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

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

#151

Post by chrisco255 » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 3:46 AM UTC

freeflight wrote: post #128

thesmallestcat wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The sweet smell of presentism. You can perhaps fault the US for the interlude between British outlawing of slavery and the civil war/abolition, which covers a few decades. But you can't seriously claim that slavery wasn't the global norm in the 17th and 18th centuries. It certainly wasn't "unlimited." Onto the next bit, "stolen...IP from Europe" is a modern characterization of what was in fact a healthy exchange of r…

> But you can't seriously claim that slavery wasn't the global norm in the 17th and 18th centuries. That's an odd standard to set. Racial discrimination, based on ethnicity, also used to be a global norm, yet that didn't and doesn't excuse the crimes of the Third Reich. While African-American GI's fought against the disfranchisement of European Jews, their own home country still had racial segregation laws in place f…

"Disenfranchisement" is an understatement at best. They were being exterminated. However, I don't think the world was entirely aware of just how bad it was. Information travels much much faster nowadays. At any rate, there is no other nation or point in time prior to the 20th century that you can pretend those values even exist. Even "equality" itself is a Western value. Every nation in human history has spilt blood, has violated basic human rights, and has been tribalistic in it's treatment of outsiders at various points in history. We could all be living under a North Korean-like regime right now, but instead we live in a privileged Western society that loves to loathe itself.

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

#152

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 3:46 AM UTC

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?

[deleted]

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

#153

Post by vacri » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 3:46 AM UTC

DrScump wrote: post #126

vacri wrote: post #10

No mention of an incredibly wealthy continent, both in mineral and agricultural terms (and a temperate climate), that was largely seized by killing the people who owned it and taking their stuff. No mention of the Louisiana Purchase. without which 'Manifest Destiny' would never have occurred, nor the Mexican-American war which added Texas and California, two of the engine-rooms of American wealth today. No mention of…

No mention of an incredibly wealthy continent, both in mineral and agricultural terms How is North America unusually "wealthy" in minerals? Per unit land area, probably only Australia is less gifted in initial (total value of deposits before human extraction) mineral wealth, even if you count commodities that are not presently allowed to be extracted. I would guess that South America or Africa is greatest.

You're hand-waving away both ease of extraction and also the minerals that were worthwhile in the industrial and pre-industrial ages. North America had plenty of iron and coal, and it was easy to get them around, and also easy to extract and use them for most of the year (the temperate climate). Minerals you can't reach or can't use are not useful - there was not a lot of call for Tantalum in the 1800s.

Compare to Brazil, which is a tropical country choked with rainforest. There's a reason why industrial powerhouses develop in temperate zones, and not in tropical ones. Or look along the Andes, where there are a lot of minerals, but there's pretty hostile geography.

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

#154

Post by erikpukinskis » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 3:49 AM UTC

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?

> You sound bitter. Find a society without historical sin and then we can talk.

You sound defensive. Why should there need to be a sinless society before you'll entertain someone's thoughts on the relationship between your sins and your success.

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

#155

Post by [deleted] » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 3:53 AM UTC

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…

[deleted]

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

#156

Post by kamaal » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 3:59 AM UTC

newsmania wrote: post #73

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…

>>It kept the south rural, whereas the north was far wealthier without slaves because it industrialized.

I feel for you. Those evil slaves didn't work hard enough till their deaths to make their rightful masters win.

>>It’s just not right to say that so few people should get to control the entire continent just because they were there first.

This is so Winston Churchill'esque, dog in the manger analogy where there are some superior people who have rights to exterminate existing people, and those existing people are evil for even resisting.

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

The USA is the most successful imperialistic project executed by the western civilization ever. To separate the US from Europe is simply splitting hairs.

The same could have happened to the Indian subcontinent. But there were too many people to kill and the British got caught up in a few wars. Else Mr Churchill had pretty great genocidal plans. He even got along and executed a small project where he killed a few million people(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bengal_famine_of_1943).

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

#157

Post by WalterBright » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 3:59 AM UTC

newsmania wrote: post #73

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…

You're correct that slavery held the country back. The Confederacy could not even produce shoes for their soldiers. The reason Lee was in Gettysburg was he was after the shoe factory in nearby Harrisburg.

The Civil War economically devastated and flattened the southern states. It's hard to see how the later wealth of the US economy was based on that.

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

#158

Post by skissane » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 4:04 AM UTC

DrScump wrote: post #129

skissane wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

States can leave the US with the consent of Congress. Congress has never given its consent, and it is hard to predict how it would behave if such a request was seriously made today. Congress did reject the demand of the Confederate states to secede, but there was a strong moral argument against allowing their secession–their primary reason for secession were to continue to evil practice of slavery. If a state wanted…

States can leave the US with the consent of Congress. How do you conclude that? Where in the Constitution do you find a mechanism for doing so? http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/is-secession...

Well, it is definitely possible by constitutional amendment, which normally means a two-thirds majority of Congress and 75% of the state legislatures. (Or the convention process...)

But, I don't think we can definitely say that a constitutional amendment is necessary. Suppose that a state requested to secede, and the request for secession was approved by both popular vote and by the state legislature; and that Congress then passed ordinary legislation approving the secession. Would the Supreme Court rule that legislation unconstitutional? I don't think anyone can really predict how the Supreme Court would act, but I don't think it is certain that they would rule it unconstitutional. But if it is possible that they might not rule it unconstitutional, it is possible that secession with Congressional consent is constitutional. Certainly it would be easy for the Supreme Court to distinguish this scenario from the Civil War scenario of attempted secession against the will of Congress, if a majority on the Supreme Court felt so inclined. If the majority of Congress, and the President, was in favour of permitting the attempt at secession, the Supreme Court might not be inclined to overrule them.

What counts is not what the document literally says, what counts is how it is interpreted in practice. And when dealing with hypotheticals, no one can really know how it will be interpreted in practice unless and until that hypothetical becomes an actuality.

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

#159

Post by oh_sigh » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 4:11 AM UTC

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…

If the US was stolen, then the Native American tribes were also stealing it from previous occupants. Heck, there are tribes in the southwest which only got to the southwest by conquering other Native American tribes after Europeans were already roaming around here.

So, it's hard to really feel sorry for them, especially because Europeans put the land to much more productive use per acre than Native Americans did.

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

#160

Post by syrrim » Mon, Sep 25, 2017, 4:12 AM UTC

pizza wrote: post #116

newsmania wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I'm skeptical of the idea that the tragedy of the unintended epidemic resulted, fairly, in property rights for the invaders. It means that either: - "collective pre-existing rights became held in abeyance because so many rightsholders died" -- This assumes the living natives were not the owners of what was still there, either because they were propertyless, or the dead rightsholders didn't have a way to transfer prop…

It means merely that there were very few people laying claim to a very large piece of land. That they were killed by disease means that they weren't killed intentionally in order to take the land.

Property rights don't actually exist. The idea of property rights is a way nations like to explain the division of property they allocate to their citizens. In reality, there is very little earth that needs to be divided among all. A small group cannot claim an unfairly large portion, no matter how long they've lived there, nor what means they used to claim it.