Page 29 - AEI Insights 2020 - Vol. 6, Issue 1

Bajrektarevic, 2020a

trading and manufacturing system. All that have dramatically changed with the arrival of
Europeans. Soon after, they derogated an indigenous socio-political, civilizational and cultural
and the demographic structures of Africa beyond the point of reparation.)

Once in Europe, stashes of these precious metals were used to cover massive European deficits
created by extensive imports of the cutting-edge technologies, manufactured products, other
goods and spices from a that-time superior Asia and the Middle East. Only later, gold and silver
will be replaced by the equally powerful but less expensive ‘trade facilitators’ – iron and opium
(guns and drugs). For instance in early 1800s, many British MPs and cabinet ministers had
shares in the UK narco-companies. Hence, the Narconomics was introduced and imposed as
th
both a powerful strategic deterrent and as a wealth accumulator. (Eg. Still by the late 19
century, some 40 million mainland Chinese were heavy drugs addicts – roughly 10% of
population.)
The Afro-America yields were so colossal for Atlantic Europe that many scholars assume the
so–called Industrial revolution rather as an evolutionary anomaly than a natural socio-
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technological process of development, which was primarily pivoting in (Sino-Indian) Asia.
In order to illustrate a magnitude (or to validate the so called Schumpeterian creative
destruction claim), let us note a following data: Starting from an early 16th century for
consecutive 300 years, 85% of the world’s silver production and 70% of the world’s gold
output came from the Americas. For the same period, 2/3 of globally manufactured goods were
originating from Asia. Notably, while Europe spent unearned, Asia worked.

Further on, during the 17th, 18th and 19th century the role of Black slavery, slave trading,
American Black slave-driven production centres and Negro markets, all significantly
contributed to Atlantic Europe’s agricultural and industrial ‘breakthrough’ – as we are
celebrating it today. In short, it was a wealth of Americas extracted by the enslaved men-power
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from Africa, and shipped to Europe under the minimal costs, all that for centuries.
This colossal ‘oversea discovery’ reinforced Europe’s path on defensive modernisation (usage
of technology for a narrow geostrategic end) – European empires building became a scientific
project and the science evolved into an imperial project. For instance, French Dutch and Britons
(the so-called second and third round of colonisers) learned one think from Portuguese and
Spaniards (the first round of European colonisers) – nobody wishes to pay taxes but likes to
invest. Therefore their colonial expansion was primarily conducted as a corporate undertaking
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(West India company, East India company, WIC, VOC, Mississippi company, etc.).
Hence, it was a magic vicious circle of scientifically erected empires and imperial capitalism:
Credits financed overseas discoveries, discoveries led to colonies, colonies made profits (by
imported slaves and rarefied locals), profits built trust in tomorrows, and the trust in this shiny
colonial tomorrow was translated into ever more credits for the larger corporate undertakings.
Small wonder that the exegesis of (Newtonian science and Smith’s) capitalism started blindly
to believe in a never-ending and ever-expanding economic growth. The fact that such a ‘faith’

18 This of course creates a source of everlasting debates between advocates of historical determinism and those
who portray human development as a working of historical contingency. Borrowed from evolutionary biologists,
the Path dependence or Contigent path of history is a theory originally developed by economists to explain
technology adoption process and industrial r/evolution of the West (allegedly) triggered by an incident or anomaly
(biological, genetic, cosmic, geo-morphological, climatic, and then anthropo-cultural, socio-political, etc.).
19 Even the US Founding Fathers were slaveholders (5 of the 7 principal ones: Benjamin Franklin, John Jay,
Thomas Jefferson, James Madison and George Washington).
20 E.g. the British East India Company controlled Indian sub-continent with its private army of 350,000 soldiers –
considerably more than the British monarchy had at its own disposal. It was only in 1858 that the UK Crown put
India under its direct rule. Dutch took Indonesia from the VOC company after 200 years of its corporate rule over
the largest world’s archipelago.

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