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Comment by 0xDEAFBEAD | Hacker News Reader

It's instructive to compare the wealthiest nations in Europe, with the largest colonial-era European empires. There is not much overlap.

Wealthiest countries in Europe: Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, San Marino, Sweden...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_sovereign_states_in_Eu...

Largest European colonial empires: Britain, Russia, Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Belgium...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_empires#Empire...

Some historians believe that once you account for the costs of subjugation and development, empire is not usually net profitable for the sovereign. Basically just a gigantic monument to the ruler's ego.

As Carl Sagan put it: Think of the rivers of blood spilled by all those generals and emperors so that in glory and in triumph they could become the momentary masters of a fraction of a dot.

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How is that instructive? The British empire was mostly gone by the 1950s and a hell of a lot happened after that. It would be more instructive to look at Britain just before WW1 compared to the other countries.

At their peak, virtually all of the aforementioned empires brought enormous wealth to the homeland. It might not be profitable in the long run, but the long run can mean centuries before it becomes a net negative.

Also, Norway, Sweden, and Denmark were part of a Danish empire at one point.

Empire was always a net negative financially. The British empire was big because Great Britain was rich enough to fund it.

The British East India Company didn't create "billionaires" with vast estates?

The Dutch East Indies weren't returning home with spices of greater value than gold?

Spain didn't plunder so much gold and silver it devalued to the floor?

Belgium went broke under the crushing cost of exploiting the Congo?

I'll go with all empires eventually fall - but many grow on the inflow of wealth from their colonies.

Perhaps you mean "true" accounting - no resources are created, they just move from those that have them to the seat of Empire which wanted them - no net gain, just added costs of transport and military forces.

Historically, though, that's never been how wealth was counted by those that ran ledgers on everything they wanted.

The Empire was self-financing. Taxes on trade paid for the ships and sailors to protect the trade routes (with a fair bit left over).

> Wealthiest countries in Europe: Liechtenstein, Luxembourg, Ireland, Switzerland, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Netherlands, San Marino, Sweden.

Microstates and tax havens account for half that list, which grossly distorts wealth measurements. Such as Apple Europe being accounted for in Ireland.

The rest: (Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Sweden); former kingdom of Denmark, also Hanseatic League? Apart from the brief period around 1700 at the height of the Swedish Empire, none of these count as imperial powers and did not have overseas empires.

Netherlands: had a substantial navy and overseas trading empire, although not as big area-wise as the UK. Probably more cost-effective as a result.

> Britain, Russia, Spain, France, Portugal, Turkey, Italy, Germany, Denmark, Belgium

What happened here is that all the great empires spent all their money and a vast quantity of human lives fighting each other to the death. Twice. I suppose Spain and Portugal collapsed on their own to ineffective dictators.

(special "fuck Belgium" entry here for just how brutal the small Belgian empire was; Belgian occupation of the Congo cost more lives than the Holocaust)

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