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A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

economist.com

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Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#71

Post by ViktorV »

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #25
adwhit wrote: post #19

Given that 400+ years of growth has got us into a position where the likelihood is that the planet will be unable to sustain human life within a few hundred years, I'd be curious to find out what future historians will make of the West's supposedly proud story of progress. In the end, would we all have been better sticking with the Native American way of life? Benjamin Franklin: “When white persons of either sex have…

I write about a possible future where communities of people purchase robots that do most of the work they need for survival, and they otherwise live a simpler non-consumerist life. I’d like to make this a reality. http://tlalexander.com/sanctuary/

I just wrote you a mail about that.

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#72

Post by pizza »

kryptiskt wrote: post #49
zizek23 wrote: post #34

Let's call it as it is, an entire continent was usurped, a gigantic fertile landmass rich in resources was stolen along with unlimited slave labour and IP from Europe. The consequence is predictable. Using jingoism to spin this into some sort of exceptionalism celebrates the loot and plunder without a hint of self consciousness or remorse, and cements a barbaric ideology that fuels more indiscriminate global plunder…

So why didn't it happen in South America?

The settlers who went to South America with the dreams of plucking gold bars out of the fruit trees and using an enslaved population to make hard farm work a breeze met a harsher reality.

I don't know for certain, but I assume that the land was harder to make arable, the weather was less forgiving, the rainforests brought additional problems (like persistence of mosquitos and ticks). Plus South America didn't unify like the USA did, which might have presented an obstacle.

I think I once heard a statistic like at the height of slavery 50% of the USA's exports were cotton. The industrial revolution was a great driver of the demand for America's cotton.

"The American South is known for its long, hot summers, and rich soils in river valleys making it an ideal location for growing cotton. By 1860, Southern plantations supplied 75% of the world's cotton, with shipments from Houston, New Orleans, Charleston, Mobile, Savannah, and a few other ports.

The insatiable European demand for cotton was a result of the Industrial Revolution which created the machinery and factories to process raw cotton into clothing that was better and cheaper than hand-made product." [0]

It might be the case that this prosperity didn't happen in South America because they were not strategically fulfilling cotton demand of the industrial revolution. The reason that the conquistadors had started slaving was to fulfill a "gold revolution"; and they did at least gain prosperity in doing so. But the demand of the "gold revolution" for their monarchies was much smaller than the demand of the industrial revolution.

However, Egypt and India also had significant exports of cotton. The effect that did happen is that the Civil War led to great increases of prosperity due to cotton exports for those countries [0][1]

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/King_Cotton

[1] http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/how-american-civil-war...

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#73

Post by newsmania »

zizek23 wrote: post #34

Let's call it as it is, an entire continent was usurped, a gigantic fertile landmass rich in resources was stolen along with unlimited slave labour and IP from Europe. The consequence is predictable. Using jingoism to spin this into some sort of exceptionalism celebrates the loot and plunder without a hint of self consciousness or remorse, and cements a barbaric ideology that fuels more indiscriminate global plunder…

Slavery actually held the USA back. It kept the south rural, whereas the north was far wealthier without slaves because it industrialized. Furthermore, the civil war was incredibly destructive and without slavery would not have occurred. Lastly the USA was not the biggest economy in 1850.

As for a “usurped continent”, the land was very sparsely populated by the natives compared to the people who came in, and disease cleared out more of them making a vast underpopulation. It’s just not right to say that so few people should get to control the entire continent just because they were there first. Also I would guess you are a liberal from your comments, and therefore likely support legalizing undocumented immigrants. According to your logic, undocumented immigrants are “usurping” America, which is quite unpopular among liberals today.

America committed plenty of evils, but that’s not what made America great. In addition to many bad things, the USA did a lot of things right. I believe the USA had a lot of benefits from geography, but the real thing that made the country great was recognizing the rights of the individual. It has been demonstrated over and over again that egalitarianism yields big dividends in groups. Because the USA had such an emphasis on equality (declaration of independence), innovation occurred on an incredible level. It took a long time for that equality to spread to blacks, but the very idea of even equality of whites was unheard of at the time of the USA founding.

Combine that with the fact that Europe was devastated by two world wars, it was inevitable that the USA should pull ahead.

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#74

Post by kolbe »

pizza wrote: post #8

The plantation economy developed in the southern states, and the initial political dominance of Virginia (which provided four of America’s first five presidents) ensured the continued survival of slavery in the newly independent country. By 1860 auction prices suggested that the collective value of American slaves was $4bn at a time when the federal government’s annual budget was around $69m. That explains both why s…

Just an aside, but I wonder if the north stood to profit from this dynamic. Like, if farms were held as collateral against the slave loans, did northern banks get to take that land when the owners went into default?

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#75

Post by ghaff »

pizza wrote: post #72
kryptiskt wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So why didn't it happen in South America?

The settlers who went to South America with the dreams of plucking gold bars out of the fruit trees and using an enslaved population to make hard farm work a breeze met a harsher reality. I don't know for certain, but I assume that the land was harder to make arable, the weather was less forgiving, the rainforests brought additional problems (like persistence of mosquitos and ticks). Plus South America didn't unify l…

Doesn't really explain Argentina to nearly the same degree as e.g. Brazil-/which The Economist has written about at length over the past couple of years.

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#76

Post by nebabyte »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #65
pizza wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, but as an example (whose effect is only stark because of our present world history), the Nuremberg trials were also a replacement of world history. Many people on trial said "I was just following orders"; mere world history. Just because world history is symbolic, does not mean millions of people's duties do not depend upon which symbols are present.

We hit Hitler comparisons fast on this thread, eh? It is fine to condemn it if you want, we definitely don't want to repeat it, but if you think any culture really has the moral high ground on this, you should look deeper.

> We hit Hitler comparisons fast on this thread, eh

god forbid people bring up hitler in a thread about history/world politics

In fact, let's just scrub history of any references to Germany so we can make internet threads marginally less annoying

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#77

Post by JBReefer »

gnasr wrote: post #56

Stop calling it america, it's north america..

Hey can someone explain this position? You see it a lot on the internet - we all know it's just short for the mouthful of "The United States of America", right?

Is it just garden variety anti-Americanism, or is it based on something else? You also see the form "American means anyone from both continents," which is off in exactly the same way.

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#78

Post by adventured »

Razengan wrote: post #12

Honest question: How much of it is thanks to the US being far away and largely untouched by all the wars in Europe, especially WW2, while still ostensibly profiting from them? And then being the ones to end it with the strongest display of force?

Not much. The US had demonstrated vast industrial capability prior to WW2 and had long since passed Britain, Germany and France as the world's largest economy and manufacturing center. It had also proven itself as one of the primary centers of invention prior to WW2 and throughout the industrial revolution. The US expansion west and the further development of cities including Los Angeles, Las Vegas, Phoenix, San Francisco, Seattle and others, is another example of how the US still had a lot of growth left just to fill into its own territory regardless of WW2.

The present alignment of global economies has seen the US return to a normalized position in terms of both GDP and manufacturing share globally. The temporary artificial expansion after WW2 lasted for roughly 40 years. During that time, the US spent vast treasure protecting other nations, rather than annexing territory or attempting to conquer other nations and plunder their resources (eg: Western Europe, Germany, Taiwan, South Korea, Japan).

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#79

Post by reactor4 »

Razengan wrote: post #12

Honest question: How much of it is thanks to the US being far away and largely untouched by all the wars in Europe, especially WW2, while still ostensibly profiting from them? And then being the ones to end it with the strongest display of force?

A large part of it but it's ww1 that really sealed the deal: http://online.wsj.com/ww1/wall-street

Re: A 400-year story of progress – How America became the world’s biggest economy

#80

Post by seanmcdirmid »

nebabyte wrote: post #76
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We hit Hitler comparisons fast on this thread, eh? It is fine to condemn it if you want, we definitely don't want to repeat it, but if you think any culture really has the moral high ground on this, you should look deeper.

> We hit Hitler comparisons fast on this thread, eh god forbid people bring up hitler in a thread about history/world politics In fact, let's just scrub history of any references to Germany so we can make internet threads marginally less annoying

You probably know as well as I do that Godwin's law is almost as old as the internet itself.
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