Exploitation rarely explains riches

If one studies conquests and the clash of civilizations it has been popular to label the conquerors as exploiters.  Morals are condemned and causes explained to show why one society is rich and another poor.  But despite the popularity of these exploitation theories, in the actual historical record they are rare.  Usually the mundane reality is that productivity produces wealth. 

            Exploitation theories have condemned European imperialism and colonialism.  But when the Europeans left Africa, instead of becoming richer, the nations there saw national incomes and living standards fall significantly. The same was true when Romans left Britain and when every Chinese dynasty fell.  The overlords brought labor skills and abilities that the natives lacked.   And slavery, the ultimate exploitation, has never made slave-owning regions more prosperous. This was true comparing the North with the South in USA.  Northern Brazil with lots of slaves, was poorer than southern Brazil, populated with free Italian, German, and Japanese immigrants. So why do people choose to believe such bunk? Anger. The true answer is that there are often great differences in productivity and wealth. It’s easy for the loser or their sympathizer to blame poverty on someone else’s malfeasance. But envy of someone who has more is precisely what the last 2 of the 10 Commandments warn Christians against.

            Changes of productivity of the conquered can often be traced to transfers of cultural capital.  The English had laws, banking and improved agriculture that they transferred to the Scots.  Western Europeans brought the industrial age to Eastern Europe.  China transferred a great deal to Japan and Korea. The Cowboys married the Indians and today we see Oklahoma rising from poor state into the middle. Human capital, as it is transferred is often a boon to the lesser developed guys, whether they be conquerors like the barbarians who invaded Rome or the Hebrews who invaded Canaan or conversely, Germans who brought industry to Brazil and transformed Argentina from a wheat importer to a large wheat exporter. In The Italians have been winemakers from California to Australia.  The dominance of overseas Chinese who pick up ideas and teach production is stunning.  In 1994 the 36 million overseas Chinese had a higher GDP than all of Communist China.

            Perhaps no country has had more success in spreading productivity and culture than USA.  It derives wealth from a free market of goods and ideas of many immigrants. Its notion of Liberty and republican democracy has spread to nearly 70 countries in 200 years. Evidently free men work harder and smarter. John Locke, father of modern psychology, derived six principles from the Bible that he insisted people would thrive under—Liberty, Equality, Tolerance, Natural Law, Separation of powers, and Rights—especially property rights.  Dinesh D’Sousa is an author and film maker. When he was an Indian exchange student at Dartmouth, said that people would come up to him and say, “Oh, you’re from India. I love India!” And he would say, “What part do you love? That the electricity works only 3 days a week—you just don’t know which days?  Or is it the constant riots between Muslims and Hindus that claim thousands of lives?  Wife burnings? Or is it 400 languages where no one can understand his neighbors unless they use English?”  Dinesh said he never asked if they admired the malnutrition. His dream of coming to America started by watching a propaganda film in India in grade school where the narrator said that USA was a terrible country.  There were lots of food lines.  Indeed the film showed some poor Americans standing in line getting food. Another kid next to Dinesh gave him the elbow and whispered, “They are all fat! I want to go to a country where even the poor people are fat.” And so D’Sousa came to America, studied economics and began to understand that a system based on Christian liberty principles is superior.  This then led to the Christian faith and walk that he claims has transformed his life. Watch out!  The Holy Spirit will set up circumstances in your life, uniquely aimed at your heart, to bring God’s faith!