A dichotomy of us versus them was established in which the European self was assumed to be a complete individual and the non-European other an incomplete one. The colonizer thus assumed the "obligation"—the "burden," even—of exploiting the colonized in the name of civilizing them. In the eyes of the colonizer, the violent cost of the enterprise to "modernize" the "primitives" was inevitable yet necessary, even if this meant working individuals to death. Indeed, the most inhuman treatment was not seen as unethical because it was not believed to be inflicted on full human beings; violence was merely a feature of the economic mode of production.

Nick Couldry & Ulises A. Mejias, The Costs of Connection, loc. 248