It's funny how you keep trying to drag in other examples to support your position. Am I suppose to ignore the history and special great power support for both p

It's funny how you keep trying to drag in other examples to support your position. Am I suppose to ignore the history and special great power support for both places in Asia and imagine that their economies just naturally developed that way, ceteris parabus? What a hoot. You are right about looting resources. But economy is orthogonal to ideology, eg Australia is a property-minded free-trading polity but has a contracting economy as most of its exports are resource-based rather than manufactured goods or services. Nobody is preventing Australians from being a high-tech powerhouse, businesses have just chosen to focus on extractive and agrarian sources of revenue. >Anyhow, Spain installed a feudal system in South and Central America Yes, I already mentioned that: 'far higher rates of intermarriage and takeover of existing feudal institutions.' You haven't addressed the geographic, population, or civilizational arguments in any way, so merely repeating your initial assertion isn't very persuasive. Feel free to try harder.