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Puerto Rico hasn't made much progress. Plus you can't insist possible rivals (Brits) give up their empire while building your own...

vmception 5y ago
I thought about that too, we’ve had PR since that long But I think Philippines would have still attracted capital to create Manila and for everything outside of it there would be a better baseline of infrastructure and rule of law
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  If it became a fully integrated state then maybe. But Puerto Rico is routinely excluded from all sorts of "baselines" sadly (so are other non-state territories). I sadly doubt the US (at the time still refusing to give black people the vote) would have welcomed a state filled with Asians, made of 4000+ Islands. The islands have over 100m people, so they'd basically decide federal elections, plus that's a lot of people to suddenly have to bring up to baseline.
  - vmception 5y ago
    these were the primary arguments in Congress against admitting Hawaii into the union as a state until some routine "support my other bill I'll support that bill" all the way till 1959 there were just enough representatives that couldn't imagine the "absurdity" of having Asian representatives for Asian/Polynesian constituents in the United States
    - LatteLazy 5y ago
      Remember as well, Hawaii (pop 1.4m) gets 2 reps and 4 electoral college votes. That's a much easier swallow than whatever 100m Philippinos would get...
      - vmception 5y ago
        Philippines has a third of the US population size by now, or well it would be one fourth of the US population size if it was included but in 1900 it had 6.5m while US had 76 million. So it would be 8%, not insignificant but nowhere as wild as you would think at the time. in 1960 this proportion would have ballooned to 14% Just some additional perspective
sudy7egeg 5y ago
Why not? You can demand anything you want and I've yet to see a country agree to a demand simply because the other party wasn't a hypocrite.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  At the end of WW2, the US needed all the allies it could get against the USSR. They were the real winners of the conflict, the red army was considered unstoppable and Stalin controlled everything from the sea of Japan to (well past) the middle of Germany. The assumption was that if Russia didn't stop when they met the Western allies' lines they would have taken mainland Europe within a few weeks. It was a crazy time.
ArkanExplorer 5y ago
GDP per Capita in PR is still about 3-4x higher than nearby Caribbean nations.
- LatteLazy 5y ago
  Technically their closest neighbour is the British Virgin Islands. Gdp per capita is about 45k there. It's only 32k in PR right? But that's not really fair of me. I think its hard to find a good comparison here. Even my choice of PR is deeply flawed (population 3m vs the Philippines at >100m). For me, the question is mainly political. Its not "could the US have made the Philippines a richer more developed nation" because the answer to that is YES. The question is "would the US political system and electorate every have permitted the project to happen". That's a much harder question to say yes to imho.
philwelch 5y ago
Puerto Rico’s HDI is .845, the same as Argentina. The highest HDI for an independent Caribbean island state is .814, which the Bahamas and Barbados both have. Cuba is at .783 and the Philippines are at .718.

vmception 5y ago

I thought about that too, we’ve had PR since that long But I think Philippines would have still attracted capital to create Manila and for everything outside of it there would be a better baseline of infrastructure and rule of law

LatteLazy 5y ago
If it became a fully integrated state then maybe. But Puerto Rico is routinely excluded from all sorts of "baselines" sadly (so are other non-state territories). I sadly doubt the US (at the time still refusing to give black people the vote) would have welcomed a state filled with Asians, made of 4000+ Islands. The islands have over 100m people, so they'd basically decide federal elections, plus that's a lot of people to suddenly have to bring up to baseline.
- vmception 5y ago
  these were the primary arguments in Congress against admitting Hawaii into the union as a state until some routine "support my other bill I'll support that bill" all the way till 1959 there were just enough representatives that couldn't imagine the "absurdity" of having Asian representatives for Asian/Polynesian constituents in the United States
  - LatteLazy 5y ago
    Remember as well, Hawaii (pop 1.4m) gets 2 reps and 4 electoral college votes. That's a much easier swallow than whatever 100m Philippinos would get...
    - vmception 5y ago
      Philippines has a third of the US population size by now, or well it would be one fourth of the US population size if it was included but in 1900 it had 6.5m while US had 76 million. So it would be 8%, not insignificant but nowhere as wild as you would think at the time. in 1960 this proportion would have ballooned to 14% Just some additional perspective

sudy7egeg 5y ago

Why not? You can demand anything you want and I've yet to see a country agree to a demand simply because the other party wasn't a hypocrite.

LatteLazy 5y ago
At the end of WW2, the US needed all the allies it could get against the USSR. They were the real winners of the conflict, the red army was considered unstoppable and Stalin controlled everything from the sea of Japan to (well past) the middle of Germany. The assumption was that if Russia didn't stop when they met the Western allies' lines they would have taken mainland Europe within a few weeks. It was a crazy time.

ArkanExplorer 5y ago

GDP per Capita in PR is still about 3-4x higher than nearby Caribbean nations.

LatteLazy 5y ago
Technically their closest neighbour is the British Virgin Islands. Gdp per capita is about 45k there. It's only 32k in PR right? But that's not really fair of me. I think its hard to find a good comparison here. Even my choice of PR is deeply flawed (population 3m vs the Philippines at >100m). For me, the question is mainly political. Its not "could the US have made the Philippines a richer more developed nation" because the answer to that is YES. The question is "would the US political system and electorate every have permitted the project to happen". That's a much harder question to say yes to imho.

philwelch 5y ago

Puerto Rico’s HDI is .845, the same as Argentina. The highest HDI for an independent Caribbean island state is .814, which the Bahamas and Barbados both have. Cuba is at .783 and the Philippines are at .718.