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So in your mind, slaves picked cotton in the south, and next thing you know the US is a global superpower, and that’s all there is to it? Surely you can concei

So in your mind, slaves picked cotton in the south, and next thing you know the US is a global superpower, and that’s all there is to it? Surely you can conceive of a more complex world than that?

throwaway0123_5 2y ago
Colonial-esque behavior by the US was (is?) hardly limited to plantation slavery in the US south. For much of the late 1800s and most of the 1900s the US government was more than happy to intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries to protect corporate profits. One particularly egregious example is the CIA-aided overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in the 50s, largely to protect the profits of US fruit companies, but you don't have to look far to find more. From General Smedley Butler, most decorated marine at the time of his death and the only marine with two medals of honor: > I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.
- FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
  As the saying goes, there's a special place in Hell for the Dulles brothers... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles
- FredPret 2y ago
  That's an argument that the US isn't morally perfect. (By the way, they're a hell of a lot better than any historical empire you could mention). I don't see how this invalidates the idea that the US culture is better at creating and running a great economy: Every country out there has always defended its interests in more or less muscular ways. Exactly the way you describe for the US, and much worse as well. Where are they now?
  - throwaway0123_5 2y ago
    > That's an argument that the US isn't morally perfect. It certainly seems to me like its also a strong argument that much of the US's wealth is based on colonialism or colonialism-adjacent policies, no? > I don't see how this invalidates the idea that the US culture is better at creating and running a great economy I didn't argue that. If US culture is/was in favor of colonialist antics and colonialism produces wealth for the US, that would actually be an argument in favor of US culture being better at producing a great economy. I would argue that the ends don't justify the means when the means are abusing far poorer neighboring countries. I also wouldn't argue that colonialism is the only reason the US is wealthy. There are clearly aspects of US culture that are conducive to productivity and innovation that are more or less independent of colonialism.
    - FredPret 2y ago
      Fair. My frustration arises from people who say that the US turned Guatemala or wherever into a banana republic, and therefore the West has zero moral worth and capitalism must be overthrown.
      - throwaway0123_5 2y ago
        Yeah that certainly seems hyperbolic. My opinion is that we need to do better in the future and consider our past when making current policy decisions. And in some cases I think we should proactively attempt to make amends.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  Yes. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic
com2kid 2y ago
> So in your mind, slaves picked cotton in the south, Slaves built the irrigation systems that made rice farming possible in the south. (People forget that the other huge slavery cash crop was rice). Without the engineering and agricultural knowledge of slaves, many of the farms would have failed (and many did fail early on until the knowledge was spread around to plantation owners). The image of slaves being from nomadic hunter gatherer tribes is a false narrative put into place by racists centuries ago. > Surely you can conceive of a more complex world than that? The US's short history is absurdly violent, but it also includes the US getting some of the best minds from basically all over the world to move here and build up a century's worth of IP.
- dingnuts 2y ago
  > The image of slaves being from nomadic hunter gatherer tribes is a false narrative put into place by racists centuries ago. This argument is a straw man and irrelevant. Everyone knows Africa is a huge continent and the civilizations on the coast that sold slaves captured them from a variety of other cultures more inland. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of their levels of development starting in 1500 until the 19th century. You aren't implying that before the Atlantic slave trade, Africa was a monolithic culture, would you? No, that would be absurdly ignorant > US's short history is absurdly violent, Compared to what? The Great Leap Forward? The reign of Alexander the Great? The last twenty years of Costa Rican history? Bud I think you just don't like the US and maybe that's a personal problem.
  - com2kid 2y ago
    > Bud I think you just don't like the US and maybe that's a personal problem. You'd be wrong. What I have done is read my history books, and visited historical sites all around the US and abroad. Saying "shit was violent" isn't saying I hate this country. Saying "we fucked up and we shouldn't do that crap again" is how we improve as a people. > This argument is a straw man and irrelevant. Everyone knows Africa is a huge continent and the civilizations on the coast that sold slaves captured them from a variety of other cultures more inland. Go visit some southern plantations. Learn how the plantations were built. Farming isn't just physical labor. There is engineering involved. Designing flood levees to water crops was a technology that the US plantation owners acquired from slaves who in many cases designed and built the levees used on plantations. > Compared to what? The Great Leap Forward? The reign of Alexander the Great? The last twenty years of Costa Rican history? Those countries do not have a short history. The US has a very short history and it has involved a lot of violence in rapid succession. Trying to say that our success as a nation is purely because of Hard Work, Brains, and Grit, is a false narrative that will lead to our downfall if we do not actually understand why we succeeded. Our economic success from the transcontinental railroad is because we imported near slave labor to built it, at a high cost of human lives, and then we attempted to kick many of the surviving immigrants out. That is the simple truth about the largest successful rail project in US history, and understanding how labor costs impact nationwide infrastructure build-outs is, IMHO, rather important. The success of Hollywood is because patent laws were widely ignored on the west coast, which allowed technology to progress faster. Our failure to understand how too strict of IP enforcement stifles growth is why a lot of iterative improvements come out of China now, they can iterate faster w/o waiting for patents to expire. Our success in science and technology is because we have been willing to allow the best minds in from all around the world by ensuring a higher quality of life in the US compared to other places. But we've taken that for granted for too long, and allowed that qualify of life to slip while other countries have caught up. Jumping up and down shouting "we're the best!" is inane, especially while the rest of the world isn't just standing still.
kiba 2y ago
The North crushed the South, which clung to its slavery system which was unable to economically compete with the northern states' industrial power. If anything, slavery was probably was a weight around the US's neck, the legacy of which we're still dealing with today.

So in your mind, slaves picked cotton in the south, and next thing you know the US is a global superpower, and that’s all there is to it? Surely you can conceive of a more complex world than that?

throwaway0123_5 2y ago

Colonial-esque behavior by the US was (is?) hardly limited to plantation slavery in the US south. For much of the late 1800s and most of the 1900s the US government was more than happy to intervene in the domestic affairs of other countries to protect corporate profits. One particularly egregious example is the CIA-aided overthrow of Jacobo Arbenz in Guatemala in the 50s, largely to protect the profits of US fruit companies, but you don't have to look far to find more. From General Smedley Butler, most decorated marine at the time of his death and the only marine with two medals of honor: > I spent 33 years and four months in active military service and during that period I spent most of my time as a high class muscle man for Big Business, for Wall Street and the bankers. In short, I was a racketeer; a gangster for capitalism. I helped make Mexico and especially Tampico safe for American oil interests in 1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a decent place for the National City Bank boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the raping of half a dozen Central American republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I helped purify Nicaragua for the International Banking House of Brown Brothers in 1902–1912. I brought light to the Dominican Republic for the American sugar interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras right for the American fruit companies in 1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it that Standard Oil went on its way unmolested. Looking back on it, I might have given Al Capone a few hints. The best he could do was to operate his racket in three districts. I operated on three continents.

FuriouslyAdrift 2y ago
As the saying goes, there's a special place in Hell for the Dulles brothers... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Foster_Dulles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allen_Dulles
FredPret 2y ago
That's an argument that the US isn't morally perfect. (By the way, they're a hell of a lot better than any historical empire you could mention). I don't see how this invalidates the idea that the US culture is better at creating and running a great economy: Every country out there has always defended its interests in more or less muscular ways. Exactly the way you describe for the US, and much worse as well. Where are they now?
- throwaway0123_5 2y ago
  > That's an argument that the US isn't morally perfect. It certainly seems to me like its also a strong argument that much of the US's wealth is based on colonialism or colonialism-adjacent policies, no? > I don't see how this invalidates the idea that the US culture is better at creating and running a great economy I didn't argue that. If US culture is/was in favor of colonialist antics and colonialism produces wealth for the US, that would actually be an argument in favor of US culture being better at producing a great economy. I would argue that the ends don't justify the means when the means are abusing far poorer neighboring countries. I also wouldn't argue that colonialism is the only reason the US is wealthy. There are clearly aspects of US culture that are conducive to productivity and innovation that are more or less independent of colonialism.
  - FredPret 2y ago
    Fair. My frustration arises from people who say that the US turned Guatemala or wherever into a banana republic, and therefore the West has zero moral worth and capitalism must be overthrown.
    - throwaway0123_5 2y ago
      Yeah that certainly seems hyperbolic. My opinion is that we need to do better in the future and consider our past when making current policy decisions. And in some cases I think we should proactively attempt to make amends.
fuzztester 2y ago
Yes. See: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Banana_republic

com2kid 2y ago

> So in your mind, slaves picked cotton in the south, Slaves built the irrigation systems that made rice farming possible in the south. (People forget that the other huge slavery cash crop was rice). Without the engineering and agricultural knowledge of slaves, many of the farms would have failed (and many did fail early on until the knowledge was spread around to plantation owners). The image of slaves being from nomadic hunter gatherer tribes is a false narrative put into place by racists centuries ago. > Surely you can conceive of a more complex world than that? The US's short history is absurdly violent, but it also includes the US getting some of the best minds from basically all over the world to move here and build up a century's worth of IP.

dingnuts 2y ago
> The image of slaves being from nomadic hunter gatherer tribes is a false narrative put into place by racists centuries ago. This argument is a straw man and irrelevant. Everyone knows Africa is a huge continent and the civilizations on the coast that sold slaves captured them from a variety of other cultures more inland. It would be interesting to see a breakdown of their levels of development starting in 1500 until the 19th century. You aren't implying that before the Atlantic slave trade, Africa was a monolithic culture, would you? No, that would be absurdly ignorant > US's short history is absurdly violent, Compared to what? The Great Leap Forward? The reign of Alexander the Great? The last twenty years of Costa Rican history? Bud I think you just don't like the US and maybe that's a personal problem.
- com2kid 2y ago
  > Bud I think you just don't like the US and maybe that's a personal problem. You'd be wrong. What I have done is read my history books, and visited historical sites all around the US and abroad. Saying "shit was violent" isn't saying I hate this country. Saying "we fucked up and we shouldn't do that crap again" is how we improve as a people. > This argument is a straw man and irrelevant. Everyone knows Africa is a huge continent and the civilizations on the coast that sold slaves captured them from a variety of other cultures more inland. Go visit some southern plantations. Learn how the plantations were built. Farming isn't just physical labor. There is engineering involved. Designing flood levees to water crops was a technology that the US plantation owners acquired from slaves who in many cases designed and built the levees used on plantations. > Compared to what? The Great Leap Forward? The reign of Alexander the Great? The last twenty years of Costa Rican history? Those countries do not have a short history. The US has a very short history and it has involved a lot of violence in rapid succession. Trying to say that our success as a nation is purely because of Hard Work, Brains, and Grit, is a false narrative that will lead to our downfall if we do not actually understand why we succeeded. Our economic success from the transcontinental railroad is because we imported near slave labor to built it, at a high cost of human lives, and then we attempted to kick many of the surviving immigrants out. That is the simple truth about the largest successful rail project in US history, and understanding how labor costs impact nationwide infrastructure build-outs is, IMHO, rather important. The success of Hollywood is because patent laws were widely ignored on the west coast, which allowed technology to progress faster. Our failure to understand how too strict of IP enforcement stifles growth is why a lot of iterative improvements come out of China now, they can iterate faster w/o waiting for patents to expire. Our success in science and technology is because we have been willing to allow the best minds in from all around the world by ensuring a higher quality of life in the US compared to other places. But we've taken that for granted for too long, and allowed that qualify of life to slip while other countries have caught up. Jumping up and down shouting "we're the best!" is inane, especially while the rest of the world isn't just standing still.

kiba 2y ago

The North crushed the South, which clung to its slavery system which was unable to economically compete with the northern states' industrial power. If anything, slavery was probably was a weight around the US's neck, the legacy of which we're still dealing with today.