why did none of the latin countries in America succeed like the english ones?
In: Economics
The premise of this question is bizarre and flawed. Why don’t you make a list of both types of countries and compare?
And how is it that so many people are providing elaborate answers based on this completely grotesque premise?
As others have said unlike the US and Canada the South American countries were populated mainly by natives, slaves, and a very small number of natives from the colonising country who were either wealthy land owners or soldiers and poor workers. There were also mixed people born out of natives and colonisers, mainly soldiers or poor workers. As you can imagine this demographic difference came with very different treatment towards the colonies. On one side you had colonies populated mostly by colonists and on the other you have colonies mostly populated by natives who were considered subhuman by the colonists. All colonies were ultimately bled dry for everything they had but this fundamental difference of respect towards the populations played a huge role in how they were governed.
Starting out as a country from a colony whose resources are all shipped away and you don’t get to see the wealth produced from your labor is bad enough. However even after South America had gained independence in the late 19th century that didn’t mean their troubles were over. There was a lot of political unrest in these regions and a lot of outside interference, from their former colonists and the US, especially in order to combat “communism” or whatever.
Every different country have their own separate story and context of how they came to be this way but the short answer is that US backed induced instability is the cause for a lot of their problems, but also corruption and infighting.
Colonizers vs. the colonized
Plus, during the Cold War, US and Russia manipulated and destabilized many regions. Once USSR fell, everyone lost interest and power vacuums were left that led to the rise of hyper-violent gangs. Not all countries have recovered. And now they’re behind the ball, so they have to rely on resource exploitation like others mentioned to make what money they can vs. countries that are now service based (selling softwares vs. petroleum)
Prisoners of Geography (good book I just finished) argues that the broad strokes are inevitable. After the Louisiana Purchase and the secession of Texas and California from Mexico (and, well, from Texas) we had an unbeatable combination of size, mineral resources, highly productive arable land, and natural infrastructure (rivers that went useful places, mountain passes, hundreds of natural ports on both oceans) that whoever had control of this land would be the successful economic engine of the Americas.
The amazon is huge, but its banks are not surrounded by farms and factories. Mexico has a large and able population, but relatively little ability to export food. Argentina is on the come up, but hampered by being so far from US and Europe, and always in competition with its neighbors.
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