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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 o
by 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 agoIf 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 agothese 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 agoRemember 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 agoPhilippines 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