Values Added: Grassroots Politics (Michelle Goldberg & Rich Lowry)

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Originally Posted by Sulla the Dictator

Are you referring to the African Merchant Company? I don't see things like that as colonialism, to be honest. The East India Trading Company is much more an example of colonialism the way you are talking about, but again, only because it was an appointed governing body by the Crown. Its charter was far more expansive than the African Merchant company, and that charter is a direct part of why it is colonialist. The company actually acted in an administrative role in India.

Trading guns and luxury items for slaves or gems is just rapacious mercantilism, not colonialism.

I don't think the necessity of a charter is what designates it as colonialism. Colonialism is in the mechanism, not in the legal instruments surrounding similar mechanisms. But this is a definitional disagreement ultimately.