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Britain and America are not exactly close...

sigmoid10 2y ago
Did any of the founding fathers intend to bring the war to Britain?
philipov 2y ago
And that's the primary reason that Britain lost the war. The war was much more expensive for the British than for the Colonists, and became even more expensive once France joined. The British didn't lose because they couldn't keep fighting, but because the cost of the war grew to be higher than the expected value of winning. It was also expensive for the French, and that cost helped bankrupt the state, which led to the French Revolution. One of many causes.
- dpc050505 2y ago
  The French revolution happened because real wealth was basically left untaxed, leaving an enormous tax burden on everyone that wasn't nobility. The situation was not unlike what Piketty described to win his nobel prize.
  - philipov 2y ago
    That is also one of the many causes of the French Revolution, but on its own isn't enough to explain why it went down exactly how and when it did. Had the runway to bankruptcy been longer, a more decisive king than Louis 16th might have managed to successfully reform the state without it being shattered. Perhaps the crisis wouldn't have landed at the same time as weather-driven economic downturn. Maybe if it had been a few years later, different people would have gotten into power and Brissot wouldn't have started a disastrous war with Austria that spiraled everything out of anyone's control. Or any number of other scenarios.
- cykros 2y ago
  The British also realized that as long as the Americans would borrow from the Bank of England, and were willing to trade their raw goods to England where they could be processed into industrial goods and then sold back to them, there wasn't much of a need to win the war in the first place -- though they didn't realize this all at once (as evidenced by the War of 1812). It was when the Americans (in the North) got to disrupting this economic situation that things really kicked off that they needed to back the Confederacy in what was effectively America's third revolution. Despite losing that one too, America's economy and politics were impacted enough that it was just a few decades later the British agent and American turncoat Woodrow Wilson was able to bring the former colonies back to heel with the Federal Reserve Act, the 16th Amendment, and entry into WWI as Britain's ally. It was a nice sovereign republic while it lasted, or so I've read.

Did any of the founding fathers intend to bring the war to Britain?

And that's the primary reason that Britain lost the war. The war was much more expensive for the British than for the Colonists, and became even more expensive once France joined. The British didn't lose because they couldn't keep fighting, but because the cost of the war grew to be higher than the expected value of winning. It was also expensive for the French, and that cost helped bankrupt the state, which led to the French Revolution. One of many causes.

dpc050505 2y ago
The French revolution happened because real wealth was basically left untaxed, leaving an enormous tax burden on everyone that wasn't nobility. The situation was not unlike what Piketty described to win his nobel prize.
- philipov 2y ago
  That is also one of the many causes of the French Revolution, but on its own isn't enough to explain why it went down exactly how and when it did. Had the runway to bankruptcy been longer, a more decisive king than Louis 16th might have managed to successfully reform the state without it being shattered. Perhaps the crisis wouldn't have landed at the same time as weather-driven economic downturn. Maybe if it had been a few years later, different people would have gotten into power and Brissot wouldn't have started a disastrous war with Austria that spiraled everything out of anyone's control. Or any number of other scenarios.
cykros 2y ago
The British also realized that as long as the Americans would borrow from the Bank of England, and were willing to trade their raw goods to England where they could be processed into industrial goods and then sold back to them, there wasn't much of a need to win the war in the first place -- though they didn't realize this all at once (as evidenced by the War of 1812). It was when the Americans (in the North) got to disrupting this economic situation that things really kicked off that they needed to back the Confederacy in what was effectively America's third revolution. Despite losing that one too, America's economy and politics were impacted enough that it was just a few decades later the British agent and American turncoat Woodrow Wilson was able to bring the former colonies back to heel with the Federal Reserve Act, the 16th Amendment, and entry into WWI as Britain's ally. It was a nice sovereign republic while it lasted, or so I've read.