How did the English colonists become so wealthy?

[Unclebananahead]

Why did the Spanish colonies remain relatively backward by comparison? By the turn of the century (1900), the US had established itself as a imperialist power, and was easily the dominant force in the western hemisphere.

[indya]

the goal of the french, portuguese, and spanish empires was 100% to extract wealth from their colonies to export for use of the home country. but the english wanted to develop their colonies to have their own economies.

[indya]

you should also notice that the proportion of natives was very small in English colonies vs french, spanish, and portuguese colonies where natives were in the majority.

[BIG BROTHER]

I'm not lazy to explain in detail but I think it had to do with the fact that the British promoted the capitalist mode of production in the Colonies, while the Spanish supported a more feudal like system.

After the independence of the US their national bourgeois was able to capitalize on the natural resources and the slave labor which made it powerful enough to develop into an Imperialist nation.

[vDv]

I'm also at a point where laziness or possibly being tired has rendered me unable to give you a long winded answer.

But several factors where at work. The first being the Industrial Revolution having originated in Britain and therefore British colonies and colonialists had far greater means of increasing production and forming imperial infrastructre such as the still overused Rail network in India.

The second which i springs to mind is that the British Empire was by far the most well established and only true superpower of its time with its might and power as an Island being nearly entirely concentrated on its naval forces. And with colonies being overseas and all this is of great importance with the shipping of goods and finance in both directions. It would ofcourse have also caused all other aspiring nations to have to be wary of their own sea based operations.

[Unclebananahead]

I'm not lazy to explain in detail but I think it had to do with the fact that the British promoted the capitalist mode of production in the Colonies, while the Spanish supported a more feudal like system.

After the independence of the US their national bourgeois was able to capitalize on the natural resources and the slave labor which made it powerful enough to develop into an Imperialist nation.

So, you would say that they developed their material means of production at a faster rate than the Spanish colonists, because they more aggressively pursued a capitalist system?

[Monkey Riding Dragon]

In part, I would agree with that, but I would also highlight the historical importance of slavery in Amerika, even before the United States was formally independent. Slavery for quite some time was really the main mode of production in what today is the USA. Without our 250 years of relying on slave labor and then subsequently absorbing all that capital thereby created into the capitalist economy, Amerika would not be the superpower that it is today.

Land theft, genocide, slavery, comparatively "laissez-faire" capitalism, atomic bombs, these are the historical foundations of our status as a global superpower.

[scarletghoul]

The above is true. Also I think race relations play a big part.

The English settlers have remained largely distinct from the Blacks, Aborigines, etc, (though theyve absorbed other european populations) so they haven't had to share their wealth in any meaningful sense. Contrast this to Latin America where there's more of a spectrum than a set of distinct race groups (there is no Black population in Mexico, its just been diluted. For example.) US ideology finds a way around this by lumping them all together as 'hispanic' lol, but yeah..

[ComradeOm]

I'm not lazy to explain in detail but I think it had to do with the fact that the British promoted the capitalist mode of production in the Colonies, while the Spanish supported a more feudal like systemActually its almost the opposite. Spain was first and foremost interested in the immediate exploitation of America's resources in order to fund the Madrid monarchy. The result was a despotic system in which power lay with appointed officials (or merchants working within the state monopoly) who had vast power in arranging for the shipment of precious metals and plantation crops across the Atlantic. This was simply not possible in North America where the dominant exports were fish, basic foodstuffs, timber, furs, etc. What emerged therefore in the north (excepting the plantation states of course) was an economy dominated by small farming or fishing or the like. This made the colonies less valuable to Europe, placed a much greater emphasis on local self-management and mitigated against the imposition the sort of despotic command economy that developed in the Spanish colonies

Overall the latter was probably far more effective in extracting wealth for the metropole but was not geared towards sustainable growth in the colonies themselves. Interestingly, the same rapine approach was taken by nations during the wave of 19th C 'new imperialism'. We're still living with the effects of that today

[L.A.P.]

you should also notice that the proportion of natives was very small in English colonies vs french, spanish, and portuguese colonies where natives were in the majority.

And had that been the case where the English colonists didn't commit genocide against the Native Americans then most Americans would pretty much fall under the definition of Hispanic people.

[syndicat]

the goal of the french, portuguese, and spanish empires was 100% to extract wealth from their colonies to export for use of the home country. but the english wanted to develop their colonies to have their own economies.


not really. the first two English colonies were founded by corporations (Virginia and Plymouth). they were intended to make a profit for their investors.

the British had a mercantile system in place which, for example, did not allow the North American colonies to trade freely with other countries but only with the mother country. For the British the American colonies were important as a market for their manufactures. the southeren plantation economy was important for the agricultural commodities it exported such as tobacco and cotton and so on.

but large scale plantation agriculture using slaves was not unique to North America. the Portugese imported millions of slaves to Brazil and slave plantations existed throughout the Carribean and on the coastal areas of the mainland. but the south remained into the 20th century a relatively underdeveloped part of the USA. this extreme level of exploitation does not lend itself to economic development. for one thing it retards the consumer market.

the U.S. could develop an industrial capitalist economy only after breaking away from Britain. this enabled the U.S. elite to create a high tariff barrier that encouraged native manufacturing.

economies in the south seem to have had a harder time developing an independent industrial economy, and remained tied to export of extractive products or agricultural commodities. Argentina by the early 20th century had a GDP per capita about 50 percent of the USA but has declined in the neoliberal era.