Welcome again to everybody. Take a seat listen to rhythm of the street. In the time-honoured tradition of our group, here is the weekly discussion thread.
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I visited the Manchester Art Gallery today and they had these large rooms in which they acknowledged colonialism and capitalism and whatnot, which I thought was good. But they also happened to have a room on Dutch art and they described us as a brave nation becoming wealthy by finding sea routes to trade on.
Like how does that work lmao. We robbed half the world to get rich. No critical thought whatsoever in the Dutch room.
Dutch version of “Then they ate corn :)”
I think I’ve read that the Dutch East Indies (modern day Indonesia) historically was the most lucrative (i.e. highest net-profit) colony by a large margin. I cannot remember the numbers though.
There is no clear consensus but it is believed the Dutch East Indian Company was worth several trillion dollars adjusted to current day inflation.
No other company to this day came close. It employed up to a million people versus 800k by the rest of European colonial companies combined. It owned over 4000 ships and operated a private army to do whatever it wanted.