Definition of the day: Colonialism

 This may be a new feature.  There are terms that are either misused (often intentionally), or which clarify by naming concepts which we observe and understand upon defining the boundaries.  I will not write these every day, but perhaps semi-frequently, and my goal is to keep these short.  I suck at that.

Colonialism.  Colonialism is the practice wherein an empire-building nation finds a resource-rich land outside its border, and sends its own people to that land to establish an operation there in order to extract resources.  If there is no existing population, the settlement or colony is easy to establish, but if there is a population, that population is usually required to accept governance by the colony established by the empire-building nation.  Crucially, the colony itself does not exist in economic independence of the empire-building nation.  It exists within a mercantilist network, required to trade within that mercantilist network because the empire-building nation's goal is to extract resources and direct those resources back to the home nation.  The trading is either done through the military, or companies that have exclusive trading rights, under the condition that the extracted resources go back to the empire-building nation's homeland.  All of this, then, is built on the economic model of mercantilism, which was the pre-capitalist model debunked by Adam Smith in The Wealth of Nations.  Recall that mercantilism was built on the false premise that trade is zero-sum, hence the colonialist model in which the empire-building nation attempts to consolidate resources.  Indeed, capitalism not only debunked mercantilism in the intellectual world, but defeated colonialism in the real world because once colonies are free to trade outside the mercantilist network, the colonialist power cannot gain from the endeavor.  In practical terms, they don't gain much anyway because the model of mercantilism does not work.  Capitalism does work, and yes, capitalism is a part of what defeated colonialism.  Capitalism cannot, logically, have built colonialism, as colonialism preceded capitalism by centuries.  Remember how time does and does not work.

Brief note on applications:  The US is anti-colonialist, not colonialist.  Various European colonialist powers set up colonies in the Americas, eventually becoming the 13 colonies after much hand-changing, and those 13 colonies revolted, in a war of independence constituting one of the most historically notable examples of anti-colonialism in world history.  The American Revolution.

More obviously and importantly for today, Israel is not "colonialist."  Your moral assessment of Israel is irrelevant, because "colonialist" is not just a synonym for "bad."  It is a category.  Where are its colonies outside its borders, used to extract what?  What is the mercantilist network?  What resources are extracted from where to where?  Whether you like or hate Israel has nothing whatsoever to do with whether or not it is "colonialist."  I hate rap music.  It does not follow that all music I hate is rap just because I hate it.  I don't like polka.  Polka is not rap, just because I don't like it.  Calling Israel "colonialist" is the same fallacy.

By my standards, that was brevity.  Still not the soul of wit, but what does anyone expect from me?