Why is Latin America historically unstable while the US and Canada aren't?

CalBear

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I may be making a mistake in doing this, I am a relativity new member and post infrequently, but I think your decision to discipline this poster is placing a chill on free speech. No doubt blatant name calling needs to be disciplined (that I know well, you should see what it is like on a Boxing forum) and at other times censured and sometimes even censored, but this wasn't blatant name calling, it was a thought out opinion, maybe right maybe wrong. (I happen to be of the Catholic faith and I don't agree with the post; although his remark regarding a greater tolerance to social ranking I think maybe I do agree with.) He even then went on to suggest that it made them more "conscientious" towards indigenous people (which I guess could then be considered a slur on Protestants), but when reading his post I didn't feel like I was reading 'hate,' just an opinion. As I stated I am not sure I am allowed to challenge you on this, (and I am sure your job is a thankless one) but your action does give me a 'chill.'
I almost said something in tune with this earlier but was worried I might be punished too. I totally agree. Misuse of powers imo. I feel bad that the guy got punished for a valuable comment on my question.

Discussion of Moderator Actions should be posted here:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/hall-of-infamy-eleven11.432317/page-338#post-17871656

In brief: Board policies prohibit bigotry, including that expressed toward religious groups as well as nationalities, ethnic groups, gender, orientation, disability, etc. Board policies also prohibit trolling, flamebaiting, and a number of other activities. The idea is to allow a place where members can discuss issue but do so without any of the prohibited practices.
 
I almost said something in tune with this earlier but was worried I might be punished too. I totally agree. Misuse of powers imo. I feel bad that the guy got punished for a valuable comment on my question.

Yes but we also need to keep in mind she/he has a thankless job to do. It's a tough call to make the moderator may have gotten complaints we are unaware of; Hell I don't really know, but I was surprised that got him thrown off, you really got to visit a boxing forum sometime, they go right for your mother!
 
Discussion of Moderator Actions should be posted here:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/hall-of-infamy-eleven11.432317/page-338#post-17871656

In brief: Board policies prohibit bigotry, including that expressed toward religious groups as well as nationalities, ethnic groups, gender, orientation, disability, etc. Board policies also prohibit trolling, flamebaiting, and a number of other activities. The idea is to allow a place where members can discuss issue but do so without any of the prohibited practices.

OK
 
Yes but we also need to keep in mind she/he has a thankless job to do. It's a tough call to make the moderator may have gotten complaints we are unaware of; Hell I don't really know, but I was surprised that got him thrown off, you really got to visit a boxing forum sometime, they go right for your mother!
Totally agree.
 
Discussion of Moderator Actions should be posted here:

https://www.alternatehistory.com/forum/threads/hall-of-infamy-eleven11.432317/page-338#post-17871656

In brief: Board policies prohibit bigotry, including that expressed toward religious groups as well as nationalities, ethnic groups, gender, orientation, disability, etc. Board policies also prohibit trolling, flamebaiting, and a number of other activities. The idea is to allow a place where members can discuss issue but do so without any of the prohibited practices.
I still disagree, but I understand. Thanks.
 
You could easily argue that the U.S fought a civil war over similar reasons.

The British "Enlightenment" (idk if there even really was one) was different from the French Enlightenment, and by extension its permeation in Iberia. The difference isn't Enlightenment, it is tradition. In the United States the original thirteen colonies governed themselves, without viceroys unlike in Latin America. This is why many people say the American War of Independence wasn't a Revolution, which I suppose is technically true. For the most part the main governing institutions were strengthened rather than replaced. In Latin America those institutions had to be created from scratch. The question of the shape of those institutions, making them traditional or "enlightened"/liberalistic is what caused all that instability. In the U.S that question was resolved in 1776, and luckily for the stability of the U.S that system and those institutions didn't have to battle over they would be traditional or liberal because they were both. America had a tradition of British liberalism. The U.S was never an enlightenment country, how much the enlightenment has since permeated the U.S is up for debate and continually changing.

I'm a citizen of the states and a Latin American country. Latin American countries are primarily inspired by in their institutions by the Enlightenment. They are new insitutions and it was difficult to implement them. The U.S was a continuation of previously existing traditional institutions, even the Constitution and DoI could be considered an articulation of that tradition, or at least an attempt to articulate that tradition. After the War of Independence many states radically changed their constitutions, some even removed executive figures entirely, only to change them back after a few years. In Latin America there were no states, no provincial assemblies, and weaker all around institutions and a less literate population. That situation lent itself to instability.

Let's also not forget the important role certain individuals played. The differences in personalities of figures like Washington compared to Bolivar for example. Washington defused a coup attempt after the war, if he hadn't the U.S would likely be radically different. It isn't just to circumstances that Latin America and the U.S have different histories.

The US Constitution is basically the Enlightenment in a nutshell...I'm not understanding what you mean by the US being more traditional when the traditional was the opposite of things like seperation of power and limited executive and so on.

Spain's model involved a lot more "nobles lording over peasants" than the US-Canadian model did.

It's also worth noting that the British Caribbean states seem to generally be more politically stable than Latin America post-independence. Grenada is the only exception to this trend I can think of.

Brazil was it's own thing, and kind of reminds me of the US (the north being particularly aristocratic and slavery-dependent while the south had more of a immigration-fueled middle class economy). It was pretty stable between the end of the Ragamuffin War and the end of the Brazilian Empire (1845-1889), which isn't that bad compared to, say, the amount of revolutionary activity in Europe in that particular period. Even the first Brazilian Republic was pretty stable too.

Mexico was fairly stable from 1867 to 1910 (43 years). It was pretty stable from the end of the revolution to the rise of the cartels in the 90s (so a ~70 year stretch).

Costa Rica has been pretty stable in its history.

Argentina was doing pretty well for itself until WW1 and the period afterwards caused economic issues and, with it, political issues.

Chile was generally okay and democratic IIRC. They had a civil war which lasted less than a year and only 5000 people died (pretty good compared to, say, the United States in the 1860s or Mexico in the 1910s). Instability is more of an outlier than the norm there.

Mexico and central America involved a lot of clerical/aristocratic conservative vs mestizo-criollo liberal conflict. In the 20th century this repeated itself as socialist vs conservative conflict. The US didn't help things, but I think it was more the US poured gasoline on countries already intermittently on fire.

It's also worth noting that the US south really wasn't that much better than Latin America politically. The American north did pretty well for itself, but the south had plenty of violence, oppression, instability, etc. It benefitted from being part of the same country as a fairly politically stable polity (the north) although even in the north there was some uppitiness (Rhode Island in the 1840s for example, mostly due to the fight for sufferage). The US had some instability early on (Shay's Rebellion, Whisky Rebellion, etc) but settled itself pretty quickly.

Is crime a factor of stability? I think this begs a question that should have been asked pages ago. What is meant by "more stable"?
 
Most of Latin America is built around resource extraction (either mining, timber or farming). That's a recipe for instability (for instance, it makes you extremely vulnerable to commodity price crashes, and also tends to fuel wealth disparities based on land ownership).

The US and Canada were able to transition to a more diverse economy earlier.

This is the answer. Spanish America were resource extraction colonies, British North America was a settler colony. Everything stems from these differences. It took until the later half of the 20th Century for most of the Latin American countries to stabilize.
 
Was it? Latin America is almost 2/3 of the New World, it's very diverse. Brazil and Chile, for instance, were much more politically stable than US during the 19th century.

Chile? Let's see.

Until 1818, Chile was in a state of war between Spain and rebels seeking indepedence.

Presidents of Chile:

Bernardo O'Higgins - after winning the war of independence in 1818, he ruled the country until driven into exile in 1823.

Ramón Freire - took over from O'Higgins in 1823, promulgated a new constitution that was abandoned after three months, resigned in 1826, was elected President in 1827 and resigned after three months.

Francisco Antonio Pinto - Vice President, succeeded Freire in 1827, was elected 1829, resigned after two weeks.

Francisco Ramón Vicuña - President of the Senate, became acting President until captured by rebels a month later.

José Tomás Ovalle y Bezanilla - rebel leader, acting President for two months, then Vice President.

Francisco Ruiz-Tagle - acting President for six weeks.

José Tomás Ovalle y Bezanilla - acting President again for a year, till just before his death.

Fernando Errázuriz Aldunate - provisional President for six months.

This is stability??? However, there was next an era of calmness, with the Presidents of 1831-1891 years all peacefully elected at five-year-intervals. But in 1891, elected President Balmacedas was overthrown by Congress and shot himself.

Jorge Montt Alvarez - rebel leader, "provisional" President for five years (1891-1896)

Meanwhile, the US went the entire century with all Presidents peacefully elected, and none overthrown or forced to resign.
 
Again taking one example from very large regions over a long period of time is disingenuous at best, nuance is fantastic, but this is more nitpicking.
Property right is not just land rights or how easy/ cheap it is to obtain. Property covers all ownership, material as well as immaterial, and cover transaction, obligation, tax, expropriation, prof of ownership, sales, inheritance, use, rent, use as security, the way legal arguments are handled ( see again egalitarianism and trust in the system ). Add to this that property is a major emotional issue in general and important for the ability to plan ahead. There is also a ton of academic scholarship on this issue, with a pretty broad consensus on this issue, something thats only a quick google search away

Oh I know there's a lot of academic studies mentioning it, it's the endless Civil Law vs. Common Law debate. Just like the Webberian Protestant work ethics, it relies on a self-centered world-view and lacks substantial data or even simple examples to back it. Just compare former English and French colonies in Africa and see if there's any major macro or microeconomical differences based solely on the legal system that they adopt.

But i would love to hear your explanation of the differences between the iberian and anglo american regions.

Australia and Canada are much more exceptions than examples. A huge territory with lots of natural resources vastly underpopulated that remained closely connected with the wold's greatest power (the UK and later the US) until this very day.

OTOH, Northern US was favored by having an exceptional geography - rivers and lakes that can easily connect the land and a terrain that favors small property -, the initial influx of Religious refugees that were interested in really settling the land, and, finally, the growth of the British empire worldwide, the British didn't need to stricten their rule over the American colonies until it was too late.

Also, the US was very lucky during its early years, specially in 1812.

Chile? Let's see.

Until 1818, Chile was in a state of war between Spain and rebels seeking indepedence.

Presidents of Chile:

[...]

The apparent stability of the transition of power during US' early years is due to the tenuous balance between freen and slave states, when this balance ended, Civil War broke out. Similarly, Lebanon also maintained a stable transition of power until the 1970's with its National Pact that informaly divided the government branches between Christians and Muslims. Informal agreements between equally important groups tend to give a sense of stability (until the agreement is no more). The difference is that American Civil Waw was caused by the transition of internal economy towards industrialization, which consolidated American democracy, and Lebanese Civil War was caused mostly by undue external influences.
 
Chile? Let's see.

Until 1818, Chile was in a state of war between Spain and rebels seeking indepedence.

Presidents of Chile:

Bernardo O'Higgins - after winning the war of independence in 1818, he ruled the country until driven into exile in 1823.

Ramón Freire - took over from O'Higgins in 1823, promulgated a new constitution that was abandoned after three months, resigned in 1826, was elected President in 1827 and resigned after three months.

Francisco Antonio Pinto - Vice President, succeeded Freire in 1827, was elected 1829, resigned after two weeks.

Francisco Ramón Vicuña - President of the Senate, became acting President until captured by rebels a month later.

José Tomás Ovalle y Bezanilla - rebel leader, acting President for two months, then Vice President.

Francisco Ruiz-Tagle - acting President for six weeks.

José Tomás Ovalle y Bezanilla - acting President again for a year, till just before his death.

Fernando Errázuriz Aldunate - provisional President for six months.

This is stability??? However, there was next an era of calmness, with the Presidents of 1831-1891 years all peacefully elected at five-year-intervals. But in 1891, elected President Balmacedas was overthrown by Congress and shot himself.

Jorge Montt Alvarez - rebel leader, "provisional" President for five years (1891-1896)

Meanwhile, the US went the entire century with all Presidents peacefully elected, and none overthrown or forced to resign.
No, USA tend to assasinate his presidents or at least try to, and political assasination was a extensive used tool during The repúblic
To the point it's have their own Wikipedia pages

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_United_States_presidential_assassination_attempts_and_plots

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_assassinated_American_politicians

Now which country look more Stable?

Edit: for clarity
 
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I think it is also important to look at how the US was formed. It wasn't one colony and one highly stratified people. It was 13 colonies with their own identities agreeing that 13 heads were better than 1 so they compromised early on to prevent the tug of war you would see in some countries south of the Tropic of Cancer. But, as others have pointed out, there still was a tug of war. The first ten years or so after the Treaty of Paris, the states were constantly at each other's throats ready to fight wars over trade, there were a few uprisings, the federal government was nearly non existent (hard to overthrow something that barely exists) but the stratiification wasn't as pronounced so "everyone" was a Marylander or a Pennsylvanian or a New Jorker. The luxury of self rule meant that those in control during the colonial period were still in control during the independence period and that makes a huge difference more so than anything else really. The Criollos had very little top level control in running the Spanish Americas. But the "Americans" of the 13 colonies did have positions of high level governance in colonial assemblies

Gran Colombia on the other hand was never united as a compromise. Social stratification was more pronounced. The Tug of War between centralists and federalists happened. Had Spain given the Criollos political power similar to that of the colonials in the 13 colonies...things would have worked out very differently. It would be people who already found their place in local politics and rule and already negotiated the role of government and experimented with inter government cooperation that would have been in charge post independence.

And yes, there were slaves and free whites in the Southern US as well as different outlook for free blacks in the north. But there was the Caste system in Latin America with slavery.
 
Did you actually just say that South and Central America are unstable in part because the people living there are lazy Catholics?

Oh. MY. GOD! You did!

That's a week on the bench.

See ya in 7.

I didn't read his post but would you also kick out Max Weber for saying something to that degree about Catholicism? How successful capitalist countries in part have (or had) it due to protestant work ethic, emphasis on wealth accumulation etc. Again not making his point but is this really such a taboo on here?
 
In re to the title - while I don’t really agree with it, there is a tradition of pretty much blaming the former on one of the latter.

Though for my part, I think Canada’s pretty much blameless.
 
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CalBear

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I didn't read his post but would you also kick out Max Weber for saying something to that degree about Catholicism? How successful capitalist countries in part have (or had) it due to protestant work ethic, emphasis on wealth accumulation etc. Again not making his point but is this really such a taboo on here?
If he posted the stuff he posted in 1905, with what is now known in the field in 2018?

He'd be kicked in a New York Minute, if not Banned.

Things have CHANGED in 113 years. Hell I used to have a 1930s "social studies" textbook that I found at Goodwill when I was a kid (IIRC I got it for $0.05- $0.10, and picked it up because it a super cool looking cavemen on the front) that flat out stated that Australian Aborigines were "a subspecies of modern humans", it was my first real exposure to racism pretending to be science.

Let's not even get into the huge number of actual "hard science" anthropology and anatomy texts of the same era that "demonstrated using the scientific method" that White people were innately superior to other races, especially those from a few years after Weber, but written in the same part of the world. Just because someone write a thesis in 1905 does not, in any way shape or form, immediately make the position valid in 2018.
 
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