Why do students of history blame Europe for colonialism?

[Boojatta]

Something upset the natural equality of regions and caused Europe to become a colonial exploiter. Was the international structure of the world systemically biased to push Europeans into colonial activities? If the international system was biased, then it is possible that Europe is blamed for what was actually the fault of the international system and not the fault of Europe.

[marmar]

1. The system forced them to exploit Africa and Asia, enslave people and murder them?

:wtf:

[still_one]

2. My thoughts exactly /nt

[Boojatta]

11. At the height of European colonialism, what was the size of

Europe's carbon footprint?

You make accusations against the poor. Europeans were poor as we currently understand the word "poor." For example, they didn't own any electrical appliances.

Can you claim to be surrounded by better people if you are surrounded by people who have a much bigger carbon footprint?

[marmar]

19. Repetez en anglais, s'il vous plait?

:wtf: are you talking about?

[Boojatta]

25. "On 29 August 2005 Hurricane Katrina slammed into the United States coastline and caused more death

... and destruction than any previous hurricane in American history..."

Can you understand that? It's from:

A Moral Climate: The Ethics of Global Warming
by Michael S. Northcott

[Smarmie Doofus]

12. Probably not. But didn't Europeans enslave and murder...

each other before ( and after, actually) they had the means to do same to Africa and Asia ( and North and South America)?

[Taverner]

20. Best. Reply. Ever.

:toast:

[old mark]

3. This reminds me of a film I saw on the DeBeers family

(diamonds - South Africa) a member of which stated that God hav given them control over the South African diamond fields and they were just following a Divine plan by becoming extremely rich aznd persecuting and killing others who were in the way of that plan.

It's simple when you really understand.


mark

[rug]

4. Might have something to do with genocide.

[TreasonousBastard]

5. You lost me. "Colonialism," as in sailing around...

the world and claiming territory to exploit was European largely due to means and opportunity-- they were the ones with the ships and technology. They were also the ones running out of neighbors to exploit and land to till. (I'd have to check when Japanese imperialism started-- their situation was similar to England at points, and if needing raw materials is a key to colonialism...)

Other than that, cultures around the world from the beginning of history have had expanding their empires by killing the people next door as a popular national sport.

[Canuckistanian]

6. What "international system" was in place in the 16th century?

Back then, the world consisted of thousands of independent and semi-independent kingdoms, most of which were at war with each other at some point or other. There was NEVER any "natural equality".

No, rather I think that the then modern technology of large seafaring vessels made it PROFITABLE to plant your flag on some foreign shore and then proceed to strip the resources and labor.

Also, the insane political desire to re-create the mighty Roman Empire was irresistible to any ambitious monarch.

Think of them as the original GOP prototypes.

[skooooo]

10. Good question!! IMF wasn't around then as far as I know. nt

[DRoseDARs]

28. The "Peace of Westphalia" of 1648 established what would become our modern international system...

...and part of that according forced members to recognize the "Peace of Augsburg" of 1555. However, this is all moot since it only applied to powers within continental Europe, the rest of the planet be damned.

[elehhhhna]

7. booj -- read "King Leopold's Ghost" & you'll get much of the info you're looking for. n/t

Think "greed", "opportunity" & "easy pickin's"

[pegleg]

8. That is a very narrow view of history. True, Europeans did colonize

the world, but the truth is that they are not the only population to colonize another culture at some point in time. The truth is that we all came from tribal cultures at some point in history and many of those tribes conquered other tribes and often colonized the people and territories whereever they went. It is the politically correct view to blame European culture for the world's ills, but certainly others have contributed to that situation.

[Smarmie Doofus]

9. I think you need to be more specific about this part:

>>>>international structure of the world>>>>

[alarimer]

13. Guns, Germs and Steel.

I highly recommend it.

The only reason is that Europeans had those advantages.

[Boojatta]

14. I posted some questions about some things in that book.

A thread in the DU World History Group

[wildflower]

18. Cool forum I didn't know about. Thanks for posting it! n/t

[melody]

15. Because they're to blame maybe? n/t

[madrchsod]

16. because we have a very narrow concept of world history

or we still have the problem with the "white mans burden".

[Boojatta]

17. Kick

[Anarcho-Socialist]

21. the search for capital and new markets

Early European colonialism (that is from the 15th century onwards) was driven by the increase of available world markets, such as spice trade routes in the east, and the eventual discovery of huge gold reserves (capital) in the Americas by the Spanish.

Major European states at the time were undergoing a transformation from feudal property relations to early mercantile capitalism. A result of this was the rise in power of the merchant classes, whom European monarchs would often rely on to finance their wars and budget spending commitments. The eventual dispossessing of the independent mediaeval baron's former power saw much of the aristocracy and landed gentry make common cause with the new merchant class, and had come around to this mercantile way of thinking. The titular aristocracy eventually opened up to wealthy merchants who could buy land and titles and as such could help foment policy in advisory and legislative bodies. Monarchs saw advantage in furthering their merchant classes' capital interests overseas as a way of national enrichment and to entrench civic and dynastical stability.

Colonialism of the 18th and 19th centuries was more intense in that Europe being the first to industrialise had a great impact on the world. Advanced military technology and an established track record of capital management by merchants gave European states strong economies. The advance of modern capitalism had given great aggression to the accumulation of capital so that we saw the mass enslavement of human beings and transportation over large distances. Exploiting cheap or slave labour and plunder of third world resources helped fuel continued European growth (and US growth which also became an imperial power).

The transformation of Europe's feudal nature to that of early mercantile capitalism, and then further on to imperialist capitalism meant that Europe had the means and the economic drive to plunder third world resources and annex great tracts of the world. China, despite being the world's most technologically-advanced state in 1250 shut itself off from outside influence until British imperialism in the 19th century forced it open at gun-point. Chinese property relations and economic structure did not change at all for half a millennia, in which a despotic monarchy extracts surplus profit from communal villages and powerful trade centres. This structure of economy was incredibly stable, but China's self-imposed cultural isolation meant that it did not benefit as much from technological creep and efficient methods of industry. The eventual subjugation of the Chinese imperial family to the powerful West, caused the rise of anti-imperialist nationalism which took forms of right-wing republicanism and left-wing communism, and the beginning of eventual Chinese industrialisation.

India remained in a similar state. Many of its peoples lived in communal settlements that were economically balanced and primitive communistic in nature due to all property being shared by the community. Tribute was then extracted by the dominant princes. The stability of this economic arrangement meant its lack of transformation, and cultural differences gave little incentive for Indians to reform its economy on alien European lines. It was only when Britain conquered and annexed India that it enforced monopoly capitalism and western concepts of property relations at gunpoint. The abandoning of organic communal economics saw living standards for most Indians drop significantly as Britain pushed down wages, and extracted far more capital profit than had the previous Indian princely states.

[Boojatta]

24. "the eventual discovery of huge gold reserves (capital) in the Americas by the Spanish"

Did capitalism begin when gold was first traded for other goods?

[Anarcho-Socialist]

29. Not necessarily

it was when capital was being used to create more capital through investment in productive processes. This type of arrangement was used in antiquity but it didn't come to dominate the economy until the end of feudalism.

[Synicus Maximus]

22. Don't forget Europe did not invent colonialism.

If you define colonialism as one group or country controlling and exploiting the people, territory and resources of another country or people, goes back at least to the Egyptians. Every major kingdom or empire colonize other peoples and territories. Think of the Greeks and Romans. The Aztec and Inca empires were not a group of happy tribes that got together to to form an empire. They were one tribe that was able to conquer and colonize other peoples. The European colonization is just the latest in a long line of colonization.

[Boojatta]

23. Welcome to DU, Synicus Maximus!

:toast:

[slampoet]

26. The Pope ordered Spain and Portugal had the god-given right to do it. Therefore it was allowed.

Any questions?

[Odin2005]

27. IIRC the age of European Exapansion was a reaction to Turkish control of...

...western end of the Silk Road. People wanted to find a sea route to China and India in order to get around the Turks and thus trade with the East directly. It was not until the 1600s that the Americas (cash crops worked by slaves in particular) and the Scientific Revolution boosted The West's economic and military power above the rest of the world.

[tomg]

30. A fascinating work to take

a look at is Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs and Steel.

I don't believe Diamond mentions this, but one of the factors for Europe's rise, I think, could be the Plague. By sharply reducing the population of Europe, it put a premium on manual labor which eventually lead to the very earliest beginnings of a "middle class" and a much more vibrant entrepreneurial, mercantile class - rise of banking systems, "paper" economies ( letters of credit et al), intellectual cross-pollination ( and recovery of things like Euclid) and blah blah blah.

It really isn't about blame, per se. If we assume that most human societies are run by power-mongering assholes, sometimes the accidents of history ( a black plague, a tsunami off the coast of China in 1274) decide what societies win and what get screwed.

Actually, I subscribe to the Mongo theory of history:



"Mongo merely small pawn in great game of life."