Why has South America struggled so hard to succeed compared to North America?>vast swathes of empty fertile land>massive resources>had massive European migration >minimal border conflicts to distract from economic growth (compared to the old world)Argentina and Brazil in particular. They seem like they’d be if not superpowers then a major power if led in a better way the last 125 years
>vast swathes of empty fertile landnot really
A) the USA claims dominion over the Americas, and would never let any nation become powerful enough it could pursue an independent economic and foreign policy that could conflict with their own. Ergo the various US backed coups, the funding of rebels and influencing instability Long story short, the US sees South America as nothing more than resource extraction colonies and has the ability to fuck over anybody who tries to alter thus arrangement B) Latin American culture is actually terrible for economic development. And the history of how pretty much all South American countries started as Spanish and portugese colonies, breaking away from them, just led to much less helpful political systems for stability and adaptation. If you cannot adapt well enough you will break and have rebellions and revolutions C) while on paper being geographically isolated is good since it makes military threats to you minimal, I would contest it also lessens the need for nations to aspire to be “the best they can be”. European nations for example were under constant threat of invasion and had to grow and innovate to compensate for this to maintain safety, independence and the economic growth to afford these, Not so much the case in South America,
>>18255127that also explains one problem with the whole "if rome hadn't fallen we'd be exploring galaxies by now"pax romana was so ideal, why fix what ain't broke?since late antiquity europe had been such a battleground, leading to exponential lengths of innovation to one-up each other
>>18255120racemixingcatholicism
Argentina is the worse to me. With a decent constitution when they became independent I honestly think they’d be like Canada but much more powerful and wealthy, and without a direct superpower as a Neighbor much more ability to push their own agenda Maybe if Britain had succeeded in capturing the Rio De La Plata region in 1806-1807. The modern day areas of Argentina and Uruguay would be some Anglo nation called Plata (and its people would be called platinese, or platinean)Then they’d be a very well off nation. Probably not as big as modern Argentina. But would include both the Buenos Aires and Uruguay regions United. How far they expand from there I’m not sure, places like Paraguay would become British tributaries to stay independent from Brazil and access trade but I could see them being absorbed. Likewise areas like cordoba and the south are much more full of natives which the Latinos killed. But the British didn’t care to settle as much so they’d probably just make deals with them and naturally absorb those areas over time as a resultAlso British relations with chile were so good historically they were a pseudo colony anyway. If Britain had a literal mainland presence they’d either join it or become extremely friendly to it at least. So no border disputes
>>18255215Anyway I imagine chile would retain Latino culture and be a seperate country but heavily linked to British South America (AKA Plata) kind of like New Zealand to Australia. The mountainous border being a big reason for why
>>18255120>massive resourcesThis is bad, are you not aware of the resource curse?
>>18255148Actual answer no one wants to discuss.
>>18255148>>18255236Racemixing produced la raza cosmicaCatholicism can't be it because it produced countries like Austria, Ireland and Poland, none of which resemble South America.Only material conditions matter to explain historical development chuds, dialectical materialism is still undefeated
>>18255120>Why has South America struggled so hard to succeed compared to North America?The British Empire was superior to the Iberian Empires in every way
>>18255120Because they don't WANT to "succeed" the same way North America did, and they are not meant to. Latin American society as a whole is basically an automaton whose sole purpose in existence is terraforming their continent while exporting its resources to whoever they're subservient to, first their colonial metropolises then the first world as a whole. The sole driving motivation of Latin American elites is burning forest and killing injuns to set up farms/mines, selling it all to the West so they can bankroll their next trip Miami, then telling the gullible peasants that this is totally gonna make them a wealthy first world country one day and that whoever tells them otherwise is just a stupid communist. And this is exactly what they were created for. Same old society from the 1700s, just with a modern veneer.
>>18255240Iberian style catholicism*
>>18255120The geography is a lot more complicated than you think.Brazil is like 40% hills, 30% jungle, 20% desert and 10% normal land. It doesn't have giant fuckoff plains like America. The soil is really acidic too.
>>18255120spaniards are idiots
>>18255266and brown moor rapebabies with inferior negroid admixture
Glowies
>>18255120Wealth extraction and miscegenation vs long term development
The Spanish language is cursed and for poor people
>>18255295trvke, it's a sapir whorfian virus
