6 ms·

Umm ... colonialism doesn't actually work well for the colonized.

• shaddi 16y ago
  Perhaps more accurately, it doesn't work well for those involved who don't have power. Puppet governments seem to do quite well for themselves, as do the colonizers.
• mquander 16y ago
  Well, I'm not sufficiently satisfied with my historical knowledge to hang around and argue this point with you, but I would point out that Moldbug defends it vigorously. If you can't be arsed to wade through his lengthy mumblings, you can CTRL-F "The fundamental observation of colonialism is that non-European societies thrive under normal European administration, at least in comparison to their condition under native rule" in the above essay and read for a bit from there. His conclusion is that "...to assert that their average quality of government service was anything but far better than either their predecessors, or their successors, is a political distortion of history which I have no trouble at all in comparing to Holocaust denial."
  • jdp23 16y ago
    Right. It's worked out soooo well for Native Americans here in the US. Except for the whole smallpox thing. And the reservations. And the massacres. And the Interior Department.
    • fistofjohnwayne 16y ago
      Yes but now they have a better "average quality of government service."
      • shaddi 16y ago
        Most folks I know living on reservations would debate that. Just saying, it's a strong claim to make.
        • fistofjohnwayne 16y ago
          I was being facetious, I might have said, "sure the government service is great, if you survived."
          • protomyth 16y ago
            don't get sick after june http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31210909/ns/health-health_care/ http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31210909/ns/health-health_care/
    • anamax 16y ago
      > Right. It's worked out soooo well for Native Americans here in the US. Except for the whole smallpox thing. And the reservations. And the massacres. And the Interior Department. The US didn't colonize NA land. We took it and "gave" them reservations, which we mostly ignore. They'd be better off as colonies or independent. As colonies, we'd care about getting a return on our investment. As independent, they'd benefit from whatever development that they did.
      • waterlesscloud 16y ago
        Only vaguely related, but I've heard it explained that the term "reservation" derives from the idea that it's land that the Indians "reserved" for themselves, rather than ceding in treaties. Now, that's of course a distortion of the forces at work that caused the so-called reservation of lands to be necessary, but there's also some contemporary value to Indian leaders in restoring that sense of meaning to the word today.
        • protomyth 16y ago
          Well, I can tell you that the land picked for reservations was not picked by the tribes. Mostly it is not the best or nicest. Some tribes got lucky because of what was discovered later. I would need a source cited who thinks this interpretation of the word would be good for a tribal leader.
          • waterlesscloud 16y ago
            The source cited is me. I think it would have value as a method of strengthening a sense of autonomy. There's a lot of difference in the idea of land someone else reserved for you vs land you reserved for yourself. The place where the land is will not be changing, but it's possible to change the perception of what that land represents, and thus the benefits of that land in a political sense.
            • protomyth 16y ago
              That is not part of the history, nor is does it jive with some of the ongoing land claim. Changing wording and trying to convince people that something that didn't happen did does nothing except base your leadership and cause in a lie. Changing perception is only a good thing when it brings you closer to the truth of a situation, not clouds future decisions in more fog.
    • krakensden 16y ago
      North America is a pretty unique case, in most places the locals weren't so completely wiped out (See: Africa, Asia). They also faired slightly better in South America (there are significant numbers of people of indigenous descent alive).
      • jdp23 16y ago
        see: Belgian Congo. East Timor. post-colonial Africa including Biafra and Rwanda. And even putting the genocides aside, look at South Africa under the Afrikaaners. Explain to me how this was a good thing for the colonized?
        • philwelch 16y ago
          In the long run, South Africa has done quite well.
        • deleted 16y ago
          [deleted]
        • krakensden 16y ago
          Those are all quite different from North America, in all cases, the indigenous people are still around and are going to be indefinitely. The Native American tribes are tiny, vastly outnumbered, and shrinking over time. The blog post that so outraged you argued that colonial administration was better than the post-colonial regime, so I'm not sure if you're engaging with that and missing, or just raging.
      • prawn 16y ago
        North America sounds pretty similar to Australia to me in that regard. Something that struck me both times I visited New Zealand was how strong and honestly respected Maori culture was. The Maori identity seemed to be much more positive and proud than the Aboriginal identity is in Australia. I'm not sure if we have an Australian equivalent of the Treaty of Waitangi (http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/treaty/the-treaty-in-brief http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/politics/treaty/the-treaty-in-br...).
• mortenjorck 16y ago
  Colonialism doesn't work well for the colonized because historically, colonialism is imposed by force. Anything imposed by one entity upon another naturally favors the imposer. But what about consensual colonialism? Is it possible for the structure of colonialism to be used for mutual benefit? That's the question this article asks, and I think it's a pretty incisive and relevant question.
  • shaddi 16y ago
    It's arguable whether such a thing is possible. Cooperation, where all stakeholders have say in the endeavor, is probably close to ideal. But that's not colonialism. Once you start fixing all the problems that colonialism has (authoritarian outside rule, no power held by the governed, operating solely for the profit of the colonizer) you wind up with something that really doesn't look like colonialism at all. At best, you need another word, but as my earlier comment stated I think there are more fundamental flaws with the scheme. I think a more relevant (if less sensational) question is "What role should outsiders play in defining the goals and mechanisms of development?"
• yummyfajitas 16y ago
  That's highly debatable. There is evidence that the longer a nation was colonized, the more developed it became. See this paper, for example: http://www.economics.neu.edu/activities/seminars/documents/islands.pdf http://www.economics.neu.edu/activities/seminars/documents/i...
  • jdp23 16y ago
    Colonizers and their descendants often write papers claim there are benefits for the colonized. This "study" doesn't have a control group ("each of the islands in our dataset spent some time under colonial rule") and uses two numbers as measures of "good modern outcomes" - one of which (GDP) is a synthetic measurement created by colonizers. Color me unimpressed.
    • yummyfajitas 16y ago
      True - the study does not eliminate the possibility of a discontinuity at 0 colonization. (I.e., no colonization is better than some colonization, but once you have some, more is better.) Do you believe this to be present? If so, could you explain why? (I'll generally ignore the "I hate descendents of people distantly related to colonisers sooo much" part of your post, with one exception. The other measure of "good modern outcomes" is dead babies. Is "fewer dead babies" also a synthetic measurement created by colonizers?)
      • jdp23 16y ago
        For the discontinuity at 0, off the top of my head I would point to the relative success of uncolonized Western Europeans and their descendent colonizers in the US. Japan is another example. Do you believe Western Europe and the US to be more successful than colonized countries in Africa? Within the US, do you believe that descendants of Western Europeans are more economically successful than colonized Native Americans and blacks descending from slaves? > I'll generally ignore the "I hate descendents of people distantly related to colonisers sooo much" You're mischaracterizing what I said. Some of my best friends are descendents of colonizers and for that matter so am I. However, if we claimed that there were benefits for the colonized, we'd be just as self-serving as you and the person in this thread who suggested that it was really in Native Americans' interests to be colonized and the guys who wrote the paper.