We've yet to see what "pure" capitalism even really looks like; Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations argues that competition is required for his "invisible hand" and that monopolies are bad because they reduce efficiency and choice, and impede progress, but our current strategy to prevent or break up a monopoly looks a whole lot like government regulation which is supposed to stifle innovation, not promote it!
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Imperialism,_the_Highest_Stage...
When the colonial powers started to conquer the world there was next to no capital.
Not only did no one call it capitalism back then (the word had yet to be coined), but no serious scholar of economics, politics or history would call any pre-industrial economic system predominantly capitalist.
And by arguing that “people didn’t call it capitalism back then”, you’re just proving my point. You’re just redefining capitalism to be the antonym of socialism.
I don't disagree with that.
> When the colonial powers started to conquer the world there was next to no capital.
The whole point is the pursuit/accumulation of capital. Even if you start with next to no capital.
> no serious scholar of economics, politics or history would call any pre-industrial economic system predominantly capitalist.
In my own opinion I'd say it started around 1600 with the formation of the British and Dutch East India companies. It seems this is debated by many and largely depends on your definition of capitalism. [0]
So I'm happy to just agree to disagree.
Nations going to war and invading each other for "economic reasons" is almost always a symptom of a mercentalism. War isnt a form of economic competition, it's a mechanism to enforce protectionism.
Unless we're using the humanities defintion of capitalism by which we mean "anything bad the west has done, up to and including the death of Socrates".
Most sources state that colonialism and the associated economic policy of mercantilism pre-date the widespread adoption of capitalism, which didn't occur until after the industrial revolution.
I'd argue that the rise of nationalism was more directly the cause of both colonialism and the World Wars.
Only if you ascribe to the notion that any system that isn't socialism is capitalist could you argue that capitalism led somehow to colonialism.