Given that you have no way to know what things in, say, Africa would be like today if European powers had not interfered there, how on Earth can you assess the impact? Do you have a view into a parallel universe where this never happened or something?
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Precisely.
What I find so thoroughly irksome about the Sokolowski "net effects" argument is the inflexible, set-in-concrete certainty fueling it.
There's no way of knowing, one way or the other, so this insistence that things have surely turned out better is -- despite the factoids, theories and "it is human nature" assertions tossed into the air like anti radar chaffe to distract us -- unsupportable and a bit thick skulled.
If Iraq is fortunate enough after her many travails to become a stable and prosperous country (or federation, or whatever) by 2050, some Anglo/American chest thumper will undoubtedly claim the credit. "See" he'll say "...turned out all right after all - look at the net effects of the war and you'll agree with me that Iraq is better off today than it would have been had the invasion never happened."
Which will be bollocks then just as this posturing is bollocks now.
Reading Woj's ideas on colonialism leads me to the conclusion that the very worst thing a person could have been as a youngster is a devoted Marxist or left ideologue. The fatigue, it appears, drives a certain sort of personality type to fall backwards in middle or approaching old age into simplicity even as they continue to loudly trumpet the subtlety of their thought.
.d.