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Im just going to paste my comment from the other thread here in response since I dont want to rephrase everything ive said. Feel free to reply in either place

Im just going to paste my comment from the other thread here in response since I dont want to rephrase everything ive said. Feel free to reply in either place Do you actually not know/want to discuss why that is or are you just pushing your narrative which is that "the particular special brand of White People™ who happened to become dominant in the US were very good and very smart and so invented factories and made the US rich and therefor the riches of the US have nothing to do with plunder but with the virtue of these very good very smart very special White People™"? Because I think its clear that the reason the rest of the Americas didnt become wealthy like North America is because of the same habit of plunder that made the US rich but instead of that wealth being sent to Boston or New York or wherever, it was sent back to Europe. How the oil rush in the US was primarily consumed domestically and enabled a huge buildup of industry or how the US has long had a strong domestic supply of steel those places either lacked key resources such as oil or steel while being rich in others or had their social and political structures destroyed by the legacy of colonialism. This combined with terrible governance shows us pretty clearly why the rest of the Americas didnt become rich like the US. https://focus.bse.eu/colonial-settlers-economic-development- https://focus.bse.eu/colonial-settlers-economic-development-... https://cod.pressbooks.pub/westernworlddailyreadingsgeograph https://cod.pressbooks.pub/westernworlddailyreadingsgeograph... https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article/50/3/583/152678/The https://read.dukeupress.edu/hahr/article/50/3/583/152678/The...

skybrian 2y ago
I think the technical point here is that buying slaves, etc. isn't plunder. Plunder is getting rich specifically from looting, like when a city-state's soldiers conquer other cities and loot them, which was common in ancient times and where the Roman Empire got its riches. (Along with tribute from the people they conquered.) And I don't think the US did that? Of course Native Americans were attacked and often treated terribly, but unlike with the Spanish, they didn't have any loot, I don't think? That was about land. Piracy ended in 1730, but maybe privateering during the American Revolution and 1812 counts. It doesn't mean that a lot of terrible things didn't happen, just not that specific terrible thing.
- ffgjgf1 2y ago
  The Roman empire certainly primarily didn’t get rich by looting material goods. Land and slaves were much more important. > Along with tribute from the people they conquered.) Or rather taxes based on land (which was the primary “resource” in premodern societies) and its productivity. Of course the main difference is that in the US most of the land they took wasn’t even remotely as densely settled or cultivated as it later became (because of the epidemics decimating local populations which weren’t probably that high to begin with). Whereas Roman conquests usually resulted in a significant initial drop in population (because of their extremely violent nature and a significant proportion of people being enslaved and shipped back to Italy).
  - skybrian 2y ago
    You are right. By riches I meant specifically portable wealth, things like gold (and slaves) and Roman armies did bring back a lot. From what I’ve read (mostly acoup.blog), during the Roman Republic, soldiers largely provided their own weapons and armor and were motivated by a chance to get loot. (Paying soldiers and/or giving them land came later.) But Rome (and later Constantinople) depended on grain shipments, and armies depend on grain and conscription, and the basis of that is agriculture.
ffgjgf1 2y ago
> wealth being sent to Boston or New York or wherever, it was sent back to Europe Pretty much all states in Latin America (outside of the Caribe’s) very independent in the early 1800s, so US had a 20-30 year advantage at most. So that doesn’t seem to be particularly relevant. Even if we go back a few hundred years there wasn’t any silver/gold mined in NA to send back to Europe.

skybrian 2y ago

I think the technical point here is that buying slaves, etc. isn't plunder. Plunder is getting rich specifically from looting, like when a city-state's soldiers conquer other cities and loot them, which was common in ancient times and where the Roman Empire got its riches. (Along with tribute from the people they conquered.) And I don't think the US did that? Of course Native Americans were attacked and often treated terribly, but unlike with the Spanish, they didn't have any loot, I don't think? That was about land. Piracy ended in 1730, but maybe privateering during the American Revolution and 1812 counts. It doesn't mean that a lot of terrible things didn't happen, just not that specific terrible thing.

ffgjgf1 2y ago
The Roman empire certainly primarily didn’t get rich by looting material goods. Land and slaves were much more important. > Along with tribute from the people they conquered.) Or rather taxes based on land (which was the primary “resource” in premodern societies) and its productivity. Of course the main difference is that in the US most of the land they took wasn’t even remotely as densely settled or cultivated as it later became (because of the epidemics decimating local populations which weren’t probably that high to begin with). Whereas Roman conquests usually resulted in a significant initial drop in population (because of their extremely violent nature and a significant proportion of people being enslaved and shipped back to Italy).
- skybrian 2y ago
  You are right. By riches I meant specifically portable wealth, things like gold (and slaves) and Roman armies did bring back a lot. From what I’ve read (mostly acoup.blog), during the Roman Republic, soldiers largely provided their own weapons and armor and were motivated by a chance to get loot. (Paying soldiers and/or giving them land came later.) But Rome (and later Constantinople) depended on grain shipments, and armies depend on grain and conscription, and the basis of that is agriculture.

ffgjgf1 2y ago

> wealth being sent to Boston or New York or wherever, it was sent back to Europe Pretty much all states in Latin America (outside of the Caribe’s) very independent in the early 1800s, so US had a 20-30 year advantage at most. So that doesn’t seem to be particularly relevant. Even if we go back a few hundred years there wasn’t any silver/gold mined in NA to send back to Europe.