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But if the British or Portuguese rule a territory, it means that the locals don't. The pre-industrial world was largely a zero-sum affair, the pie was growing very slowly. This was the age of mercantilism, where you fought hard to control markets. The Europeans certainly fought hard against eachother, they invented the concept. The same competitive dynamics should apply for everyone else vs the Europeans. If the Portuguese have the trade, it meant the Muslims don't. That's taking money directly out of their pockets. And then there's a big culture clash and religious clash.
Plus, as I mentioned below, the Portuguese were on an absolute rampage in the Indian Ocean. They were directly taking on Indian principalities and the Ottoman Empire, a gigantic country with far more resources than Portugal. Most of the time the Portuguese won and they were fighting on the enemy's home turf!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Diu_(1538)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Siege_of_Cannanore_(1507)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capture_of_Malacca_(1511)
The vast, vast majority of people working in Indian colonial administration were native Indians, to say nothing of the local Rajas who had significant influence. This is generally true of all European colonial states in Africa and Asia in the 1800s onwards. In a large sense, the locals did rule themselves, even if guided by European thought and colonial administrators.
It's really only through the power of ideologies such as nationalism that to a native in Cochin/Kochi that rule from London (not matter how hands off) is illegitimate but rule from New Delhi is legitimate.
Colonialism in the context being discussed (that is, Africa and Asia reperations) is a mostly post-industral or at the very least a proto-industrial phenomeon. A bunch of Portugese trading posts scattered around Asia and Africa isn't really colonialism proper. Only in the latter part of the 1800s (as with most European powers, scramble for Africa) did Portugal really gained substantial control over what we would call colonial states (e.g. Mozambique and Angola).
Regardless, I also object to the claim that pre-industrial trading was zero-sum. It was obviously not zero-sum, or else the participants (e.g. Portugal and costal Indian kingdoms) wouldn't have participated in it! Portugal got their spices, the Indians got their silver. The actual participants in the trading mutually benefit. The fact that traders might seek to monopolise that trade doesn't change the fact that the people actually doing the trading are mutually benefiting. They're looking to gain an economic advantage over their trading competitor not their trading partner. This is no different to modern economics - the fact that some business try to monopolise or engage in anti-competitive behaviour today isn't evidence of economic activity being zero-sum!
But they make sure that the profiting participants are all Portuguese as opposed to Dutch or Muslim, that's the whole point! The Portuguese took control of the key ports and entrepots, they ensured that they were in control of the lucrative trade routes. They buy spices in Asia, sell them in Europe and the vast majority of the profit goes to Portuguese traders and eventually back to the state. They find ways to ensure that nobody else can challenge their control of the region. Maybe their ships go missing at sea, maybe their warehouses burn down, maybe they charge tolls and duties that render them uncompetitive.
On a strategic level, from the point of view of the state or state-like companies such as the EIC or VOC, global trade is zero sum in this period. That's why they fought wars to control it. There's a big difference between what we call anti-competitive behaviour today and companies waging full-scale war to secure monopolies on trade, to secure strategic bases and oceans. They often annexed various islands and ruled directly.
Trade itself isn't zero-sum. That is, the very act of exchanging goods and services between mutually consenting and informed parts is not zero-sum, and is in-fact mutually beneficial.
The issue is 1) rentseeking behaviour by organisations and individuals which is self explanatory, 2) goods, particularly exotic commodities are finite, so there is competiton and an incentive to monopolise. But this doesn't change the fact that trading in of itself is mutually beneficial. Preventing someone else from trading because you traded with a third party and they did not is still a net benefit overall. You and the third party trading partner benefit. The trading competitor who was muscled out of the market doesn't lose anything except the opportunity to trade and benefit themselves, destroyed and captured ships notwithstanding.
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