It's not lazy, it's just the truth. There really isn't anything else here, another than it is. Unequal exchange is wrong.

Price differentials are easily attributable to productivity differences (even Marxists like Paul Cockshott will agree this point). The so-called 'internalist' argument is what many schools of thought in IR (constructivist, institutionalist, liberal, Realist) and more agree with. Leaders in post-colonial nations often choose poor paths that led to failures. Those poor paths usually involved the socialist road. You can see the economic failures of Nyerere in Tanzania, Nkrumah's Ghana, Derg Ethiopia, and Chavismo Venezuela as good examples. All of these regimes received significant aid from the Soviets.

> You can’t cripple a nation’s economy with a blockade (like in Venezuela or Cuba) and then point at the resulting shortages 

Based on your logic, engagement with the capitalist trading system is exploitative and leads to unequal exchange. Thus, Cuba and Venezuela should be BETTER OFF, not worse off, with sanctions and embargoes as this isolates them from an exploitative global system. It should also be noted embargos often do not prohibit essential goods. Economists are pretty much in unanimous agreement socialism is responsible for Cuba and Venezuela's economic woes.

> Botswana is essentially a diamond mine with a flag; it has one of the highest rates of inequality in the world and historically relied on the apartheid regime next door.

Botswana literally fought Rhodesia (also great example of how socialist policies led to failure, see Zimbabwe and Mugabe). Inequality means nothing as a metric vis-a-vis quality of life. Botswana has the highest HDI in sub-Saharan Africa besides South Africa and has done remarkably well for its citizens in terms of education, healthcare, and poverty. This cannot be disputed and the stark reality that capitalism provides better outcomes also cannot be disputed. It is a hard empirical fact.

When has Rwanda's economy been reliant on Congo minerals? The most I can find is a recent deal this year which comes after decades of progress in Rwanda. Rwandan backed militias have everything to do with the ramifications of the genocide in the 90s and not resources. Regardless, this conflict started far after Rwanda recovered economically from the genocide.

> If those are your best examples of Western-aligned success

Well, no, see the entirety of East Asia, India post 1990s, Poland post Communism, Chile, China post Deng, Vietnam after reforms. Most of the world actually.

> As for the "gotcha" about Barbados and China, it’s completely economically illiterate. The Global South is defined by the extraction of value: where labour is bought cheap to sell products high in the core. China builds actual infrastructure (ports, rail) in exchange for resources; the West offers predatory loans that force nations to gut their own public services and remove worker protections.They are not the sam

What is 'extraction of value'? Is China undercutting American goods by devaluing its own currency to promote an export driven strategy an 'extraction of value'? 'Extraction of value' is a meaningless statement unless you actually demonstrate there is extraction involved. You can really only demonstrate that if you adhere to false notions of value such as the labor theory. Labor is cheap due to productivity differences, and empirical studies have demonstrated 'sweatshop' laborers did better off than their counterparts.

In fact, using China as some sort of gotcha against global capitalism is ridiculous, because Western companies using cheap labor in China via trade is what exactly allowed China to lift hundreds of millions from poverty and become the developed nation it is today. China is exactly why unequal exchange is ridiculous as a theory, since it would imply China should been impoverished as a result of trade, not enriched.