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A comment on How did Europe become the richest part of the world?. Parent comment

Re:How did Europe become the richest part of the world? by Jensson on Sunday March 20, 2022 @04:05PM (#30746107)
> And, if you research enough, you’ll see that the riches (that this post is talking about) came from a lot of colonialism and stealing. You don’t seem to address that from my post at all?

What riches? Were the homes in Sweden made by materials imported from colonies? Were the food they ate imported from colonies? Cotton clothes I can give you, but wool clothes were still the most common, and I doubt the entre society of Sweden were revolutionized thanks to cotton clothes. Potatoes were from colonies, but they were still home grown, the potatoes eaten in Sweden weren't stolen from anywhere.

Precious metals aren't riches for a society, just riches for the elite, you can't eat or live in gold. England getting a lot of gold doesn't help Sweden in any way.

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Re:How did Europe become the richest part of the world? by yunohn on Sunday March 20, 2022 @04:11PM (#30746154)
That’s a lot of sidestepping of my entire comment.

So why was Sweden selling this advanced cannon technology and sailing slave ships for Britain et all, in exchange for metal money - which like you say wouldn’t help the average Swede? Surely, they could’ve just kept to themselves and built things for themselves. Why did the neutral Swedes even attempt their own colonies? Seems like a waste of resources.

(https://unevenearth.org/2020/01/swedish-colonialist-neutrali...)

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Re:How did Europe become the richest part of the world? by Jensson on Sunday March 20, 2022 @04:14PM (#30746171)
The elites likes precious metals and will spend a lot of manpower to attain it, but precious metals doesn't make society rich. When we say that Europe was rich we don't mean they had lots of gold in their coffers, but that they had plenty of good food, housing, clothes, medicine etc, things that makes society rich.
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Re:How did Europe become the richest part of the world? by yunohn on Sunday March 20, 2022 @04:33PM (#30746337)
Why do you assume colonies didn’t have food, housing, clothes, or medicine? Have you read about any of their history? This is an extreme form of the typical “taming the savages” racist trope.

Anyway, you’ve been ignoring most of my arguments and furthering your own Byzantine narrative. I was attempting to educate in good faith, but I shall cease to engage now.

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