Why is North America (US + Canada + Mexico) ,.more economically developed than South American counties.. is it just because the is US culturally that different , I mean South Americans.are we’re originally influenced by Western Europe as well . Or is the some geographic or climatic difference that affected development?
In: 71
When Spain colonized SA they gave huge country-sized tracts of land to nobility that extracted natural resources/ran farms, etc. It took a while for these to get broken up into individual tracts of land and stunted innovation and the ability for individuals to make a lot of money to spur new development. In NA, England (and to a lesser degree France) allowed non-nobility or non-titled nobility to own land and develop it. This allowed for innovation and for many different classes of people to get wealthy and spur more development.
Temperate and continental climate is associated with better economic growth, this is part of why the US, Canada, and the South of South America (Argentina, Chile, Uruguay) are richer.
The UK (as Great Britain before it was renamed the UK) is the country where the industrial revolution started. The more connected to the UK, the faster a country grew, it advantaged Canada and the US which both had strong relationship with the UK due to colonization. The other countries had only an indirect effect due to being colonized by a country geographically close to the UK or being close to a country colonized by the UK.
This is the Mississippi River basin [https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/maps/mrtp/MRivDrainageBasin.gif](https://biotech.law.lsu.edu/maps/mrtp/MRivDrainageBasin.gif)
As you can see, it stretches through a huge portion of the United States, providing a cheap way of transportation across the land. What can be transported? Well, check this map of coal distribution in the USA
[https://www.pmfias.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Distribution-of-Coal-in-USA.jpg](https://www.pmfias.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Distribution-of-Coal-in-USA.jpg)
As for iron, it’s abundant around Lake Superior. Which means steel can be produced with cheap logistics and, with that, industrialization becomes a possibility.
South America, in contrast, is coal poor, and has shallower river systems, which do not provide the logistical advantages the Mississippi provides anyway. This makes moving up the chain of higher value added goods much more expensive. Inland logistics in South America are also generally harder, as there are far fewer open plains than in North America or Northern Europe.
[removed]
Trying to ELI5 this does the subject a disservice. The rise and fall of cultures and civilizations is a complicated, convoluted and intricate subject that can absorb the lifetime of many brilliant people.
Besides the primary points covered, it’s also in large part because the US and the west have been fucking latam countries for a while because some had the resources and landmass to potentially rival them. Argentina for example could have developed very differently if other countries hadn’t stood to profit from destabilizing and extracting wealth from it
This is an incredibly complex question with many factors over a very long period of time. What you’re going to get are wrong or at best incomplete answers that depend on the political stance of who is answering
Argentina was about to become an economic leader in the world. Several countries in South America were quite powerful, on par with United States.
It is well known that the CIA interfered with several if not most countries in Latin America, installing dictatorships, or destabilizing the economy (Pinochet, Operation Condor, Contras, etc.). This had a long term effect that you can still see today.
There’s no simple explanation for this, because if anyone knew exactly why then steps would be made to correct it.
Whisky barrels.
Bourbon can only be aged in new, charred, American white oak barrels.
The once-used barrels are sold to other parts of the world (usually Scotland, Ireland, Mexico, and rum making regions)
More trees planted at a low cost.
More corn and grain can also be produced quickly at a low cost.
Whisky ages between 3 – 8 years in new barrels and can make a good $ margin. Even more so when exporting the bottled liquid.
Whisky is a huge player in building the North American economy. Even more so during the prohibition era
Oh.
And slavery. That helped a lot, too.
Latest Answers