I had a discussion along these lines of sentiment, asserting that the living standards of the West are subsidized through the resource extraction and subjugation of the nations of the Global South through predatory lending practices by the IMF, WB, and through soft/hard power of US/EU policies and state violence.

The assertion was that those governments bring those conditions by the predatory imperial nations unto themselves and their nations because they were naturally and fairly elected to be the representatives of those nations, all while dismissing involvement by nations like France or the US deliberately setting up client states.

Believing that just because there are traitors and collaborators in each country, transmutes their nativity into the legitimate and democratically elected avatars of the state with equal standing rather than usurpers. Even at best, these states are coerced into these asymmetric trades as their refusal is met with sanctions and impoverishment.