You might ask what pirates have with the Bologna Process? I am trying to show the process of plundering spreading over some 300 years. Let’s go!
As someone who has spent nearly four decades in emigration (in two countries), I have had the opportunity to observe changes in migration trends. Even back then, there were pirates — not those who robbed Spanish galleons full of silver, but those who brought in illegal migrants. However, those migrants are not part of this story.
Since 1945, migrants have come to Australia in waves. In the post-war years, the most numerous were Italians and Greeks. From the 1960s onward, the wave was supplemented by migrants from various parts of Yugoslavia. They were followed by migrants produced by various wars. Thus, the shores of Australia were hit by waves of migrants from Lebanon and Vietnam. Most of these migrants were refugees who arrived under the auspices of the United Nations.
The trend of refugee arrivals continues, but on a smaller scale. At the same time, the number of migrants coming to Australia is increasing. Since the 1990s, the number of migrant types has been growing rapidly. These are well-educated migrants who are not refugees from war-torn areas or other troubles. The number of those who come to study in Australia and remain after completing their studies is particularly increasing. These are no longer refugees who arrive with nothing. On the contrary, they are people who speak English fluently and are in very good material condition.
The Brain Drain is new way to plunder
Across developing countries, a very strange phenomenon is visibly occurring: the most privileged, most talented, and best-connected young people in countries like China, India, Indonesia, and Malaysia systematically choose to abandon their potential for leadership at home. They devote their energy to mastering English, accumulating wealth, and ultimately immigrating to Western countries.
What is strange is that they are willing to sacrifice the opportunity to be exceptional and have real authority in their own countries for the chance to start at the bottom. Most of them remain anonymous workers, such as engineers in Silicon Valley. They will never use their knowledge and wealth for the progress of the communities from which they came.
Why? I have asked this question many times.
When you ask these young people why they make this seemingly irrational decision, they usually offer superficial explanations, citing a desire for global communication, knowledge, or internet access. However, these answers fail to explain the depth of this generational obsession and why the pattern repeats endlessly. I have not met a single one who came as a kindred spirit, for adventure.
None of those answers made sense. Why would someone come from Singapore or Hong Kong to study business in Australia? Of Australia’s “economy,” only mining and agriculture remain. There is almost no industry. The only “industry” besides the two mentioned is education. Australian universities rank well on what I described in the article “Universities – A Top List of Surrealists” (in Serbian). You can read the Commentary on “Univerziteti – Top lista nadrealista” by Pogled 360.
300 Years – From Piracy to “Brain Drain”
Let us remember that the USA, Canada, Australia, and New Zealand are former colonies of the United Kingdom. They are no longer colonies but have grown into the group known as the “Five Eyes.” This is a very powerful group that practically controls the world we live in today. That control has come under serious question recently, but we will discuss that another time.
The real reason for the migration of talented and often wealthy young people from developing countries is not just a matter of individual choice. It is the result of a perfidious and almost invisible system. They unconsciously participate in a 330-year-old “game” carefully designed to continuously extract capital, talent, and loyalty from the rest of the world and direct it toward a handful of Western centres.
The silver and gold from Spanish galleons that English pirates robbed several centuries ago no longer command such a high price. The highest price in today’s world is for talent and knowledge. That cannot be obtained by classical pirate methods.
What Created the Greatest Empire That Still Rules Today?
To answer this question, we need to go back more than 300 years. Since I am not a historian, I called upon my “digital collaborators and advisors.” These are, of course, “artificial intelligence.” Their task was to verify some of my suspicions and prevent me from “going overboard.”
Do you know where about 90% of artificial intelligence platforms are located? The answer to this question will lead you to the famous “Five Eyes.” To lead the main race of our time (artificial intelligence), they need young and talented people.
Let’s start from the beginning.
“Extraction” (Plunder)
To fully understand the architecture of this global extraction system, we must first examine the empire that preceded the British one: the Spanish Empire. Historically, Europe was relatively poor, and real wealth — such as highly valuable spices like cinnamon, nutmeg, and pepper — flowed from East to West.
Since Muslim empires controlled the traditional overland trade routes, the Spanish and Portuguese were forced to seek alternative sea routes. This expansion led Spain to cross the Atlantic to the Americas. Through rapid and brutal conquest, a mediocre Iberian kingdom was transformed overnight into the richest nation in the world.
However, this sudden, enormous influx of unearned wealth caused a devastating social decline. The Spanish, who had previously been energetic, cohesive, and open to the outside world, simply stopped working. They transferred their production to England, France, and the Dutch Republic, and handed over trade and shipping to the Dutch. Obsessed with arrogance, court politics, and factional struggles, Spain overextended itself by waging simultaneous wars on multiple fronts. Despite the massive inflow of silver from colonial mines, the Spanish Empire went bankrupt multiple times because it spent money faster than it could extract it.
This illustrates the first fundamental law of the global game: wealth without discipline does not create power; it destroys it.
While Spain choked under the burden of its own silver, the poorer nations on the European periphery — England, France, and the Dutch Republic — became stronger, leaner, and hungrier by doing the hard, dirty work that Spain considered beneath it. In geopolitics, hunger has proven to be far more reliable fuel than gold. The Dutch became the world’s leading traders, sailing to the East Indies to bring spices that Europe craved. England, on the other hand, embraced state-sponsored piracy. Figures like Sir Francis Drake, operating under the direct patronage of Queen Elizabeth I, relentlessly plundered Spanish silver fleets. This stolen silver financed English industry and naval ambitions.
The Emergence of Protestantism
At the same time, a massive religious schism fundamentally changed Europe’s operating system. While Spain remained Catholic — a faith that emphasised obedience to authority, strict hierarchy, and tradition — England and the Dutch Republic embraced Protestantism, specifically Calvinism. This new theology valued hard work, individual initiative, and the accumulation of wealth as signs of divine favour.
While Catholic Spain ordered its people to obey, Protestant England encouraged its people to strive. The resulting ideological conflicts, such as the devastating Thirty Years’ War, killed millions and created enormous anxiety among the new merchant class. These merchants desperately needed a safe place to store their wealth, far from the reach of conquering armies and arbitrary monarchs.
Where Can I Hide All This Money?
The solution to this anxiety gave birth to the modern financial world. In 1688, the British nobility orchestrated the Glorious Revolution by inviting the Protestant Dutch leader, William of Orange, to cross the Channel and take the English throne from the Catholic King James II. However, the real motivation was the security of capital, not theology. Historically, lending to kings had been a terrible gamble. Monarchs borrowed money to wage wars but often ignored obligations, died, or simply refused to repay their debts, leaving merchants with no choice but to revolt.
The Glorious Revolution established Parliament as the sovereign power, leading to the creation of the Bank of England in 1694.
This was a deceptive but world-changing innovation: when individuals deposited or lent money, they were no longer lending to a fickle king, but to the continuous political entity of the nation itself.
England guaranteed these debts through Parliament and protected them with the Royal Navy. Moreover, England’s geographic position as an island made foreign invasion impossible, making it the safest place in the known world for wealth. Recognising this unmatched security, William of Orange and the Dutch transferred huge amounts of capital from the vulnerable republic to the unconquerable island.
The Three Pillars of the Empire
After Waterloo, Britain built the most sophisticated imperial machinery in history, resting on three interconnected pillars:
1. Finance
The Bank of England and the East India Company systematically drained wealth from entire continents. In India, Britain destroyed local textile production to force reliance on British goods. Cheap raw materials flowed to England, and expensive finished goods flowed back. In China, they flooded the market with opium to obtain Chinese silver.
2. Education (Soft Power)
Since extraction required local cooperation, the British built schools throughout their empire. They taught an English curriculum infused with British history, philosophy, and values, sending the message that British civilisation was superior and local civilisations inferior. By offering social mobility and prestigious scholarships (such as the Rhodes Scholarship) to the brightest local minds, Britain co-opted colonial elites. They offered a path upward in otherwise static, rigid societies — on the condition that these individuals accepted British superiority and served British interests. This elegant structural manipulation extracted not only wealth but also fierce loyalty, turning the best minds into agents of the empire.
3. The Royal Navy (Hard Power)
When nations refused to cooperate — as China did during the Opium Wars — the Royal Navy was deployed to force them into submission. The unambiguous message was: trade on British terms or face absolute destruction.
After the Empire – The Empire Continues
The formal British Empire has dissolved. The colonies are independent, and the Royal Navy no longer rules the seas. However, the architecture of its global financial game remains completely intact; it has simply gone underground.
Today’s massive global drug trade and sophisticated corruption schemes exist only because the global financial system is ready to process, conceal, and protect the profits. If you map the world’s major offshore financial centres — the Caribbean, Panama, the Channel Islands, Hong Kong, Singapore, Dubai — you are looking at the ghost of the British Empire. These are exactly the same territories, using the same legal and financial frameworks established by the Bank of England, which have been updated and digitised.
The modern mechanism is structurally identical to the colonial one. When corrupt officials in developing countries steal public funds, the money flows through offshore centres. Lawyers and financial services transform this illicit wealth into clean investments — such as real estate in Vancouver or Sydney, or funds in the Cayman Islands — without any questions about its origin. The West today offers exactly the same deal it offered to colonial elites three centuries ago: help us extract wealth from your country, and we will hide, clean, and protect your share of the loot where your own people cannot reach it. They ensure that, in case of a regime change or revolution at home, the children of the elite will be safe in London, educated at Oxford, and hold British, American, Australian, or Canadian passports.
This system perfectly explains the paradox presented at the beginning: young people in developing countries pursue Western immigration and dollars because they are responding in a perfectly rational way to an incentive structure designed to redirect the best talent, capital, and loyalty to Western financial centres.
For those who had the patience to read this to the end, I have one question: Does this sound like a “conspiracy theory” to you? As soon as you write something that does not align with the controlled narrative, you are classified as a “conspiracy theorist.” Welcome!
Analysis prepared in collaboration with Google’s Gemini AI model. Google’s NotebookLM and Grok AI did an impressive job of “digging” through the data. Graphic processing by Nano Banana 2.