> The viewpoint that European countries surged ahead due to the industrial revolution rather than colonial oppression has been widely debunked.

Neither the Austrian-Hungarian Empire nor Germany had colonies, yet their standard of living had improved dramatically over the second half of the 19th century. One could argue that these countries initially had feudal-style serfdom, yet in both of them serfdom was abolished earlier than in the Russian Empire (1770-1830 in Germany, 1848 in Austria-Hungary, 1861 in Russia), and the standard of living continued to increase after the abolition of serfdom.

I am not a huge lover of big empires, yet I consider the typical postcolonial argument which goes basically "white people are responsible for everything" as politically motivated and leading to victim mentality, which further inhibits progress. If you want to see a true example of exploitation, look at Congo under King Leopold. The British regime was lollipops and roses by comparison. If you look at hubs of economic activity in South-East Asia, and which in no small manner are still influencing Asian economic growth -- Singapore, Hong Kong -- all of them are former British colonial outposts.

If you take a country/people where accumulating wealth is not a culturally-established practice, and introduce wealth to this country through trade/industry/oil exploration, you won't get a reduction of poverty -- you will get more poverty, since the wealth you introduced can now sustain more people at their previous standard of living. This is, by the way, why having a conversation with postcolonialists can be completely impossible -- they place such an emphasis on differences between cultures when talking about pretty much anything, but when you hint that willingness to save money and plan for the future can also be culturally influenced, they get red in the face.