There's also the problems caused by hundreds of years of Spanish domination in the Philippines. The Spanish way of colonization was to strip the colony of everything valuable through systematic corruption and outright theft. My wife has noted that she doesn't know of a single former Spanish colony that ever amounted to anything. Off hand, I can't think of any, either.

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I have personally heard this hypothethis expressed by a voluble bigot in the context of virulent anti-Catholicism where the religion was cited as the root cause. I will say that for whatever reasons, countries previously infused with colonialist Spanish culture have not fared as well as countries infused with English colonialist culture. I contend that some cultures foster memes that are self-inhibiting and self-destructive. However, this idea cannot be taught or even discussed on a college campus.