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I think this is also the explanation for American success in the 20th century. The United States as we know it is, like all empires, built on the spoils of war.

I think this is also the explanation for American success in the 20th century. The United States as we know it is, like all empires, built on the spoils of war. The United States was able to capture the best and brightest scientists. These people were brought into a system whose structure and demands were dictated by the needs of a growing government and military. This is the fuel that drove American exceptionalism.

sk5t 5y ago
> built on the spoils of war Negative, you may have confused the US with Rome. The US is the beneficiary of tremendous natural resources, temperate climate across a vast geography, natural isolation from external threats, and mostly very stable governmental structures.
- klodolph 5y ago
  Those natural resources were acquired by conquering and displacing the original inhabitants.
  - rajin444 5y ago
    That's a statement that applies to nearly every society ever. What's the point of saying it? The post you're replying to is talking about a unique distinction in how 2 societies maintained power.
    - klodolph 5y ago
      > That's a statement that applies to nearly every society ever. What's the point of saying it? There's something to be said for relevance. It may be true for nearly every society, but the amount of relevance varies. The US conquered an astonishing amount of territory in recent history, which makes it relevant.
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Much less than the Soviet Union.
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  Oh oh oh I have one: a peculiar form of chattel slavery considered more brutal and unforgiving than that of Rome.
  - wahern 5y ago
    The American South was built on slavery, but slavery was a limiting factor in the economic development of the United States and particularly the South. It's why the industrial revolution happened in the North. And as the largest market for Southern cotton Europe was at least as much a benefactor of American Slavery. Some people spin this narrative because they think it secures African-Americans' place as legitimate and essential builders of American wealth and power. And sometimes also to justify reparations. But that seems unnecessary and a reactionary narrative that is simply the flip side of the coin of American racist ideology. There's no need to justify, let alone rank, the contributions of any group in the U.S., especially when you do it by reviving horribly misguided economic theories. Also, don't forget that slavery was endemic to European colonialism in the Americas. AFAIU, only a fraction (less than 10%?) of African slaves ended up in the United States. Brazil alone, for example, may have received upwards of 40%. If slavery were the secret sauce to economic development, the U.S. should be one of the poorest countries in the Americas.
    - birdyrooster 5y ago
      > slavery was a limiting factor I would love a source for this >Also, don't forget that slavery was endemic to European colonialism in the Americas. AFAIU, only a fraction (less than 10%?) of African slaves ended up in the United States. Brazil alone, for example, may have received upwards of 40%. If slavery were the secret sauce to economic development, the U.S. should be one of the poorest countries in the Americas. I don't follow this, why would they be the poorest? Is this based on your previous claim that slavery being a limiting factor?
      - wahern 5y ago
        > Recent research argues that among former New World colonies a nation’s past dependence on slave labor was important for its subsequent economic development (Engerman and Sokoloff, 1997, 2002). It is argued that specialization in plantation agriculture, with its use of slave labor, caused economic inequality, which concentrated power in the hands of a small elite, adversely affecting the development of domestic institutions needed for sustained economic growth. I test for these relationships looking across former New World economies and across states and counties within the U.S. The data shows that slave use is negatively correlated with subsequent economic development. However, there is no evidence that this relationship is driven by large scale plantation slavery, or that the relationship works through slavery’s effect on economic inequality. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/domestic_slavery.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/domestic_slaver... I haven't actually read much research in this area in particular. Frankly, it just seems intuitive to me based on all the literature I have read about American political, legal, and industrial development; the development of other countries, such as in SE Asia; and especially works related to the so-called "resource curse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
- freddie_mercury 5y ago
  Those "tremendous natural resources" were all the result of the Indian wars. America was at war nearly constantly expanding its empire from 1775-1865. Surely you didn't think north America was terra nullis or that the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources to European colonists? Anglo-Powhatan Wars (3 separate wars), Pequot War, Kieft's War, Peach Tree War, Esopus Wars, King Philip's War, Tuscarora War, Yamasee War, Dummer's War, Pontiac's War, Lord Dunmore's War, Cherokee-American Wars, Northwest Indian War, the Creek War, First and Second Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche-Mexico War, Cayuse War, Rogue River Wars, Yakima War, Puget Sound War, Spokane War, Snake War, Nez Perce War, Bannock War, Sheepeater Indian War, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Mohave War, Apache Wars, Black Hawk War, Yavapai Wars, California Indian Wars, Walker War, Paiute War, Goshute War, White River War, Red Cloud's War, Colorado War, Great Sioux War, Dakota War.... And I'm sure I'm leaving a bunch out. The US is definitely built on the spoils of war.
  - SR2Z 5y ago
    "Spoils of war" implies some degree of active, ongoing conquest beyond the borders of a nation, but the United States has relied almost entirely on resources within its own borders to gain its power. You could say that America was "expanding its empire" but there was not substantial growth after the Gadsden purchase and most of the growth of universities (and the bulk of American power) came much later. Attributing research and production to the spoils of wars fought nearly a century ago is kind of a reach.
    - spats1990 5y ago
      "Spoils of war" on Wikipedia redirects to "war looting" or: "A prize of war is a piece of enemy property or land seized by a belligerent party during or after a war or battle, typically at sea." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_of_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_of_war >but the United States has relied almost entirely on resources within its own borders to gain its power. How did it attain control of those resources? You haven't addressed the parent's point.
  - pdonis 5y ago
    > the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources The native Americans didn't even know about most of the natural resources, and what they did know about, they mostly didn't make any use of. That's a big part of why they ended up losing the wars against the European settlers: the latter actually turned those resources into wealth.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  The Soviet Union had much more natural resources available.
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    But not a temperate climate over its whole geography or stable government structures over the last 200 years.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      The USSR was stable for 70 years. Long enough. The problem was lack of free markets. Free markets are the common thread among successful economic powers. Not population, not resources, not rivers, etc.
      - fighterpilot 5y ago
        Agreed on the free markets point. Anything else is a nonstarter.
      - emteycz 5y ago
        Huh? I don't think there was a single moment of stability anywhere in the whole Eastern bloc (was born there). Especially not political stability, and much less economical. People and businesses were continually deliberately destroyed on massive scale the entire time. Though yeah, free markets are key.
      - random314 5y ago
        As well as colonialism and puppet governments in Latin America.
- zmmmmm 5y ago
  I often think this factor is vastly under estimated. The US geography is almost the perfect design for building a prosperous and stable society. A massive breadbasket of fertile interior flanked on each side by coastline with access to trade with all corners of the earth but still isolated and highly defensible. Every natural resource you could possibly need available in abundance without ever needing reliance on external countries. If you were sitting down to a game like SimCity and constructing a country you'd probably make something like that, but here it was "by accident" just ripe for the industrial revolution to take hold and transform it.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    Japan has none of this, and yet is highly successful.
    - koreanguy 5y ago
      not really, Japanese have been stealing from western Patents for years
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      But it's not number one, perhaps party because of geography too (size of country, lack of natural resources, location).
      - WalterBright 5y ago
        Relative to their size, they have done extremely well. The lack of natural resources has not held them back, nor has the location, lack of rivers, etc. The feature that matters is a free market. The best thing a poor country can do for its citizens is move towards a free market economy.
    - lovemenot 5y ago
      At a different scale and time Japan was indeed blessed with natural resources. In the revised edition of Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond tells us that the "agriculture package" sent from the Fertile Crescent 5kya arrived here late: 2.3kya - perhaps 1,000 years later than expected. The purported reason: Jomon was perhaps the most sophisticated hunter-gatherer society ever. For instance, pottery was created by Jomon hunter-gatherers earlier than anywhere else. In part, because of the sheer abundance of natural resources in Japan, the Jomon peoples had developed a rich society that agriculturism for a long time simply couldn't compete with.
birdyrooster 5y ago
What drove American exceptionalism in the 20th century was still largely what drove its exceptionalism in the 19th and earlier centuries: chattel slavery and black exploitation. Slavery wasn't phased out immediately after the emancipation proclamation. 1) Slavery was still legal in the north after that signing and 2) states and counties did not enforce the law consistently (e.g. Juneteenth), and 3) criminal justice system was used to enslave black people for free prison labor not too unlike today. Of course later in the 20th century there was Jim Crow and Redlining to come which suppressed and continued the extraction of Blacks for whites to enrich themselves and their nation. https://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168957092/what-the-emancipation-proclamation-didnt-do https://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168957092/what-the-emancipati... https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89051115 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=890511... https://www.livescience.com/61886-modern-slavery-united-states-antoinette-harrell.html https://www.livescience.com/61886-modern-slavery-united-stat...
- Zhenya 5y ago
  I see. US was the only country that had slaves and this gave them an unfair advantage ergo they had the best universities. My brain hurts stringing this logic together. Is that was you're implying?
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    Nope, I never said that. I am saying that the US was able to have the largest economy in the world by the turn of 20th century (before major international conflict) even despite an incredibly bloody civil war because of chattel slavery. Basically, in addition to how they stayed out of international conflict in WW1 and WW2, they had a big tail wind.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      The slave economy of the Confederacy was literally burned to the ground by 1865. The legacy of that was poverty in the south.
WalterBright 5y ago
The free market in the US explains it a lot better. (The USSR also captured a lot of German scientists, the results of which were the Soviet successes with rockets and jet aircraft, for example.)
- hrktb 5y ago
  West europe didn't have good options to go to USSR. Politically it was a no-no, going there meant you would be tainted as a spy even if you went back after a while. So, sure the USSR might not have been stellar, but in the cold war the camps were already cut either way and you didn't choose the US or USSR. You only chose to stay were you are or go for top entity of your block.

sk5t 5y ago

> built on the spoils of war Negative, you may have confused the US with Rome. The US is the beneficiary of tremendous natural resources, temperate climate across a vast geography, natural isolation from external threats, and mostly very stable governmental structures.

klodolph 5y ago
Those natural resources were acquired by conquering and displacing the original inhabitants.
- rajin444 5y ago
  That's a statement that applies to nearly every society ever. What's the point of saying it? The post you're replying to is talking about a unique distinction in how 2 societies maintained power.
  - klodolph 5y ago
    > That's a statement that applies to nearly every society ever. What's the point of saying it? There's something to be said for relevance. It may be true for nearly every society, but the amount of relevance varies. The US conquered an astonishing amount of territory in recent history, which makes it relevant.
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Much less than the Soviet Union.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
birdyrooster 5y ago
Oh oh oh I have one: a peculiar form of chattel slavery considered more brutal and unforgiving than that of Rome.
- wahern 5y ago
  The American South was built on slavery, but slavery was a limiting factor in the economic development of the United States and particularly the South. It's why the industrial revolution happened in the North. And as the largest market for Southern cotton Europe was at least as much a benefactor of American Slavery. Some people spin this narrative because they think it secures African-Americans' place as legitimate and essential builders of American wealth and power. And sometimes also to justify reparations. But that seems unnecessary and a reactionary narrative that is simply the flip side of the coin of American racist ideology. There's no need to justify, let alone rank, the contributions of any group in the U.S., especially when you do it by reviving horribly misguided economic theories. Also, don't forget that slavery was endemic to European colonialism in the Americas. AFAIU, only a fraction (less than 10%?) of African slaves ended up in the United States. Brazil alone, for example, may have received upwards of 40%. If slavery were the secret sauce to economic development, the U.S. should be one of the poorest countries in the Americas.
  - birdyrooster 5y ago
    > slavery was a limiting factor I would love a source for this >Also, don't forget that slavery was endemic to European colonialism in the Americas. AFAIU, only a fraction (less than 10%?) of African slaves ended up in the United States. Brazil alone, for example, may have received upwards of 40%. If slavery were the secret sauce to economic development, the U.S. should be one of the poorest countries in the Americas. I don't follow this, why would they be the poorest? Is this based on your previous claim that slavery being a limiting factor?
    - wahern 5y ago
      > Recent research argues that among former New World colonies a nation’s past dependence on slave labor was important for its subsequent economic development (Engerman and Sokoloff, 1997, 2002). It is argued that specialization in plantation agriculture, with its use of slave labor, caused economic inequality, which concentrated power in the hands of a small elite, adversely affecting the development of domestic institutions needed for sustained economic growth. I test for these relationships looking across former New World economies and across states and counties within the U.S. The data shows that slave use is negatively correlated with subsequent economic development. However, there is no evidence that this relationship is driven by large scale plantation slavery, or that the relationship works through slavery’s effect on economic inequality. https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/domestic_slavery.pdf https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/domestic_slaver... I haven't actually read much research in this area in particular. Frankly, it just seems intuitive to me based on all the literature I have read about American political, legal, and industrial development; the development of other countries, such as in SE Asia; and especially works related to the so-called "resource curse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse
freddie_mercury 5y ago
Those "tremendous natural resources" were all the result of the Indian wars. America was at war nearly constantly expanding its empire from 1775-1865. Surely you didn't think north America was terra nullis or that the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources to European colonists? Anglo-Powhatan Wars (3 separate wars), Pequot War, Kieft's War, Peach Tree War, Esopus Wars, King Philip's War, Tuscarora War, Yamasee War, Dummer's War, Pontiac's War, Lord Dunmore's War, Cherokee-American Wars, Northwest Indian War, the Creek War, First and Second Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche-Mexico War, Cayuse War, Rogue River Wars, Yakima War, Puget Sound War, Spokane War, Snake War, Nez Perce War, Bannock War, Sheepeater Indian War, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Mohave War, Apache Wars, Black Hawk War, Yavapai Wars, California Indian Wars, Walker War, Paiute War, Goshute War, White River War, Red Cloud's War, Colorado War, Great Sioux War, Dakota War.... And I'm sure I'm leaving a bunch out. The US is definitely built on the spoils of war.
- SR2Z 5y ago
  "Spoils of war" implies some degree of active, ongoing conquest beyond the borders of a nation, but the United States has relied almost entirely on resources within its own borders to gain its power. You could say that America was "expanding its empire" but there was not substantial growth after the Gadsden purchase and most of the growth of universities (and the bulk of American power) came much later. Attributing research and production to the spoils of wars fought nearly a century ago is kind of a reach.
  - spats1990 5y ago
    "Spoils of war" on Wikipedia redirects to "war looting" or: "A prize of war is a piece of enemy property or land seized by a belligerent party during or after a war or battle, typically at sea." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_of_war https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_of_war >but the United States has relied almost entirely on resources within its own borders to gain its power. How did it attain control of those resources? You haven't addressed the parent's point.
- pdonis 5y ago
  > the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources The native Americans didn't even know about most of the natural resources, and what they did know about, they mostly didn't make any use of. That's a big part of why they ended up losing the wars against the European settlers: the latter actually turned those resources into wealth.
WalterBright 5y ago
The Soviet Union had much more natural resources available.
- fighterpilot 5y ago
  But not a temperate climate over its whole geography or stable government structures over the last 200 years.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    The USSR was stable for 70 years. Long enough. The problem was lack of free markets. Free markets are the common thread among successful economic powers. Not population, not resources, not rivers, etc.
    - fighterpilot 5y ago
      Agreed on the free markets point. Anything else is a nonstarter.
    - emteycz 5y ago
      Huh? I don't think there was a single moment of stability anywhere in the whole Eastern bloc (was born there). Especially not political stability, and much less economical. People and businesses were continually deliberately destroyed on massive scale the entire time. Though yeah, free markets are key.
    - random314 5y ago
      As well as colonialism and puppet governments in Latin America.
zmmmmm 5y ago
I often think this factor is vastly under estimated. The US geography is almost the perfect design for building a prosperous and stable society. A massive breadbasket of fertile interior flanked on each side by coastline with access to trade with all corners of the earth but still isolated and highly defensible. Every natural resource you could possibly need available in abundance without ever needing reliance on external countries. If you were sitting down to a game like SimCity and constructing a country you'd probably make something like that, but here it was "by accident" just ripe for the industrial revolution to take hold and transform it.
- WalterBright 5y ago
  Japan has none of this, and yet is highly successful.
  - koreanguy 5y ago
    not really, Japanese have been stealing from western Patents for years
  - fighterpilot 5y ago
    But it's not number one, perhaps party because of geography too (size of country, lack of natural resources, location).
    - WalterBright 5y ago
      Relative to their size, they have done extremely well. The lack of natural resources has not held them back, nor has the location, lack of rivers, etc. The feature that matters is a free market. The best thing a poor country can do for its citizens is move towards a free market economy.
  - lovemenot 5y ago
    At a different scale and time Japan was indeed blessed with natural resources. In the revised edition of Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond tells us that the "agriculture package" sent from the Fertile Crescent 5kya arrived here late: 2.3kya - perhaps 1,000 years later than expected. The purported reason: Jomon was perhaps the most sophisticated hunter-gatherer society ever. For instance, pottery was created by Jomon hunter-gatherers earlier than anywhere else. In part, because of the sheer abundance of natural resources in Japan, the Jomon peoples had developed a rich society that agriculturism for a long time simply couldn't compete with.

birdyrooster 5y ago

What drove American exceptionalism in the 20th century was still largely what drove its exceptionalism in the 19th and earlier centuries: chattel slavery and black exploitation. Slavery wasn't phased out immediately after the emancipation proclamation. 1) Slavery was still legal in the north after that signing and 2) states and counties did not enforce the law consistently (e.g. Juneteenth), and 3) criminal justice system was used to enslave black people for free prison labor not too unlike today. Of course later in the 20th century there was Jim Crow and Redlining to come which suppressed and continued the extraction of Blacks for whites to enrich themselves and their nation. https://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168957092/what-the-emancipation-proclamation-didnt-do https://www.npr.org/2013/01/09/168957092/what-the-emancipati... https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89051115 https://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=890511... https://www.livescience.com/61886-modern-slavery-united-states-antoinette-harrell.html https://www.livescience.com/61886-modern-slavery-united-stat...

Zhenya 5y ago
I see. US was the only country that had slaves and this gave them an unfair advantage ergo they had the best universities. My brain hurts stringing this logic together. Is that was you're implying?
- birdyrooster 5y ago
  Nope, I never said that. I am saying that the US was able to have the largest economy in the world by the turn of 20th century (before major international conflict) even despite an incredibly bloody civil war because of chattel slavery. Basically, in addition to how they stayed out of international conflict in WW1 and WW2, they had a big tail wind.
  - WalterBright 5y ago
    The slave economy of the Confederacy was literally burned to the ground by 1865. The legacy of that was poverty in the south.

WalterBright 5y ago

The free market in the US explains it a lot better. (The USSR also captured a lot of German scientists, the results of which were the Soviet successes with rockets and jet aircraft, for example.)

hrktb 5y ago
West europe didn't have good options to go to USSR. Politically it was a no-no, going there meant you would be tainted as a spy even if you went back after a while. So, sure the USSR might not have been stellar, but in the cold war the camps were already cut either way and you didn't choose the US or USSR. You only chose to stay were you are or go for top entity of your block.