> these countries were always agrarian economies that had enourmous GDP numbers due to their sheer population numbers which supported a minuscule wealthy landed elite, nothing comparable to industrialised and service based economies.
Nothing different than a service based economy where a huge percentage of people live paycheck to paycheck and supports wealthy billionaires.
What are you trying to prove? Because what you say has not meaning and point whatsoever. We could even argue that certain technologies advantage were reached by China before the west and people like Marco Polo have made their fortune trading them (without going there and start wars for example). Does that make them a "agrarian economy"? They were doing trades with Europe and Asia before America was even discovered (and to that extent before Jesus was born). Unless you've any evidence of what you just said, you just made an empty argument.
> this is a view of economics which put the center of economic productivity in raw workhours
I never talked about this, you're playing a movie in your head and that is the output of your own imagination.
The point I was making is in contradiction to the previous post that mentions how globalism made the west poorer while enriching other countries.
The reason is that with the previous era (colonialist) the west lived above their mean because of the exploitation that was perpetrated elsewhere (Africa and Asia). Now that these countries have added values in their economy which resulted in uplifting their own citizen to a better living standard is creating some trouble in the west.
So was the right thing to engage in wars in Asia and colonize 2/3 of the world?
You've no idea of what these actions have done long term for the countries. Those things are pretty relevant since India form example gained his independence around 70 years ago, not 4 century
or probably the first world was stealing their assets (natural resources) while exporting disgrace (weapons, drugs)?
You should read a bit more so you'd know for example what the opium wars have done to China and what the colonialism has done to India (both perpetrated by the same first world country)
Historically India and China were always the wealthiest (up to the second industrial revolution) regions out there (as in the concept of India and China as we know now are post world war II)
What we are actually seeing today is a rebalancing of wealth that is pretty much needed so that in the US a person would need to have just 1 vacation instead of 3, while in India someone can put some food in their table and allow their kids to go to college.
They're just lazy