On the point of slavery, it's possible for a bunch of free exploited labor is a requirement to build the levels of wealth we see now. There's probably also anot

On the point of slavery, it's possible for a bunch of free exploited labor is a requirement to build the levels of wealth we see now. There's probably also another requirement factor on how you utilize those resources. I'm not convinced that citing economies in decline with historic abuse of slavery is evidence that it isn't a requirement to some of the degrees of wealth we see now. If an entire economy was based around an assumption was that a bunch of free exploited labor like slavery would exist indefinitely then it disappeared over night and no transition strategy existed for that economy or that economy was further tied to slavery... then it's completely possible to see economic decline. Meanwhile, one could have seen the writing on the wall that slavery was gone and moved their resources accumulated off the back of slavery elsewhere and been more successful. Colonialism is a lot more complicated because there are more inherent costs that could offset the benefits from an economic perspective so its pretty difficult to measure. Slavery is pretty much a guaranteed 'win' from a business perspective, after all, automation of processes with cheap reliable machines is most businesses current wet dream. I'm not saying slavery is a 'good' thing (it's absolutely not), I'm just saying a bunch of cheap ways to create services/goods you can then sell or accumulate seem like a clear way to accumulate/capture wealth. Slavery was one such mechanism abused in the past (and even today, really).