Comment by cassepipe
4 months ago
On the one hand my common sense wants to say of course, the more you transform a natural resource into something complex and desirable, the more value you create so yes all this wealth is the product of industrialism but on the other hand... all those natural resources had to come from somewhere no ? It would seem to me that colonialism was an essential part in this wealth creation even if the whole enterprise of getting your hands on those resources were in themselves a net cost
Natural resources are much less important for prosperity than people think.
I won't write an essay about it, but note that (1) Russia and Africa both have enormous natural resources and are very poor, and (2) Hong Kong and Singapore have no natural resources and are very rich.