Thread by @SiyandaWrites

How. Please tell me how. I’m begging you please. How can you talk about the economic “success” of countries like England, US and France and Spain and so on without once — EVEN ONCE — mentioning slavery, colonization, theft and corruption. Please I just want to know how sway.

I’m not trying to be edgy. I genuinely want to know why people talk about Christianity, western culture, strong institutions or whatever as being behind their “success” without mentioning - I don’t know - decades of free money. Free labor. Free resources. Paid for with brutality

Then when you bring this up it’s like you’re some kind of radical activist or whatever when it is pointing out simple, honest-to-god economic theory.

If you don’t pay for something then you can accumulate as much as possible. That feels reasonable, right?

And so no matter how much you walk like they walk or talk how they talk you can never replicate success that is built on centuries of simple theft.

This is a global historic version of the self-help-capitalist myth. All you have to do to succeed is to wake up early.*

*and be born to money

Ignoring colonialism when you talk about Western economic success would be like saying you wanna teach people how to be as famous as Michael Jackson without once mentioning music.

It is ethically wrong to lie about the source of western wealth. It is morally reprehensible because it has real circumstances when global organizations hold our economies hostage until we “learn to build strong institutions” or whatever the new fuck.

Convincing our kids that third world countries are poor because it hasn’t occurred to us be industrious. Like what in the torturous hell is even happening right now.

So as far as I’m concerned you can take your Protestant ethic and put it in a place that is very very bad for the elastic integrity of your rectum.

Obligatory bla bla:
1. Of course this is not the only reason for economic disparity
2. Caveat caveat
3. Nuance and so on