There is so much to tackle here. Bear with me.
And then multiple protests and mini revolutions lead to a great flowering of liberalism across Europe and then a lessening of exploitation of nonEurope earlier than OTL.
I repeat my assertion that the lack of an ARW does not inevitably lead to an eternally less liberal world.
Few things are inevitable, but given that enlightenment ideas had existed for more than a century by that point with little in the way of results, I think it's clear that what Americans frequently describe as "The shot heard 'round the world" really proved to be such.
Isn't this kind of an overly deterministic view of history, that liberalism was bound to appear and become relevant no matter what?
Exactly.
There was already a lot of entrenched liberalism at the time. They will still act even without America.
There were ideas. THere was little action, except maybe with respect to some aspects of economic policy.
No, my point was that assuming the ARW is the only source of liberalism and that without it liberalism is impossible or just massively delayed is highly erroneous and probably overly parochial.
Liberalism is not contingent on American Colonials but is a natural result of expanding power outside a noble elite thanks to the expansion of wealth outside the noble elite.
This explains modern China, now doesn't it? Or medieval and early modern Venice? England under the Stuarts? The Old Swiss Confederacy?
Not really,
@TheProffesor isn't saying it's "bound to appear and become relevant no matter what" (well, it would appear because it existed before the POV) they are saying that the rise of liberalism is not inevitably linked to the US becoming independent (
that would be more deterministic). I would go further and say that liberalism isn't inherently related to the world being better either, you can have a marxism-wank TL too.
Hahahahaha that's what this is really about, isn't it? Pray tell, how does one get to Marxism without liberalism? Without a successful colonial liberation struggle?
There's the flaw: no US independence != no French Revolution. Many of the underlying causes of the latter are independent from the revolution in the Colonies in British North America being successful. Their revolution failing would probably make the French one happen quicker, if anything, given that one of the reasons it happened was France going into bankruptcy by supporting (read: doing the heavy lifting for) Britain's colonies.
Why does the French Revolution happen quicker if the French Treasury is not so wasted on a campaign of spite in a rival's colonial rebellion?
Well, a quick British victory would butterfly away French Revolution, which would delay the rise of liberalism by decades, and the emergence would be much weaker.
This is the absolute best case scenario of a world where the revolution fails, and even it is generous.
Well, the world with less liberalism would be much worse. Liberals were the first ones to champion things like freedom of speech, freedom of the press, academic freedom or education for all, as well as separation of the Church and the State. The rise of liberalism was also found to benefit industrialization process massively because its influence was found to reduce rent-seeking activities.
This is largely true, but there were already embryonic antecedents for the ideas of church and state separation, or, at the very least, some form of religious toleration or acceptance of coexistence.
Needless to say, the US was unique because it was liberal at birth. No Church, no monarchy, no aristocracy, which were the main elements of traditional Conservatism. A British North America would be far more conservative because the Loyalists, who were predominanrly Tories, would not move away like IOTL.
True, and the impetus to end slavery in the British Empire would also be lessened considerably.
Would it though?
And would it necessarily be in such an alliance when it would suit its purpose to be against it?
I do not understand why people are so wedded to the idea of "US = liberalism, no US = illiberalism". The Enlightenment still exists and nonnobles are still expanding their wealth and power.
The enlightenment had already existed for some time, and its ideas were slow to advance into actual practice. The success of the American Revolution, and by extension, the French, changed that
This. Going further, I also don't understand the insistence that the one and only way for the world to become better is if liberalism is successful. There are alternatives, people.
Such as?
It depends how liberalism is defined I think. Whether it is concerned with individual liberties or whether it extends to national liberties.
This is important, but neither idea is entirely mutually exclusive.
In a pre 1900 context the difference would not be significant, but if going to the 20th century and on I would like to state: The world has never seen a more altruistic, unselfish, idealistic and giving great/superpower than USA!
Yes , yes I know, our USian brothers can sometimes be extremely annoying and ignorant, even I sometimes mostly feel like poking them soundly on their little noses - but at the end of the day - I just so much appreciate that big, loveable and charming (even if a bit clumsy some times) bully over there on the other side of the pond. Which BTW holds a part of the truth behind - if you have bully next door it is very handy to know an even bigger bully in the next street!
Trolling? Not that inaccurate, regardless.
I also have to remind you that IOTL, the outcome of the ACW (freedom and voting rights for slaves, while the Jim Crows not yet existed) was one of the three main factor that drove the Reform Bill 1867, the others were Lord Russell's reforming mind and Disraeli's opportunistic nature. As long as Palmerston survives, there wouldn't be any Reform Bill.
I'd also argue that the American Revolution made it possible for Britain to end slavery in the Empire when and how it did.
Well it would be a much more elitist and despotic world if the British crushed the Patriots quickly (and hence butterfly away French Revolution). Serfdom might even continue well into the 19th century in Continental Europe.
Exactly.
]Next, if the colonial powers' grip over colonies was not weakened by the Second World War, Asia and Africa would continue to suffer from brutal treatment, oppression and exploitation from European colonists, including the Brits. Americans also played a decisive role in the decolonization and the dismantle of the colonial empires, which allowed Asian colonies to gain full independence for the first time.
Why would there even still be a world war?
]For South America, Spain and Portugal may continue to play the role of OTL USA. There is no guarantee that the Brits would not do the same (look at how the Brits enthusiastically pressured Eisenhower to launch the Iranian Coup). No change at all.
and that's assuming that the South Americans even achieve at least nominal independence.
]Back to the 19th century ITTL, American education system wouldn't very advanced as IOTL (in 19th century, it was the most advanced education system in the world). Instead, it would be as crap and obsolete as Victorian British education (oh, and I am planning to create a thread about this crap education system). It would not become the world's natural land for entrepreneurs and innovators like IOTL.
The new nation's commitment (however imperfect) to the rule of law, and the stability afforded its system of government helped too.
ITTL, all of Asia and Africa, not just your home country and Korea and Vietnam, would continue to suffer from colonization. I think I don't even have to tell you how brutal European colonialism was.
Precisely.
I didn't say USA was angel like innocent, but compared to all the other great/super power I still think they come out very favourably.
Me too.
You assume rebels and reformers wouldn't pop up eventually. It'd be a different world, not necessarily a worse one.
True enough.
Err, that's the thing. Revolutions had been attempted before to what effect? Why wouldn't that trend of failure have continued?
As if they wouldn't already be weakened by the dissatisfied and starving crowds of the metropole.
Isn't that why they have colonies and plantations?
Why are you so dead set on pretending that another country would do the same bad things the US did but find the possibility of the good things it did happening in another country so impossible?
Human history up to that point?
So, how likely is this? European expansion overseas seems likely to continue absent the American Revolution, no? The Dutch are in Southeast Asia, the British are in India, and even I don't think the American Revolution stops industrialization and the scientific revolution.
I tend to agree, but it probably slows both.
How likely? probably an edge case TBH. I'm thinking along the lines of a bloodier and more protracted war between Britain and the Colonies, where they're still very rebellious after the war so Britain is forced to spend resources they used OTL for colonizing Africa and Asia (and for the Napoleonic wars) to hold their North American colonies. Then in Europe, minor butterflies cause similar revolutions in other countries after France's, and basically Europeans are too busy infighting to colonize.
If you're admitting that it's an "edge case" for the world to be better without the American Revolution, then what are you even arguing?
I'm pushing a more extreme position than the one I really hold (
here, basically I lean towards "better in some aspects, worse in other; overall the result is slightly better") because I'm disturbed by the "MURICA FUCK YEAH" attitude of some others (like, are do people really believe that if the US doesn't exist the world will become an authoritarian shithole?).
This kind of attitude of "I have to do Y because the other guy did X" is exactly why the world would be worse without the Revolution.
This requires a lot of gimmes which don't follow logically. It requires holding down America to be more difficult than holding down Ireland, but simultaneously Britain is able to hold it down. It also requires France, Spain, Austria, etc. to be somehow so exhausted in Europe that they don't push overseas (again a departure from OTL). Then it presumes that the Qing don't fall in the 19th century anyway.
All of which require a greater logical leap than tying the revolution creating the United States to those in France and Haiti.
That's why it is an edge case.
Excuse me, which country ended slavery first, the state founded upon the idea that 'All men are created equal . . . endowed by their creator with certain unalienable rights" or that other monarchy? (A: That other monarchy, by over 150 years counting from
Smith v. Browne & Cooper, where Sir John Holt, Lord Chief Justice of England, ruled that "as soon as a Negro comes into England, he becomes free" in 1706 to the Thirteenth Amendment to the US Constitution* in 1865).
It's easy to end slavery when you have very little use for the practice in your remaining colonies. Besides, it's not as though Indian and Chinese laborers were uniformly better treated subsequently in the British colonies where they were used in place of slaves.
Really, the acrobatics people jump to pretend that the US becoming independent is some sort of heavenly gift to mankind that made everyone else believe in liberalism is pretty interesting. "Well French intellectuals using a similar event that happened a couple years before as point of comparison is the only important thing in the French revolution. And the actual people who revolted wouldn't have dared to try if a random place on the other side of the ocean hadn't been successful."
*Why would you need an amendment to your constitution saying "Black people are equal" if you claim to already have believed that?
Human nature. Laws of probability. Neither of these mean anything to you? When was the last successful revolution against what were seen as daunting odds before that in the Thirteen Colonies? Also, that's not what the Reconstruction Amendments said, and the Citizenship Act of 1790 pertains to your point, but that's arguably distinct from slavery itself.
The American revolution was of very limited influence worldwide, compared to the French revolution. The words you quote are much more resonant within the United States than outside it, largely due to the inherent hypocrisy within them which has NOT gone unnoticed outside the US or within it. The founders of republics elsewhere looked to Rousseau, Voltaire and Montesquieu as the basis for their liberal ideology. These thinkers had much more intellectual weight than anyone associated with the American revolution, with the possible exception of Paine, and had the advantage of being understandable as they wrote in the international language, French, and were widely printed throughout Europe and the Americas.
The US has had many effects that were positive and many that were negative, it seems ridiculous to say the World would definitely be worse without it, and ridiculous to say it would be definitely better. I would tend to say that a situation which divided the area of the 13 colonies into at least 3 states, with no continental francophone power based on New Orleans arising either, would have been better for the World. I also think that such a result was quite possible historically.
What?
It's true that many countries have modeled their legal systems on French law, post-and intra-revolutionary French law. Conquering Spain and Portugal explain why that would be the case in Latin America. Nonetheless the post-colonial republics in Latin America built political systems modeled on those who wrote their ideas in the already declining language of diplomacy.
I love the idea that the French Republic was less hypocritical than the American, incidentally. As one of Napoleon's troops said during their occupation of Prussia, "we've come to bring you liberty, fraternity, and equality, but don't lose your heads about it."
c'est vrai. Also, hereditary is definitionally not conducive to equality.
One of my favorite anecdotes, incidentally, is how the Tokugawa Japanese viewed the American and French Revolutions. Napoleon was seen as a warlord, and Washington as a sage who had founded a "country of peace and concord."
Precisely. Thus, the equation in the U.S. of Washington with Cincinnatus.
That wasn't my argument, but it's a good straw man. My point was that even without a successful revolution there would still be liberal rebels and causes later on.
Hell you defeat even the idea that a successful revolution lead to a freer world with your own examples from OTL!
And why would they succeed when countless others failed? Why would they inevitably produce the same results?
Even then, the liberal revolutions from OTL owed more to the exports of the French Revolution and Napoleonic nationalism!
Which were made possible by the American Revolution.
Sorry, but a republic that couldn't even get off the ground doesn't disprove my point.
Doesn't it though? The U.S. is still functioning under the same basic political system it adopted after independence. This has not been the case with France.
The counterpoint of course is that when Belgium did revolt and establish a nation in 1830, they opted for a monarchy.
a monarchy influenced by the liberal ideals of the U.S. and French revolutions.
I thought I'd point out, since we've already established how little role America played in influencing other countries, a brief observation from a reading I'm doing for work. From New Constitutionalism in Latin America: Promises and Practices, at 74-75: "Among others, the constitutions of Venezuela (1811), Mexico (1824), Argentina (1826) and Ecuador (1830) drew significantly on the American model. . . . . the Argentine constitution of 1853 was particularly close to the US model; so much so that for more than a century, Argentinean judges routinely drew on US constitutional jurisprudence when interpreting their own constitution. Indeed, there was so much borrowing that the great 'Liberator' Simon Bolivar was 'moved to condemn the craze for imitation."
And even in the twentieth century still other countries took at least partial constitutional inspiration from the United States, namely but not exclusively India and Australia.
I'm not disputing the significance of the US constitution as a piece of innovative political technology. It was very advanced for its time, despite becoming outdated in the modern era. But the US constitution was not the inspiration for the foundation of these states, and their adoption of it did nothing to avoid their slide into despotism.
I don't think it is outdated for the modern era. Its endurance and durability are a testament to that. France meanwhile is five republics, two empires, and two monarchies later, and still displeased. Wasn't moving to a sixth republic a campaign issue in the last French election?
This, right here is extremely important, I'm getting to why in the reply I'm typing below.
We seem to be having a misunderstanding here. My position isn't that the US had a minimal role in influencing other countries, but that it's role in the spread of liberalism predominantly affected the educated classes. The actual events of the following revolutions (The French one, the ones in Spanish America and so on) were more the cause of material circumstances and the actions of the masses, thus, while the failure of the US war of independence would not result in these other revolutions being butterflied out, it would affect the arguments of the intellectuals (French revolutionaries might look even more towards Rome as a justification for republicanism; Latin American writers of Constitutions might instead take inspiration from other texts like the liberal Spanish constitution of 1812, one of the French revolutionary constitutions, the British Magna Carta, or the Corpus Juris Civilis, to conclude with a longshot example.
Why wouldn't the successes of those revolutions if not the revolutions themselves be butterflied? The problem with the Magna Carta example is that, while an important step in the history of political freedom, it was routinely ignored and unenforceable.
I agree with most of that, but tend to take a slightly more Francophile view that French revolution added intellectual weight to the ideas of the US revolution to create a holistic ideology to go with their constitutional innovation. I would say that, Miranda apart, the revolutionary tendency in America was directly inspired by French texts. It was these that the Mexican inquisition was looking for in the early 1800's, not North American stuff.
What ideology was that?
Apart from that, I would say that, given we arrive at 1770 more or less as OTL, a French bourgeois revolution and Latin American revolutions (of some kind) are inevitable. The Latin American revolutions could be very different ideologically, but they were based on the incompatibility of criollo economic power with peninsular political power.
Err, no more so than the U.S. revolution. If anything, Spain and Portugal were important to the Criolllo class retaining power indefinitely. The realization that they might do fine on their own stemmed from French revolutionary occupation of the colonial powers Spain and Portugal.
It's also worth pointing out also that the
English Bill of Rights that the colonists took as inspiration for the US one would still exist if the ARW doesn't occur.
True, but we know from how democracy developed in Europe that Britain was not seen as a model.
There's a Reign of Terror joke in there, but I prefer to keep my head up above such low hanging fruit.
Also, the American Revolution was far less ideologically driven than the French Revolution. Sure, we had our ideals, but our primary goal was to protect the status quo.
True, to a point.
I struggle with the idea that it was about "protecting the status quo" when the revolution led to a huge expansion in liberty in America. Abolition of slavery in northern states, expansion of the franchise, disestablishing churches...
Also true to a point.
Many of the northern states would have abolished it anyway for economic reasons.
THat, and the three-fifths compromise incentivized ending slavery.
What economic reasons? Making people do stuff for you without pay is very lucrative.
Slavery was not all that practical in some of the northern states because the economics of slavery required having a large number to be profitable.