Was colonialism always capitalist?

Question

Khushi Kumari Choudhary · Accepted Answer

Colonialism is the term related to the process of acquiring control over the social, political, and economic power of a country by another nation whereas capitalism refers to the situation where the control over trade and industries of a country is in the hands of private owners instead of government. Under capitalism, the businessmen and organisations work for maximising their profit rather than the welfare of public. In the past, there were a lot of countries which were colonies to Great Britain, where they had complete control over these colonies (for e.g., India). 
The East India Company used to acquire the raw materials at cheaper rates from these counties and then used to convert them into valuable goods and then selling them at high price in the global market. It is believed that the process of colonialism was supported by such big trade organisations for their own profits. The East India Company used to have a monopoly in the market and hence it was not feasible for the small vendors or merchants to sustain in the global or local markets. Granting monopoly to the East India Company by expanding their colonies across the world was a clear indication of capitalism rather than the welfare of the underdeveloped countries (O’Hanlon-2013). 
Colonialism turned out to be more costly for the colonies' countries as many of their valuable rare resources were acquired by these capitalist minds. They might claim that colonialism has helped the countries to accelerate their development, but it completely ignores the fact that the development process could have been much better if capitalism was not the major thought of colonialism. Instead of flourishing the universal economy, the monopoly of East India trading companies did so for only a few merchants at the cost of a very large population. The capitalists acted as the right hand to the ruling country like Britain to protect their company from global competition. This was done by implementing higher taxes on the goods imported from firms other than the East India Company, through political cooperation.  
This forced the colonies to buy the goods from the East India Companies because of its affordability rather than its quality, further strengthening their monopoly (O’Hanlon-2013).
No country would like to improve the welfare of other countries by deploying its own resources abroad without anything in return. This could be regarded as the primary argument in the notion that colonialism is capitalistic in nature. Since the government did not pay attention to the long-term consequences of such unfair deals to its own country and to its colonies, the greed of merchants led to the growth of capitalism along with progression of colonialism.

Was colonialism always capitalist?

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