Economic Potential of The Golden Circle?

The Economic Potential of the Golden Circle Would Be...

  • Bad

    Votes: 33 55.0%
  • Good

    Votes: 10 16.7%
  • A Mixed Bag

    Votes: 17 28.3%

  • Total voters
    60
220px-Golden_Circle_(Proposed_Country).png


The Golden Circle was a fringe political idea held by few Confederate s that saught to conquer and annex all cotton growing nations in the western hemisphere some time after the Civil War.

It was believed that the annexation of these territories would not only allow the CSA to dominate the world cotton market indefinitely but also entrench slavery an intractable culture norm for centuries to come.

So say this weird conquest crazy idea was realized. What would have been the economic potential of this nation? Short Term / Long Term?

Could an agricultural based nation, run by slavery, of this massive size economically compete 1865 - onward?
 
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A slave economy would be able to theoretically last, but only until the world lays on the sanctions just like South Africa. How can any country trade with a power that relies completely on slave power in the 19th and 20th century?
 
Britain ups Cotton production in Egypt and India to try to break the slavery using CSA?

After beating them to a pulp for trying to steal the Bahamas, Antilles and Jamaica. France, Spain, the Netherlands, and the Danes join in the fun for their islands?
 
You would simply have cotton substitutes become prominent that much sooner. No one will want to trade with them, and if they can't have cotton, they'll find other stuff.
 
Keeping mexicans, cubans, venezuelans etc. down, indios enslaved and a Manifest Destiny Union out? good luck :D.
 

Anaxagoras

Banned
Keeping mexicans, cubans, venezuelans etc. down, indios enslaved and a Manifest Destiny Union out? good luck :D.

No, no, no. They'd be greeted as liberators after a short, easy war. And then the liberated people would happily pay back the cost of the war out of sheer gratitude.

No, really. They would.

:rolleyes:
 
If you added an "LOL" or "LMAO" option, I would have voted for those. I cant think of any compelling reason why they would perform better than OTL and plenty to believe they would do worse. A small minority of whites ruling over blacks and latinos wont work that well. Civil insurrection would be the order of the day and I cant imagine the CSA holding on to Mexico even if they initially conquer it. Their economic system is worse than OTL and has few mechanisms for rapid improvement. And plenty of adversaries would love to take advantage of any weakness, starting with the Union.
 
The geography is centrifugal. Basically, it works against any kind of centralized government. It would take an immense naval and military commitment to hold it all together, which means that the returns would have to be spectacular, and if returns are that spectacular, it would be almost impossible to dislodge the existing parties.

It made for a nice Confederate fantasy, founded on those twin Confederate pillars of racism and delusion and I'd love to see them try and make it happen - they'd only lose what: 10 wars in a row?
 

Lateknight

Banned
The geography is centrifugal. Basically, it works against any kind of centralized government.

It made for a nice Confederate fantasy, and I'd love to see them try and make it happen - they'd only lose what: 10 wars in a row?

They would probably cease to exist after 3 or 4.
 
They would probably cease to exist after 3 or 4.

Maybe not. It's not like Mexico would do more than take back most of Texas. Spain wouldn't bite off more than Florida. France might take Louisiana back, but that's it. I can't see England wanting any of that place. Central America, Colombia , Haiti and Venezuela would have no territorial claims. And I really don't see the Netherlands or Denmark doing more than exacting a few reparations. There might be some European or American occupations of Confederate ports to make them pay their bills.

But they could lose a lot of wars and still be sticking around.
 

Lateknight

Banned
Maybe not. It's not like Mexico would do more than take back most of Texas. Spain wouldn't bite off more than Florida. France might take Louisiana back, but that's it. I can't see England wanting any of that place. Central America, Colombia , Haiti and Venezuela would have no territorial claims. And I really don't see the Netherlands or Denmark doing more than exacting a few reparations. There might be some European or American occupations of Confederate ports to make them pay their bills.

But they could lose a lot of wars and still be sticking around.

Why wouldn't America want them back for vengeance if nothing else. There might be some that think good riddance but if they were weak I don't think the USA could resist.
 
The United States is pretty much the only country that they wouldn't attack in pursuit of their golden circle.
 
Geographically speaking, I have to think that it would be viable. Think of the Caribbean as an American Mare Nostrum. With sufficient naval supremacy, you could strike anywhere in the region and isolate any invaders/rebels.

But that is strictly an analysis in a vacuum, without considering the demographics or politics of the matter. I don't think it could work in any fashion that the designers would like.
 
Geographically speaking, I have to think that it would be viable. Think of the Caribbean as an American Mare Nostrum. With sufficient naval supremacy, you could strike anywhere in the region and isolate any invaders/rebels.

But that is strictly an analysis in a vacuum, without considering the demographics or politics of the matter. I don't think it could work in any fashion that the designers would like.

Agricultural focused economy, few levers to hasten industrialization, rapid advances in naval technology driven by industrialization. Yeah, that would work well for the CSA...
 
Random thought: in the absence of a powerful US or *US in North America, could you get some sort of slave-using New Spanish empire covering most of the same area?
 
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