Tim Worstall: Travelling on the Dark Side.

Tim Worstall thought he’d go over and see what is being said by and about the environmental movement, and found a jem.

The poor are not those who have been ‘left behind’; they are the ones who have been robbed. The riches accumulated by Europe are based on riches taken from Asia, Africa and Latin America. Without the destruction of India’s rich textile industry, without the takeover of the spice trade, without the genocide of the native American tribes, without Africa’s slavery, the Industrial Revolution would not have led to new riches for Europe or the US. It was this violent takeover of Third World resources and markets that created wealth in the North and poverty in the South.

So I guess that before the industrial revolution everybody in the world must have had exactly the same level of wealth. This being before us nasty Westerners stole it all it should have been equal to the average world GDP today (since obviously no wealth can be created, it must be taken from somebody else).

The current world GDP is $55.5 trillion (2004 est.). In 1750, the earliest date I could find for population estimates, the world had 1566 million people in it. So their logic each must have had an income of $35440.61 a rather good middle class salary. I wonder why all the archeolgists seem to find are small scale craftsmen and subsistance farming peasants? It must be the evil captialistic conspiracy going around the archelogical digs and replacing all the finds.