Exploitation Colonialism

Exploitation colonialism is the national economic policy of conquering a country to exploit its natural resources and its native population. The practice of exploitation colonialism contrasts with settler colonialism, the policy of conquering a country to establish a branch of the metropole (Motherland), and for the exploitation of its natural resources and native population. A colonialist power pursues settler colonialism to relieve the pressures of over-population upon the economy and the national territory of the motherland, and to extend its territory and culture by reproducing its society in other parts of the world. A reason for which a country might practice exploitation colonialism is the immediate financial gain produced by the low-cost extraction of raw materials by means of an enslaved native people, usually administered by a colonial government.

The geopolitics of an Imperialist power determine the colonial practice of either settler colonialism or of exploitation colonialism. In the example of the British Empire, white-skinned colonists settled mainly in northern North America and in Australia, where they exterminated the native populations in the course of establishing a facsimile society of the mother country (metropole). Whereas the densely populated countries of the British Raj (1858–1947), in the Indian subcontinent, and the British occupation of Egypt and South Africa, were ruled by a small populace of colonial administrators (colonial government) that redirected the local economies to exploitation management to supply the U.K. motherland with food, raw materials, and some finished goods from the colonies.