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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

#101

Post by cryptonector »

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…

Other resource-rich countries haven't fared as well. Indeed, it is a truism that the more natural resources, the worse a country performs economically. Some of the wealthiest countries are deprived of natural resources (Israel, Singapore, Monaco, and others) while a bunch of resource-rich countries have done poorly or terribly (Brazil, Argentina, all of Africa, India, Russia, and others).

It's what you do with the stuff that matters.

If what was done in the U.S. is plunder, then what is it that you say is happening in "the Middle East, Latin America and Africa"? Be consistent.

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

#102

Post by thedevil »

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 hasn't been a factor for a century and a half. Natural resources play a meaningful role, but there's plenty of poor countries with resources. And the indigenous people before didn't have a juggernaut economy from those resources.

Slavery and a stolen continent are horrible, but they don't explain what happened economically.

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

#103

Post by Mithaldu »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #95
nebabyte wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackneyed phrases are as old as time, kid; doesn't mean you have a point.

It means there are people out there who believe they can win arguments by creating false analogies to Hitler, who is basically indefensible. Godwin's law then makes it really easy to identify trolls, and you can avoid feeding them by not taking the bait.

Not what happened here though.

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

#104

Post by walterstucco »

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?

There was no comparison to Hitler

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

#105

Post by craftyguy »

gerdesj wrote: post #64
bryanlarsen wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Humans live in Siberia and the Sahara, it'll be pretty much impossible to kill us off completely - we're definitely the hardiest large mammal. It's a good question whether civilisation will be here in 400 years, but humanity will be.

"hardiest large mammal" - hopefully but you might want to be related to tardigrades for real hardiness.

Those are neither large, nor mammals.

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

#106

Post by pizza »

kolbe wrote: post #74
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?

I know of a different way the North profited -- the opportunity cost of a firm refusing to do transactions with members from a different group (i.e. both hiring black labor or collaborating with black enterprise) is equivalent to institutionalized forfeiture of feasible income (of adding more laborers) [0]

Southern capitalism thus negated capitalism's mission: that society improves when parties can fulfill each other's desires efficiently if they each have something that the other desires. So Northern capitalism did tend towards greater capitalist prosperity, because it wasn't contradicting post-slavery capitalism like the South. That contradiction depends upon the Southerners not seeing blacks as anything but "technology", rather than economic agents.

But the result is that white refusal to cooperate with blacks hurts both blacks and whites: neither blacks improve their lot (no productivity), nor do whites improve theirs (forced to relinquish maximum efficiency and profit that would otherwise be allowed by allowing black employment) - simply because of racial stubbornness.

[0] https://www.nationalaffairs.com/storage/app/uploads/public/5...

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

#107

Post by walterstucco »

gerdesj wrote: post #69
alex_anglin wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Killing the natives?

Who are the "natives"? Do you stop at "first to call the area by its modern name" or do you go back through say first hominids? Perhaps we should go back further, say "recognisable single cell organism"

The natives are those that were killed because they opposed to the plans other had for those lands were they lived for centuries

They didn't kill first

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

#108

Post by walterstucco »

aaron-lebo wrote: post #37
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…

You sound bitter. Find a society without historical sin and then we can talk. You went off on some tangent about jingoism without explaining where the book supports that. Did you read the book or the review or did you just want to rant?

> Find a society without historical sin

The Minoans

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

#110

Post by vacri »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #95
nebabyte wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Hackneyed phrases are as old as time, kid; doesn't mean you have a point.

It means there are people out there who believe they can win arguments by creating false analogies to Hitler, who is basically indefensible. Godwin's law then makes it really easy to identify trolls, and you can avoid feeding them by not taking the bait.

Godwin's Law doesn't state that as soon as the Nazis are mentioned, that the quality of the conversation is zero.

There is a difference when drawing a comparison about something entirely unrelated, but when you're talking about topics involving wiping out a people, claiming Godwin's law is silly.

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