The Captains and the Kings Depart

Politicians and intellectuals in the Third World have a chip on their shoulder about the age of European empires. They hold as a matter of dogma that Europe looted them.

But if the Europeans really took vast wealth from their colonies in Africa and Asia and made pots of money on the backs of oppressed natives, why is it that the governments of these countries since independence are chronically bankrupt? What happened to all those riches?

And how is it that Asia is only now creeping back to the proportion of the world economy they represented in 1900, under empire?

And how come the British left the Persian Gulf almost immediately after oil was found, the very moment when it became economically valuable?

The uncomfortable truth is that Europeans were often there for the sake of prestige, or even for humanitarian reasons. Money was often the least of it, though of course they did their best to make the colonies prosperous and profitable. Not only was their intent not to loot: given the chance, they declined to do so.

Empire was and is usually not a money-making proposition. The Soviet Empire collapsed because the Russian economy could no longer afford it. The European empires collapsed after World War II because Europe, financially exhausted by World Wars, could no longer afford them.

Europe believed it was subsidizing the Third World, lending them expertise, giving them a decent infrastructure. And this was, largely, perfectly true.

There were, it is true, some cases of looting: Belgium in the Congo, Britain in Ireland. It is also true that, on balance, nations that avoided colonization seem to have done well in the longer run: Japan, Thailand. I suspect this is because colonization ultimately stunts the development of local expertise.

But it was not the trauma it is represented to be.