THE TRUTH ABOUT WESTERN WEALTH

Built on Blood, Theft, and Exploitation

For centuries, European powers, Britain, France, Spain, Portugal, Germany, Belgium, and others, expanded their empires by looting, enslaving, and destroying entire civilizations. Their economic strength today is not the result of some natural superiority, intelligence, or work ethic. It is the direct result of conquest, plunder, and exploitation. The global inequality we see today was not inevitable; it was created, enforced, and sustained by brutal violence and theft.

Now, if your own personal argument is to try to dismiss it with "it was a different time back then," the truth remains: Western powers - including the U.S.- built much of their wealth through centuries of colonization, rape, looting, and murder, often backed by religious institutions. The economic advantages they hold today are rooted in those inhumane acts, and their legacy still shapes global inequality.

Colonialism: The Engine of Western Power

Between the 15th and 20th centuries, European nations divided the world among themselves, stripping entire continents of their resources. They stole land, gold, silver, and labor, leaving devastation in their wake.

• Africa: Millions of Africans were kidnapped, chained, and shipped to the Americas to fuel the economies of Europe and its colonies. African nations were stripped of their people and wealth, setting them back centuries in development. Even after slavery ended, European powers continued to extract resources while suppressing African industries and governments.

• The Americas: Spain and Portugal stole vast amounts of gold and silver from Latin America, funding their expansion while Indigenous populations were slaughtered. The U.S. was built on stolen land and enslaved labor, creating wealth that was never shared with the people who made it possible.

• India and Asia: Britain drained India of its wealth, estimated at over $45 trillion in today’s value. India, once one of the world’s wealthiest civilizations, was reduced to poverty under British rule while Europe flourished from its stolen riches.

• The Middle East: Western powers have long exploited the region for oil, toppling governments and installing puppet regimes to secure their interests while keeping the region divided and unstable.

The Myth of Superiority

European powers like to frame their dominance as a result of intelligence, innovation, and hard work. In reality:

• Western economies were supercharged by free labor (slavery), free resources (colonial theft), and forced trade (economic imperialism).

• The so-called “Industrial Revolution” wasn’t just about innovation, it was fueled by cotton picked by enslaved Africans, sugar from stolen Caribbean plantations, and wealth from global looting.

• When nations in Africa, Latin America, and Asia tried to industrialize and develop their own economies, Western countries sabotaged them. From CIA-backed coups to IMF policies that keep nations in perpetual debt, the West has systematically ensured that poorer nations stay dependent and exploited.

  
  

Who Really Deserves Reparations?

For centuries, the West has lectured the rest of the world about economic responsibility, hard work, and democracy, while hoarding the wealth they stole. And now, when people from these same exploited regions seek a better life in the West, they are met with hostility and racism.

• Why are people crossing borders? Because those borders were drawn by the very nations that destroyed their homelands.

• Why do countries struggle to develop? Because Western powers deliberately kept them weak while profiting off their resources.

• Why is global inequality so extreme? Because wealth was built through centuries of extraction, and it was never shared.

• Why isn’t the world fairer, more just, more humane? Because for centuries, greed walked hand in hand with conquest, and too many believed they were chosen, ordained to take, to rule, to profit. The scars of that arrogance still shape the world we live in today.

  
  

If Western nations had chosen to share their wealth, innovations, and technology, rather than hoard them, the world would be a very different place today. No one would be forced to flee poverty, violence, or corruption if their home countries had been allowed to thrive instead of being pillaged.

So tell me—are these nations doing anything differently today, even with the full benefit of hindsight and a clear view of the horrors they once inflicted? Or are they simply focused on maintaining the status quo? After all, actions speak louder than a thousand apologies—am I right?"

It’s Time to Acknowledge Reality

The world is not the way it is because of some natural order. It is this way because of deliberate decisions made by empires that put profit over human lives. The West did not rise because of its people’s “superior” qualities. (Unless, of course, we’ve decided that theft, delusions of superiority, arrogance, hate, madness, fury, and violence are the hallmarks of greatness.) It rose because it is really good at stealing, enslaving, and destroying, leaving others in ruins. The least it can do now is at least have the decency to acknowledge the truth and then try to, as humanly as possible, work toward real justice.

History cannot be erased, but it can be reckoned with. The question is: does the West have the ´cojones´ to face the truth?

Thanks for reading. Abrazos.

Diego Rojas