Well, he's right. West and Europe living luxury lives based o resources ripped from Africa and both Americas. Some of the most peaceful counties like Belgium did unimaginably horrible things in Africa to get more from it. And don't let me start with "Great British Empire" who managed to starve millions in its Asian colonies even in WW2 (and that's almost the middle of 20th century) because they don't care and simply siphon all the resources into Metropolis.
And for: "it was X years, centuries ago so it doesn't affect current situation", i advice to read latest studies in economics field. A small hint - it totally does.
And that's why the first two European countries (Spain and Portugal) who managed to exploit this are still the most wealthy european countries?
In essence the story is quite simple. The way humans organize their society has only changed dramatically 3 times in the course of history.
The first time was the Agricultural revolution. When human society became sedentary our entire way of life changed. Power and Wealth resided with the landowners and whether they were babylonian priest/kings, Egyptian Pharaohs, Japanese shoguns or medieval Lords it didn't change much. Nearly every war between 5.000 BC and 15th/17th century was between landed nobility who owned land and one of the main goals was to conquer more land that could be cultivated.
This revolution would spawn many things:
- Money: The surplus of food allowed people to specialize in other professions for which they could get paid.
- The concept of an army: To muster an army you need a surplus of food and some sort of central leadership.
- Philosophy: again wealth created by land owners allowed them to pursue other interests.
- Writing: to keep an inventory and make taxation possible.
- Mass Slavery: In pre-agricultural societies a male prisoner is rather useless. It's another mouth to feed but you can't leave him alone with the women and you can't take him with you on the hunt.
The Industrial revolution changed all of this. It was no longer land which determined Wealth and Power but production and the means of production which led to the rise of a new force in society. We still use the terms of the landed nobility to describe them (Steel and Coal barons) but they fundamentally changed the way we live. Western Europe was the birth place of this revolution and it changed the balance of powers in such an extreme way that Western Europe, and later on the USA, dominated the world. A prime example of this would be the French, Dutch, English and Spanish fighting each other in America and Asia. Disease and other Europeans where often a bigger problem then the local inhabitants. the list of countries that weren't completely conquered by European nations is surprisingly short (China, Japan, Afghanistan and Turkey).
The Steam engine is a prime example but even the 15th century printing press is a precursor of this mass-production. Where before a single highly trained individual (in Europe often monks) had to work 1 day to copy 4/5 pages of a book we now had a machine who could copy nearly 4000 pages in 1 day. This changed everything.
Mass production, Industrial power became the defining way to create wealth and this would rapidly change the way we fought wars. It would lead to conflict in countries when the political power from the landed aristocracy was challenged by those who had become wealthy without owning large tracts of land. The French revolution is a prime example. The Levee en Masse called upon the "free" citizens of the state to fight instead of previous wars where royalty or nobility called upon their subjects to take arms. Suddenly the French State could field an army of 800.000 to 1.000.000 men, supported by an entire country. New means of productions could produce enough weaponry, clothes and tools to equip such a force. This is 3 to 4 times the army France could field 80 years earlier ( War of the Spanishc Succession). A mere 120 years later France would call upon 8.000.000 men during the first World War. Together with the 2nd World War a perfect example of how Mass production and in the end, mass destruction in the form of the atomic bomb, would define our society.
(btw the 3rd time it changed was in the USA during the '60 where information became they key to wealth. Look at modern day rich people like Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Larry Page etc ... The transformation from 'dumb' technology to 'smart' technology but this is a topic for another time)
