Ok, so can you show that directly plundered/stolen wealth actually helped much? Setting up trading posts and controlling the beginnings of truly international

Ok, so can you show that directly plundered/stolen wealth actually helped much? Setting up trading posts and controlling the beginnings of truly international trade over 200-300 years ago... I would think that would set a country up well moving forward, and somebody eventually had to do it. British were one of the first.