European Colonialism and Capitalist Development

Adolfo Figueroa

Chapter Chapter 3 in The Quality of Society, Volume II, 2021, pp 37-54 from Springer

Abstract: Abstract What is the role of European colonialism in the capitalist divide between the First World and Third World? The unified theory of capitalism seeks to explain each group taken separately and then the system taken as a whole. The theory assumes that an essential element of their coexistence is their different historical initial conditions. The unified theory then predicts path dependence: Different initial conditions lead to different development paths. This prediction is consistent with the fact that, after two centuries of capitalist development, First World and Third World still coexist. This essay seeks to give further empirical support to the unified theory by presenting a brief history of European colonization. The major finding is that colonialism indeed led to the great divide of capitalism: Countries in the New World that started capitalist development from the legacy of colonialism belong to the Third World.

Keywords: Capitalism; European Colonialism; Feudalism; First World; Path dependence; Settlements; Third World; Unified theory of capitalism (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:sprchp:978-3-030-79565-8_3

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DOI: 10.1007/978-3-030-79565-8_3

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