>>519366923
You've set up a perfect racist trap: 'Either they were exploited, or they're inferior.' You ignore the third, actual answer: Societies develop differently based on their unique material conditions, and 'success' isn't a linear race where everyone is trying to become Europe.
Your entire argument is circular: you define 'success' as 'looking like the West,' and then use that to prove Western superiority. It's like defining 'good at music' as 'being a classical pianist' and then claiming rock guitarists are inferior.
Many powerful, complex, and successful non-Western societies (like the Ottoman Empire, Mughal India, or Imperial China) were not 'exploited' in the way the Americas were, yet they don't fit your narrow, modern, capitalist definition of 'success.' Their different paths don't prove inferiority; they prove history is not a single, straight line with you at the finish.