> I would prefer if the intellectual class in the west recognized and reflected on the costs that the middle and lower classes in the west, in particular, have paid for it. reply

Cry me a river. Those lower and middle classes in the west were built on the back of international trade, I mean back when said international trade was mostly from Western nations to more undeveloped ones (of which my country was then part of). One of the oldest (and most renowned) streets from the Eastern-European capital from where I'm writing this comment is named after the German city of Leipzig, which was providing most of the high-end merchandise back in the 1600s and the 1700s. There's a reason why the West has all the palaces, castles and other expensive stuff built from the 1400s up to the early 20th century, which expensive stuff mainly lacks from the rest of the world, and that reason is international trade. Asking us to stop international trade now that we've started to approach the West in terms of expensive stuff is pure hypocrisy (some would call it economic colonialism). Also, see Fernand Braudel's books, especially his "The Mediterranean and the Mediterranean World in the Age of Philip II" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fernand_Braudel#La_Méditerrané...)