Would a world without the USA a worse world?

Would a world without the USA a worse world?

  • Yes

    Votes: 126 53.6%
  • No

    Votes: 109 46.4%

  • Total voters
    235

B-29_Bomber

Banned
But the OP states that the French Revolution may be butterflied away. If that is the case, then I would assume the Louisiana Purchase is also butterflied. Which leaves the Thirteen Colonies hemmed in by Nouvelle France.
Not really.

Everything East of the Mississippi (Florida included) + Canada was ceded to Britain after the 7 Years War. Louisiana was sold to the Spanish in 1762.

Indeed, without the French Revolution there'd be no Napoleon buying back Louisiana in an attempt to rebuild her colonial empire only to drop that plan and sell the land to the US.
 
Well considering OTL USA got Japan to go from using its creative juices at territorial gain (and not the Bread and Circuses kind of rule) to making products that people around the world enjoy today, I'd say the ends justified the means.
 
Well considering OTL USA got Japan to go from using its creative juices at territorial gain (and not the Bread and Circuses kind of rule) to making products that people around the world enjoy today, I'd say the ends justified the means.

Ah, but what about in 2050 when the Americans help provoke World War III that leaves 90% of the world's population dead by 2060? Without the United States, we might never have had this apocalyptic event.
 
The US was a very helpful relief outlet for the impoverished populations of Europe in the 19th century. Without that outlet existing, the population pressures could have pushed Europe in some really bad directions a lot earlier.

Politically speaking, for better or worse the Bretton Woods institutions and the Marshall Plan undergirded the modern west developing as it did. That is another big positive in my view.

On the downside, we did open the nuclear genie box, which in many ways might have saved lives in the long term but acts as a massive risk to global stability nontheless.
 
Well, the US was not perfect, but it became the first time in history when people actually stood up against the oppressors and fought for the Rights of Man and hence it did inspire people around the world. Besides, the ARW in one way or another led to French Revolution, which spread radical ideas of equality and liberty, as well as nationalism.

We could argue for the Dutch revolt against Philip II. But certainly, the American Revolution inspired many others.
 
Well, the US was not perfect, but it became the first time in history when people actually stood up against the oppressors and fought for the Rights of Man and hence it did inspire people around the world. Besides, the ARW in one way or another led to French Revolution, which spread radical ideas of equality and liberty, as well as nationalism. Also because of that, the US also became the land of opportunity for lower-class Europeans who were oppressed by European monarchies àn nobilities.

After all, the US and later France were the world's only democracies during the 19th century (Britain should not be considered as a democracy until 1928).


Well, the bottom line is that until 1914 only a third of British male adult population were eligible to vote. Meanwhile, all US white males could vote since 1860.

Racism was common during the 19th century. For Britain, we cannot conclude like that because there weren't a lot of people of other colors in the UK.

No, the bottom line of democracy is for all people, not just white men, as much as some people like to shrug off the experiences of women and non-whites. While racism has been common across societies, the complete absence of state protection from domestic terrorism certainly isn't. If you truly want a bottom line, I would note today the EIU, the leading independent think tank on assessing democracy, currently classes the UK and Canada as full democracies and the USA as a flawed democracy.

I'm not even going to get started on the ludicrous claim that no one ever stood up against oppressors in human history prior to the 1770s.
 
I certainly would prefer the US approach to intervention in foreign countries over the last century than say Germany's, Russia's or China's.

No Imperial Germany with modern tech better than America. But America better than Nazi Germany, I don't care what tech.

On the downside, we did open the nuclear genie box, which in many ways might have saved lives in the long term but acts as a massive risk to global stability nontheless.

Eh, someone was going to open it anyways. Might as well make it something useful.

Ah, but what about in 2050 when the Americans help provoke World War III that leaves 90% of the world's population dead by 2060? Without the United States, we might never have had this apocalyptic event.

Well that didn't happen yet, so I don't need to count those deaths!
 
.Actually, this is not quite accurate. The United States was, in fact, founded as a constitutional democratic republic. Democracy in those early days may well have been limited, especially by our modern standards, but the democracy was most certainly there.

Several founding fathers are on record as criticising democracy and set up the US system with several explicit checks against democracy, including the electoral college and the senate.

To be honest, it's not that basic civil protections didn't exist-in fact, they had since at least the 1860s-it was that Southern governments did their damnedest to disobey these laws.

The USSR had all sorts of civil rights coded in law. If they are not enforced, they do not exist.

Hmm, I'm afraid this is not so. If anything, this development occurred despite the U.S. becoming a full-fledged democracy.....certainly not because of it. And if even a *United States is susceptible to such, then so too, could a *British America.

I disagree. The extremism that has taken over the Republican Party can be directly traced to the rise of the conservative movement in the South, which was a direct reaction to black people getting political and civil rights. I do accept that the extremism could exist in alternate polities, but the south would not be as dominant in a British empire that included the British Isles and Canada.
 
When thinking about slavery in the 18th and early 19th century (and related topics, like the rise of abolitionism, etc), you really have to keep in mind that we're at least talking about two related but district atrocities -- not only the practice of plantation slavery itself in the New World, but the Atlantic Slave Trade. The latter in itself killed, even in the most conservative estimates, as significant fraction of those transported en route to the New World, as well as making the most brutal conditions of plantation slavery economicallg feasible by providing a steady supply of "replacement" labor; not for nothing has this period been likened to a "black holocaust".

An abolitionist movement that took longer to really get underway, combined with the lack of a ripe geopolitical context provided by the Haitian Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, would most certainly mean the height of the Atlantic Slave Trade continues longer (possibly 25 years). Whether the British could have more quickly (ie less than another 25 years) abolished slavery within their empire following this, or whether they even could have abolished slavery in the North American colonies as easily as they did with the colonies they had OTL -- well, I'm not going to say it's impossible, but I find it less likely than the alternative.

There are other negative aspects of TTL -- the lack of a much later industrial revolution in North America (regarding global economic progress more generally) -- as well as at least some positive notes -- such as the native nations doing far better -- but it's hard, to my mind, to beat, in terms of pure human misery, the effects of the Triangular Trade circa the 18th Century. And while all this is only speaking of how the late 18th and 19th century is affected, anything beyond that (eg the Nazis) simply get too far from our PoD.

So I'd have to go with "worse".
 
An abolitionist movement that took longer to really get underway, combined with the lack of a ripe geopolitical context provided by the Haitian Revolution and Napoleonic Wars, would most certainly mean the height of the Atlantic Slave Trade continues longer (possibly 25 years). Whether the British could have more quickly (ie less than another 25 years) abolished slavery within their empire following this, or whether they even could have abolished slavery in the North American colonies as easily as they did with the colonies they had OTL -- well, I'm not going to say it's impossible, but I find it less likely than the alternative.

There are other negative aspects of TTL -- the lack of a much later industrial revolution in North America (regarding global economic progress more generally) -- as well as at least some positive notes -- such as the native nations doing far better -- but it's hard, to my mind, to beat, in terms of pure human misery, the effects of the Triangular Trade circa the 18th Century. And while all this is only speaking of how the late 18th and 19th century is affected, anything beyond that (eg the Nazis) simply get too far from our PoD.

So I'd have to go with "worse".

Yeah, but imagine the positive downstream effects.
 
I certainly would prefer the US approach to intervention in foreign countries over the last century than say Germany's, Russia's or China's.

China should not be on that list. China's foreign policy in the last century is leagues better than America's.
 

Deleted member 97083

I disagree with this substantially. The Revolution maybe accelerated the British abolitionist movement by ten years, but it was already in incubation so it was coming. Plus a British Empire that abolishes slavey in the early 1840s still saves 25 years of slavery in North America.
I'm not sure that would be true, since slavery would remain a significant part of the income of the empire if the southern colonies are held, and economic forces are political forces.

But even assuming that the British still abolish slavery sometime in the mid 19th century, it doesn't prevent oppressive, slavery like conditions or de facto slavery in British India or British Africa. Also, what is to say that a British Empire with a white imperial population of 300-500 million, held together with military force, wouldn't survive to the present, retaining racial and social views somewhere between Cecil Rhodes at worst and Winston Churchill at best until 2017? Especially if there is no WW1 or WW2.

With perhaps the exception of the establishment of the Dutch Republic, the American Revolution was the first victory of liberalism. If the revolution fails, liberalism will be set back decades. The French Revolution even more so. Did the United Kingdom evolve into a liberal country? Yes. It didn't start out as one though.

There are other negative aspects of TTL -- the lack of a much later industrial revolution in North America (regarding global economic progress more generally) -- as well as at least some positive notes -- such as the native nations doing far better -- but it's hard, to my mind, to beat, in terms of pure human misery, the effects of the Triangular Trade circa the 18th Century. And while all this is only speaking of how the late 18th and 19th century is affected, anything beyond that (eg the Nazis) simply get too far from our PoD.
If anything, a less industrialized North America and less agricultural productivity means that the settlers need more land to produce the amount of food they did, meaning the expansion west will be more violent and seize more land.
 

longsword14

Banned
China should not be on that list. China's foreign policy in the last century is leagues better than America's.
For a great part of the last century China was also incapable of doing much outside its own borders, and sometimes within its own borders.
The Americans did not start putting their fingers into issues far and wide until they were well onto their way towards becoming the strongest industrial power.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
The USSR had all sorts of civil rights coded in law. If they are not enforced, they do not exist.
Even London government could not directly enforce such laws on British America forever.

No Imperial Germany with modern tech better than America
Yeah: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herero_and_Namaqua_genocide
Ever heard of Septemberprogram?

Would you rather have Britannia running around
and grabbing and conquering lands after lands, and oppressing and exploiting local people like IOTL.
 

Thomas1195

Banned
For a great part of the last century China was also incapable of doing much outside its own borders, and sometimes within its own borders.
The Americans did not start putting their fingers into issues far and wide until they were well onto their way towards becoming the strongest industrial power.
Well, about China, I recommend that you should read about what they did with Korea and Vietnam over the last 2000 years.
 
To me, the biggest impact would seem to be the absence of a power secure and wealthy enough to completely overturn the balance of power paradigm in European politics. Shifting from a bipolar to multipolar international system could be really interesting.
 
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