Hunter-gatherer experiences of colonialism do not explain subsequent patterns of socio-economic development

How modern colonialism impacted socio-economic growth before and after independence is the subject of an extensive literature. Employing ideas from neoclassical institutional economics, a 2026 paper by J.M. Ramseyer proposes that places where colonisation did not promote economic growth had only recently transitioned from hunter-gathering to farming. Since, according to Ramseyer, hunter-gatherers lack concepts of land ownership and were ‘relentlessly violent’, they could not take advantage of ‘rational’ colonial legal institutions. He illustrates this claim through the Ainu people under Japanese colonial control after 1869. We critique Ramseyer's arguments on four grounds. First, in failing to specify the currency of fitness for his ‘cost/benefit’ approach, Ramseyer's study fails as evolutionary theory. Second, the paper displays a profound misunderstanding of hunter-gatherer history, subsistence planning and patterns of violence. Third, Ramseyer's claims are based on a narrative of Ainu history which over-simplifies or distorts numerous issues, including plant cultivation, territoriality, demography, violence and ethnic identity. Fourth, through his emphasis on the failures of the Ainu to adapt to colonialism, Ramseyer underplays the huge social disturbances that industrial modernity caused to the lives of millions of Japanese south of Hokkaido. A brief comparison with Italy—where a modern state was also established in the 1860s—shows that such disturbances were by no means unique to Japan: disputes over land ownership were a major source of friction in global trajectories towards modernisation. Our analysis rejects the argument that colonised peoples are responsible for their inability to enjoy economic success under modernity and industrialisation.