Welcome to Keith's night. Don't tread on anyone in the libertarian Institute. Here is a section from a why it's okay to want to be rich by Jason Brennan. Titled against the imperialist theory in the stolen. Watch thought experiment you will acquire a fancy watch because your grandfather stole it from someone else. Many lay people philosophers who write about global Justice and a Marxist indoctrinated historians assume that such theft explains
global inequality. Do they think rich countries became Rich by conquering parts, of Africa, South America, and Asia, they developed Capital because they stole resources from those countries today rich countries remain Rich because they inherited stolen wealth. Call this the imperialist theory of the great Divergence. For instance philosopher, Thomas passage says existing radical inequality is deeply tainted by how it Humiliated through one historical process.
That was deeply perverted by enslavement colonialism, even genocide. The rich are quick to point out that they cannot inherit their ancestors sins, indeed, but how can they be entitled to the fruits of these sins to their huge inherited advantage, in power and wealth over the rest of the world. According to this view imperialist resource extraction, explains or helps to explain? Lane why First World countries became wealthy and how people in the developing world have become poor.
Now, even taken at face value, even before we do any rigorous economic analysis, the imperialist theory has some problems first. If you look back at figure 5.1, you see that after 1500, pretty much everyone is getting richer or at worst staying the same. If Europe's riches were merely the rest of the world's losses. We'd expect to see Europe, get rich at the same rate, the other places got poorer. We'd expect to see income move around but total amount of
income to remain about the same. We don't see that instead. We see it more total income Europe gets richer faster than others, but the others start getting rich or too. So anyone who believes in the imperialist theory needs to explain how European theft created wealth. And made everyone richer. Perhaps the defender of the imperialist theory would hypothesize that the European powers were just tapping into previously. Unused resources in the colonies.
They were cutting down forests or extracting unused gold. The second problem though. Is that the historical facts, don't quite line up with the imperialist thesis for most of the Imperial expansion. Period Spain had the biggest empire, but it remained poorer. Then England or the United Kingdom, as you'll soon see that is no accident. Why didn't rush has enormous Empire full of Natural Resources. Make Russia Rich the US and Germany got rich first and then acquired Empires.
Switzerland got rich without having any Empire after WWII. Singapore Hong Kong Macau and South Korea became rich, but they had no Empires. Japan had an empire in the late 1800s through World War Two, but it Didn't become rich until after it, lost the war and it's empire.
The British abused and starved. The Irish, but Ireland, quadrupled its GDP per capita between 1970 and today, and is now much richer than the United Kingdom on a per capita basis further throughout history, and all around the world. Many countries have created massive Empires. If imperialism is so lucrative and is the secret to growth,
why? The Mongol Kwang AB Assad Ahmad Brazilian, Roman Macedonian, ottoman, Tibetan Persian Aztec or countless other gigantic empires in the Americas, Europe, Asia or Africa lead to an earlier, great enrichment and great Divergence. It's not as though Spain invented. Imperialism in 1492. It's not as though these earlier Empires were especially nice and kind or as if earlier Empires didn't exploit their new subjects and extract of resources.
What gives nevertheless? It is indeed true that the European powers and later Japan engaged in widespread imperialist Conquest. Some of the effects of imperialism are long-lasting. There was evidence that when Spain gave up its brutal extractive Empire, homegrown tyrants took up leadership and control of those same extractive institutions. There is evidence that some former colonies May indeed be worse off today as a result of being colonized yesterday. Of course, the counterfactual is
are hard to determine. What would the Congo be like today? Had Belgium never sent troops and with the area we call Brazil, be richer and better run today if the British had conquered the land instead of Portugal, or if no one had ever conquered it at any rate. It's clear that starting in the fortune. Hundreds of various European powers, amassed a large Empires, they murdered oppressed and enslaved other stole land and extracted resources for their Empires.
The problem for the imperialist theory though is that these facts are insufficient to show Europe's wealth results. From ill-gotten gains. Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations wasn't just a defense of the institutional Theory. It was also the first sustained rigorous economic. Peak of imperialism, Adam Smith carefully collected data about
the value of the raw materials. The European powers extracted from their Empires. He carefully analyze the various consequences of Imperial trade restrictions and examined. How much it cost the European powers to murder pillage and plunder. After all these things cost a lot of money. He estimates that the Seven Years War 1756, to 1763 caused, Great, Britain about A million pounds while the 1739 war with the Spanish cost 40 million
pounds. In short, The Wealth of Nations was a cost-benefit analysis of imperialism. In the end Smith finds that Empires don't even pay for themselves. Smith thinks it's a grievous moral error to ignore the welfare of the conquered peoples, but he chose that even if we do. So the Empire Still fail, cost-benefit analysis, rather Smith, finds the cost to Imperial powers in acquiring and maintaining their Empires exceeded.
The value of the All materials and other goods and services they received from the Empire's, Adam Smith argued instead that the leaders of Great Britain duped their subjects into thinking, they had a profitable Empire. In fact, the British subjects were paying more in taxes to maintain the Empire then they were getting back. Indeed Smith thinks, the problems are even worse than that. Part of the problem.
Is that Imperial Powers almost Courage in efficient production methods for instance Britain restricted, Virginia's trade. They were only allowed to sell tobacco to England. The English might think they get a great deal on Tobacco as a result. But on the contrary it meant that. Virginia didn't invest in more productive methods and didn't have an economy of scale, colonial trade restriction, heard England along with everyone else. Imagine.
I pay a thousand dollars for a gun which are used to Rob other. But after all the robbing is done. I only collect $500. Sure the robbery is evil, but it's no windfall. I the robber lost a money on the robbery more recent and even more rigorous empirical work, vindicates, Smith's conclusion, even if we focus narrowly on the economic interests of the Imperial powers and ignore the harm, they do to those they conquer Empires do not Pay for themselves. One might wonder then if Empires
are such a bad deal. Why do so many countries pursue imperialist policies? One reason could be, that they were misinformed, just as most people are today. They didn't really carefully. Pay attention to the data and tended to assume the math worked out.
But the deeper reason is that it's silly and naive to compare an entire country to a grandfather, stealing a watch or to an incompetent Thief, who pays more for his gun, then he gains and Theft. Rather nations are made up of different people with different levels of power and different
interests. The benefits of the Empire Building. Were concentrated among the politically well-connected few such as weapons, manufacturers, certain Monopoly, trade companies, the military, and the kings, and queens, the costs, which exceeded the benefits or in turn passed on to and spread among the helpless hapless many among the taxpayers forced to pay. Pay for the wars, the conscripts forced to fight and die, and the
consumers forced to pay. What were in many cases, artificially high prices, the stolen watch, thought experiment is misleading because it gets the facts wrong. It's a bad metaphor for what really happened in that thought experiment, you benefit from your grandfather's thieving ways, a more accurate replacement for the stolen watch thought, experiment would go as follows. Imperialist, Queen, 400 years ago, the queen of Spain sent her armies to murderer, enslave and pillage, the Americas.
The queen text, her subjects to pay for her Wars and forced, many of them to die fighting those Wars. The value of the raw materials. They received from her Empires was less than what they paid in taxes and in other costs, but the queen was able to ignore an override her subjects interests. She was a queen after all. As a result, the past citizens of Spain were poorer than they otherwise would have been
perhaps though. It's harder to say the Spanish citizens of today are poorer than they otherwise would have been because they're old queens and kings wasted so much of their capital and their people on costly Empire Building Thomas Posh assumes that the former Imperial Powers benefited from their Empires. So he assumes that our current wealth is Ill-gotten, but the more accurate view is that imperialism benefit a few select people in the Conquering
countries hurt. Most people in the Conquering countries and generally harm the people in the conquered countries. This is totally obvious. It's not like all these countries were wealthy and then they were colonized and then they became poor. This is generally a scam for socialists and leftists and Progressive. Has to say, wealth is created by theft. The problem in the world is there's not enough antifa, stealing and rioting and looting. And there's not enough
government taxing the producers. So, therefore if we want to be wealthy, we need to increase theft. We need to tax more Brennan, mentions n, a different part of the book, what he actually refers to, as the institutional theory in summer. He says rich countries are rich because they had institutions, which Urged growth, poor countries are poor because they had institutions which inhibited growth. So which institutions produce growth. Economists debate, the fine
details of these questions. Nevertheless. The basic consensus is that countries need a robust protection of private property. Be open and free markets. See the rule of law, enforced and D, stable and inclusive governments. Countries, such as Switzerland Canada, Denmark, Singapore or Hong Kong which adopt these policies nearly always become rich, the countries that lack. These institutions nearly always become poor. Thank you for watching Keith Knight.
Don't tread on anyone in the libertarian Institute. See, Jason Brennan's book in the description, why it's okay to want to be rich.