonial than the US federal government defeating the Confederacy.
EU conditionalities like "anti-corruption" or "green transition" often function to open markets for European firms, enforce neoliberal reforms, and maintain dependency.
The Paris Club is a Western creditor cartel that enforces repayment on terms favorable to core capital. Chinese lending may have tough terms at times, but it does not demand political restructuring to serve foreign capital interests.
Tied procurement is not unique to China. Western aid and investment do the same. The difference is in the superstructure: Western conditionalities reshape domestic policy. Chinese contracts are bilateral and commercial. Not perfect. But not identical.
You are conflating all foreign capital as the same. That ignores how power actually operates. Mechanism and outcome matter.
Please actually engage. Stop the circular deflection. So much of this misunderstanding and malformed analysis, (if it's not simply bad faith debate-bro bullshit) would clear up if you took the time to read the seminal works of the authors I recommended.
I am not going in circle! I am being precise.
I set the date as 1880 multiple times exactly because both Italy and Germany were among the richest countries in the world by that date without a colonial empire. Who cares about 1941, this is not relevant to the conversation. It is indeed the case that industrialization came before colonization. As I have stated before, steel and carbon are the main driver.
If market access is enough of a benefit to be part of the exploitation system, that means that China and India which are also benefitting from global market access and capital, are part of the system of colonial exploitation. If you grant that 2026 China and 2026 India are colonial exploiter according to your world view I will grand that 1880 Germany and 1880 Italy are colonial exploiter according to your world view.
does EU lending program for Africa? Not to my knowledge. Do you have some data that justify this? You continue to assert stuff that is not backed in reality.
Precision that misses the point is not precision. Capital does not accumulate in national silos. German and Italian industry in 1880 was embedded in a European imperial circuit. British and French colonies supplied cheap cotton, rubber, minerals. Those inputs lowered production costs for German and Italian manufacturers. Colonial markets absorbed their exports. European banks, shipping, insurance, and legal frameworks (all built on extraction) facilitated their trade. To isolate "1880 Germany" from that system is methodological nationalism. It ignores how capital actually moves.
False equivalence. China and India are not shaping the rules of the global market. They are operating within a system designed by and for Western capital. The IMF, World Bank, WTO, SWIFT, dollar hegemony, these are not neutral platforms. They are instruments of core power. China is building parallel structures precisely because the existing ones are rigged. That is not the same as being a beneficiary of the original extraction that built those structures.
Germany in 1880 was part of the core that designed and enforced the colonial order. China in 2026 is challenging that order. Materially different positions. Conflating them is either confusion or bad faith.
Yes. EU development aid is tied to procurement from European firms. The Cotonou Agreement, the Global Gateway initiative, the European Development Fund, all come with conditionalities on governance, trade liberalization, and policy alignment. The European Investment Bank requires environmental and social standards that often favor European contractors. These are not "anti-corruption" in the abstract. They are mechanisms that reproduce dependency and open markets for European capital.
You do not need to take my word. Read the policy documents. Or better, read the critics who have analyzed their outcomes.
Stop dodging. Stop deflecting. Stop pretending that isolating one variable in 1880 explains a global system of accumulation.
Read the fucking books. Eric Williams. Walter Rodney. Kwame Nkrumah. Samir Amin. Aimé Césaire. CLR James. Frantz Fanon. Not to argue. To understand how the world actually works.
I know reading is hard but you barely have a grasp on what you're talking about while you speak with such authority.
This entire reply is bullshit. Is difficult to keep up with so many lies.
In 1880 Germany was mostly self sufficient in generating capital from traditional industries (like agriculture) and the rise of the middle class. The only foreign capital injection was from France as part of the settlement reached after the Franco-Prussian war in 1871. You continue to lie about "European banks, shipping, insurance" like this was a thing in 1880. Capital was coming from national banks and industrial reinvestment. And the same lies continues with rubber (not a thing in 1880), and mineral (which one exactly?). I can grant you import from US cotton plantation, but while they had problems with slavery, that was not the result of colonial exploitation, but access to market.
False. The hegemon in 1880 was the British Empire, the bank of England and the Royal Navy. Germany was actually against the British world order, and the raise of Germany as adversary of the economic dominance of the British Empire is one of the core reasons for WW1
I am fucking tired of generalization applied to "the West" like a giant forever unified monolite of evil as a way to deflect from the same shit done all the time by powerful nations like China that has implicit procurement (chinese companies, materials and labor with no knowledge transfer), political (you must cut ties with Taiwan) and economical (you must export to us oil, copper, cobalt ) conditions on loans.
This was just an example to show that colonial exploitation is not the reason why some countries are rich. It is not for China, it is not for Germany, it is not for Italy (for both countries the colonial empire was a massive net financial loss).
And you repeating the same lies is so tiring that makes me think those books are not that good.
Self-sufficiency is a myth in a global capitalist system. German agriculture in 1880 relied on imported guano, nitrates, and machinery. German industry relied on imported cotton, rubber, and minerals. You cannot isolate a national economy from the world market that sustains it.
Deutsche Bank was founded in 1870 specifically to finance German foreign trade. Dresdner Bank and Commerzbank were active in colonial finance by the 1880s. Lloyd's of London insured German shipments. British and French shipping lines carried German goods. Capital was never purely national. That is not a lie. That is history.
Rubber was absolutely a thing in 1880. The Congo rubber boom began in the early 1880s. The Amazon rubber boom was in full swing. German chemical firms like BASF and Bayer were already importing rubber for industrial use. Natural rubber was critical for insulation, tires, and machinery. To deny this is to ignore basic industrial history.
Iron ore from Sweden and Spain. Manganese from Russia and Brazil. Copper from Chile and the US. Tin from Southeast Asia. German steel production depended on imported inputs. Colonial and semi-colonial sources supplied those inputs under conditions of unequal exchange. That is the material relation.
Slavery in the US South was colonial exploitation. The cotton that fed Lancashire and the Ruhr was produced by enslaved labor. That is not "access to market." That is extraction. To separate the two is idealism.
Rivalry within the core does not negate shared benefit from the periphery. Germany challenged British hegemony precisely because it wanted a larger share of colonial extraction. That is not evidence against the system. That is evidence of how the system works.
Debated in historiography. Even if true for some accounting metrics, it ignores strategic benefits: resource access, market control, geopolitical leverage, technological spin-offs. Capital accumulation is not just about balance sheets. It is about power.
Yes. Chinese loans have conditions. But they do not typically demand privatization, austerity, or deregulation. They do not restructure domestic policy to serve foreign capital. That is a material difference. Not perfection. Not innocence. But difference. Conflating mechanism with outcome is bad analysis.
You don't think rubber was a thing in the 1880s. You think Germany was self-sufficient in a global capitalist system. You think buying cotton from slave plantations is just "market access." You think core-periphery relations are optional.
I am going to ask this earnestly please don't be offended: are you by chance a German teenager? It would explain the constant attempts to whitewash German imperial history and the extreme gaps in basic historical knowledge.
If not (and honestly even if you are), then please just read the fucking books. Eric Williams. Walter Rodney. Kwame Nkrumah. Samir Amin. Aimé Césaire. CLR James. Frantz Fanon.
I am not a german teenager, are you a fucking AI? Because you are sounding just like AI following a script of bad training.
"cannot isolate a national economy", "never purely national", no shit Sherlock. But we are discussing insignificant parts of a nation wealth. Rubber in 1880 Germany was like 0.2% on GDP if I am being generous. Deutsche Bank is a national bank. By 1880 Germany with no colonial empire was a capital exporter, not importer. Sweden and Spain, your typical african colonies.
Why are we discussing this shit?
Wow, very hostile. Honestly not unexpected after getting caught on some pretty bald-faced lies.
You went from denying rubber existed in 1880 to conceding it was "0.2% of GDP" in one message (not to mind 0.2% is a number pulled directly from your ass alongside being irrelevant to the point). You went from "European banks and shipping insurance wasn't a thing" to "Deutsche Bank is a national bank" like that refutes anything.
I'd be embarrassed too don't worry I don't hold it against you.
However after all this, you still have not engaged the core point: Germany and Italy were integrated into the imperial core even before they had direct colonies. Capital, trade, finance, shipping, insurance, markets, all structured by colonial extraction. It's really not that complicated. It is basic historical materialism.
The fact that you cannot grasp a systemic analysis, and instead lash out when basic facts are corrected, tells me everything I need to know. Seems I hit the nail on the head as they say (bullseye). 🤣
Learn to read the context when discussing, it is really like chatting with a robot..
CONTEXT: Germany 1880, trying to establishing the relevance to national wealth of rubber imported from colonies.
COMPLETE EXPLANATION: do the math, in 1880 we are before the invention of pneumatic bicycle tire, before the automobile industry, before rubber plantation in Congo and Asia. Global production is 11K tons, almost entirely from the Empire of Brazil, not a colony of a European country, most of which goes to Britain, US and France. At 1880 that is less then 0.2% of GDP for Germany. To me in the context of establishing the reason for Germany wealth being driven by colonial exploitation that is nothing. If for you 0.2%, 0% of which is from a colony, is worth discussing over then you are totally missing the point.
CONTEXT: original quote "European banks, shipping, insurance". We are talking about the system put in place to facilitate exploitation of colonies.
COMPLETE EXPLANATION: Stressing "European". Europe was not a thing. Shipping insurance was a thing since medieval age. Was Florence banking system and Genoa shipping insurance in 1300 put in place for exploitation of colonial empires? No, it was put in place to facilitate trade. My mistake in assuming you meant a unified "European" system of exploitation as the alternative was just silly. If you really meant banks and insurance then good for you, on a national level that was a thing and totally irrelevant to the conversation.
CONTEXT: you said "British and French colonies supplied cheap cotton, rubber, minerals". I asked you which mineral. Your quote is not a quote, I never said that. The context is still colonial exploitation, and by asking which mineral I have implied there is no mineral import from British or French colonies relevant to the conversation.
COMPLETE EXPLANATION: The only mineral not from a European country in your list was tin. Germany had tin deposits on the border with Bohemia, but most of the Tin was from Cornwall. So most of what was true for rubber is true for Tin we are talking a very small portion of GDP most of which was from Britain. The rest was from Malaya
The fact that you cannot grasp a contextual analysis and instead search for futile points to strawman when your points are trash tell me everything I need to know. Seems I hit the nail on the head as they say (bullseye). 🤣
Fucking white trash dumbass.
The "Empire of Brazil" was controlled by ex Portuguese nobility and Portuguese bourgeois, in your bullshit time frame of 1880, Brazil was """""independent""""""" for only 55 years which is not enough time to recuperate from the colonial process, fuck slavery was abolished in 1888 by A FUCKING PRINCESS. The entire Brazilian nobility was trash European nobility that fled Napoleon.
Was the Empire of Brazil political autonomy controlled by Portugal in 1880? If the answer is no, then it was not a colony. Not that difficult to grasp. Was the US under Andrew Jackson a British colony? No, even if the local elite was European British elite of origin for the most part. Pedro II of Brazil considered himself Brazilian, born under an independent Brazil. Foreigner according to Portuguese law, educated in Brazil, with no loyalty to Portugal, he is considered one of the most important figure in Brazilian history.
Moving the goalposts is not context. It is deflection. Your original claim was that Germany industrialized without colonial benefit. That is false. The global system Germany operated within was structured by colonial extraction. Even if rubber was "0.2% of GDP" (which is again straight from your ass), it still spectacularly misses the point being made. Capital accumulation is not about raw input percentages. It is about super-profits, protected markets, financial infrastructure, and reinvestment capacity. Colonial trade provided all of that. Isolating one commodity used as an example to dismiss the system is not the dunk you seem to think it is.
Brazil in 1880 was not "not a colony". It was a semi-colonial economy, formerly Portuguese, integrated into the British imperial economic sphere. Informal empire counts. The cotton, rubber, and minerals that fed European industry came from conditions of unequal exchange. Prices set in London. Shipping controlled by British firms. Contracts enforced by gunboats. That is the material relation. To pretend that "not a formal colony" means "not extraction" is to ignore how imperialism and colonialism actually works.
No one said "Europe" was a unified state. The point was that German capital operated within a European imperial circuit. British shipping, Lloyd's insurance, French ports, German industrial demand: all part of the same extraction-based system. To isolate "national" banks from that circuit is methodological nationalism. It ignores how capital actually moves. Deutsche Bank financed foreign trade. German firms used British insurance. German goods moved on British ships. That is not "irrelevant". That is the system.
Cornwall was embedded in the British imperial mining complex. Its profits relied on colonial capital, colonial technology, and colonial markets. The same goes for Spanish iron, Swedish copper, Bohemian manganese. These were not isolated national industries. They operated within a European extractive circuit built on colonial power. Cheap labor from the periphery kept input costs down. Colonial infrastructure lowered shipping costs. Imperial finance provided the credit. That is how European mining stayed profitable.
Germany directly benefited from access to these mines. German steel used Spanish iron. German machinery used Swedish copper. German industry used Cornish tin. The prices, the availability, the reliability of supply, all shaped by imperial relations. To treat these as "just European" inputs is to ignore the global division of labor that made them cheap and accessible. Germany did not need its own colonies to benefit from colonial extraction. It just needed to participate in the system. And it did.
You keep isolating variables to avoid the systemic argument. One commodity. One year. One border. That is cherry-picking to protect a preconceived conclusion.
At this point, continuing is futile. You have shown you will move the goalposts, dismiss facts that inconvenience you, and lash out when basic history is corrected. If you are not willing to engage the argument in good faith, there is no point in further comments.
TL;DR baby's first dialectical and historical materialist breakdown: Germany in 1880 did not industrialize in a vacuum. It operated within a global capitalist system structured by colonial extraction. Raw materials from the periphery (cotton, rubber, minerals) fed German industry at prices shaped by imperial power. Protected colonial markets absorbed German exports. European finance, shipping, and insurance networks built on extraction facilitated German trade. Super-profits from the colonial system funded reinvestment and innovation in the core. Germany benefited from this system even before it had direct colonies. It helped sustain the system through demand, finance, and participation in the imperial circuit. That is how the material relations worked.
Also ai badjacketing me because you can't make a coherent point is cringe and you should grow up. The fact you talk so arrogantly on a topic you are so woefully uneducated about is embarrassing and honestly you should be embarrassed, but that's a good thing. You should channel this embarrassment I hope you feel into learning before speaking to avoid it in the future.
Ok, you won, my original claim that "Germany industrialized without colonial benefit" is false. I am defeated. I will claim that "Germany industrialized with minimal colonial benefit where minimal represent an economical input that is less then 5% of GDP by 1880".
then I will stop this charade. Have a nice day, king of worthless discussion
You cannot even graciously admit you were wrong. You have to make another bs claim pulled straight from your ass and cover it in sarcasm. "Minimal colonial benefit" defined by an arbitrary GDP percentage you just invented.
This was never about winning or losing. I was hoping that from exposure you might decide to do some research instead of spreading colonial apologism and "smarter Europe" nonsense that borders on race science.
Genuinely, if you just take the time to read the works I recommended and apply a proper analysis to history, you will be much more informed. Less likely to be embarrassed. Less likely to lash out when basic facts are corrected.
I wish you the best in growing up and finishing your education. Hopefully it broadens your horizons.
I am so embarrassed in front of your clearly superior knowledge. You made so many unbiased relevant defining points tonight that I really struggle to reconstruct my flawed vision of global socioeconomic dynamics.
Childish.
Dehumanization by a german nazi. How "unexpected". They can't do anything else anyways, only genocide, lose, and bootlick burgerfresser.
Canada is literally a settler colony that is still actively repressing indigenous populations?