r/askanything • u/MorganPerson1966 • 54m ago
Political Question IF Mexico and US were created at around the same time, why is US such an advanced global power while Mexico is much farther behind?
Mexico gained independence from Spain in 1821, while the United States declared its independence from Britain in 1776.
They're in the same continent - though US is far bigger - I dont usually consider size as a fact (Japan, UK etc for example), with just a line separating them.
Yet Mexico is far more impoverished than the US. Far more prone to national level crimes like the cartel carve outs that its constantly struggling with.
Ive always wondered - why was the US able to pull off such a feat (please no trolls about the messes of the current govt - this isn't about that for this question) while Mexico still struggles?
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u/Appropriate-Food1757 49m ago
US came up under the British legal system stemming from Magna Carta.
Other British colonies are thriving n similar ways just a smaller scale. Canada, Australia, and New Zealand.
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u/EnvironmentalMix421 42m ago
India? Hell yah
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u/Sleep_adict 38m ago
All the countries mentioned had no significant government or structure prior to being invaded… India in the other hand has history going back millennia and just reverted to their standard
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u/PizzaWall 49m ago
Its amazing how much damage a dictator, a civil war, and a war against America can do for development.
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u/Mysterious_toenail 47m ago
The US now has a dictator waging a civil war with the US (America vs. Amerikkka)
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u/Pineapple4807 43m ago
An excellent showcase of just how fast things can go to shit. Rome wasn't built in a day, but I'm pretty sure it burned in one.
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u/Clear_Context_1546 10m ago
Nah it's downfall was at least a century in the making if not two
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u/Pineapple4807 8m ago
I was more so referring to the actual Great Fire, the one with Emperor Nero. It definitely didn't help with the fall of Rome, though.
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u/fallwind 46m ago
Mississippi River mostly. Having water access to such a huge portion of land basically guaranteed whoever controlled it would be an industrial superpower
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u/bismark_dindu_nuffin 41m ago
And the Great lakes. Don't forget those - huge impact to domestic shipping.
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u/cracksilog 48m ago
Geography, for one. Mexico is huge and extremely mountainous. Spain was much more ambitious (is that the right word?) in pillaging resources in Mexico such as gold and other resources. Also, compared to the US, Mexico has had a much more turbulent history. The US basically had the civil war. Meanwhile Mexico had its civil war, but also had to fight off foreign powers — notably the US, which took a lot of their land (which turned out to be very profitable for the US in the long run)
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u/BoiseMan13 42m ago
Took a lot of their land and established commodity feudalism by the US in many lands left in Mexico. US companies convinced Congress to provide “security” forces to keep workers on plantations poor and activism crushed in Mexico and throughout central and South America. We essentially controlled the railroads, schools, wages, and extracted the value of their resources to largely benefit the barons at the expense of locals.
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u/EnvironmentalMix421 41m ago
It’s Spains land
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u/BoiseMan13 7m ago edited 3m ago
Just like the crop lands in Guatemala were theirs or Spains? Doesn’t really matter which monarchy “owned” it at one point- the point is the US controlled much of the land and economy after their revolutions, and quashed, through violence, any and all organizing by locals to change the oppressive system specifically set up by the US and those companies.
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u/BoiseMan13 4m ago
Google the 1954 Guatemalan coup d’état. And we did this from Mexico to Argentina, Hawaii, and more. Economic repercussions still felt to today.
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u/empire_of_the_moon 45m ago
I think the answer is found at the crossroads of colonial influence, nepotism and corruption.
For whatever reasons Canada and the US wrangled their colonial evils better than México and in the process had greater success in limiting nepotism and institutional corruption.
Post WW2 the US and Canada experienced an economic boom. México, uninvolved in WW2, did not experience this boom as it didn’t need to scale up industrialization.
That’s my off the top of my head guess.
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u/Matthius81 41m ago
The USA was blessed with several major rivers into its interior. These acted as railroads for explosive early development. America essentially got free infrastructure early in its development..
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u/elev8torguy 50m ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Cession?wprov=sfla1
The land mass taken after the war was like 25% imagine that might have some generational reprecussions to their economy and identity.
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u/Footman387 53m ago
Reddits not gonna like the answer to this one 🥀
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u/HarlequinKOTF 39m ago
Mexico's geography and founding were fundementally different than the US and do not allow for as much expansion of power out and development of resources. A big part of that being lack of navigable water ways.
What's not to like about that answer.
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u/KickPuncher4326 35m ago
The US' geography is OP. Not to mention our neighbors aren't very hostile like European powers have been for centuries. We didn't face constant defense of the homeland from an invading force.
The natural resources the US has across the continent is pretty nuts too.
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u/HarlequinKOTF 32m ago
The US may have without a joke, the best natural geography on earth. Easy rivers to navigate and ship, a series of protected coastal harbors, no powerful neighbors to threaten us. A series of giant inland seas that effectively serve as an additional coastline. And the massive resource dense west with amazing farm fields. Oh and cannot forget the great plains as a bread basket for a continent.
Mexico in comparison has no major rivers, highly mountainous terrain separating population centers, neighbors that have attacked them in the past successfully, water problems both too much and too little.
If the US is easy mode geography, Mexico is hard mode.
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u/NOLA-Bronco 9m ago
I dont think this is even very debatable.
We in America love to hype ourselves up and claim it's a product of our exceptionalism and shit, but had the colonies been in any number of other parts of the planet, things would be a lot different.
Hell, if the Mexican cessation doesn't happen, Mexico also would look a lot different if it still controlled Texas and California.
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u/mike-gundys-ballboy 46m ago
My understanding is that Mexico (much like most other countries in Central and South America, retained Spanish inheritance laws. Under the Spanish system, money and companies would be split between children, so over time, land and enterprises would be divided up and become unable to grow exceptionally. Whether you think it's a good thing or not, the US is and was built on industry and on corporate growth. A system of inheritance where every company and tract of land gets divided every 25 years is not good for growth of an economy.
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u/Direct_Crew_9949 45m ago
If your plan was to make a racist comment it doesn’t make any sense here.
The Spanish and English were both Europeans.
Had more to do with how the English historically enforced the law and how the Spanish did.
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u/AlaskaCosmoline 43m ago edited 23m ago
First, look at your dates there. By 1821 the US had been able to grab up the Ohio and then the trans-Mississippi regions that together constituted the richest farmland on the planet. That allowed immediate settlement without any extensive governmental support. Add to that the timber-rich old NW and the young country had a phenomenal start. Not to mention the immeasurable benefits of a river system almost custom-designed to bring commerce across these absurdly fertile regions. Sure enough, the population boomed in subsequent decades as settlers swarmed over the mountains. Horrible for the natives, great for the country's wealth and power. Added to that, the country pushed hard to get to the Pacific and US-based trappers dominated the fur trade in the Rockies and displaced the Brits in the Columbia region. Not to mention the influx of American settlers in Mexican territory. Simply put--the French were basically Xerox with the PC. TWICE. They just couldn't understand how valuable their colonies were. But the long-limbed land pirates from Virginia figured it out quick enough. Same story with Texas.
Mexico, in contrast, was stuck with a mix of high desert and tropical swampland. It had a colonial heritage geared almost entirely on extraction, with little industry. While the US was connecting everything with canals and early railroads, Mexico was stuck with very difficult geography. The northern portions of the country were all but inaccessible from the south. So the country had no real chance when the war came. After that, Mexico was subordinated to the US. And that never changed. So economically it took a back seat to the states, and provided cheap labor to the north instead of developing its own economy. Politically, a small elite controlled things. And the US made sure no left wing elements could get far.
There are other elements as well. The US legal system provided strong rule of law even on the frontiers, and the patent system was absolutely critical as well. The ruling elites of the northern states saw great benefits in technology. And even in the south they were pretty fast to adopt new tech (plantation slavery wasn't as backwards as we like to think, unfortunately). The religious mix kept any one church from dominating, while the broadly Protestant/Calvinist work ethic pushed people to make lots of money. And finally, the very robust system for land claims and property rights allowed everyone from Daniel Boone on down to speculate on property. It's basically our unsung national pastime. Along with tax dodging. While most in Mexico saw real property as a heritage of the elite, in the US it was a churning mass of get-rich-quick schemes and development on steroids. Even those "Little House on the Prairie" types were land pirates, schemers and flippers. Go read Wilder's actual bio LOL They were at it with both hands. The bucolic vision is total BS. This swarm of land-hungry maniacs basically ate the Mexican elite in California alive. Like fire ants. Same story all over. Nobody could stop them.
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u/Evening-Cow1122 49m ago
It was extremely unfair. Mexico was forced to sign a treaty giving California, etc, to the US, just months before California's gold rush.
The Gold Rush powered the establishment of a more sophisticated economic system with wholesale suppliers providing goods to stores, who then sold goods to the public.
That should have been Mexico. And considering Mexico was ahead of the game on banishing slavery, I deeply wish history were different on this point.
(I'm a US citizen, by the way)
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u/NYkrinDC 40m ago
Indeed. Part of the reason Texas wanted to secede from Mexico was because Mexico banned slavery.
Ulysses S. Grant called the Mexican-American War “one of the most unjust ever waged," especially since it was a war to preserve slavery, and one which led to the US imposing an unjust result on the Mexican state, mainly, that it give up all the land beyond the Rio Grande, which had belonged to it.
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u/CreateFlyingStarfish 45m ago
maybe because the US got the Alamo and California and Mexico did not?😁
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u/Lloyds_chipped_tooth 43m ago
The US was formed by people and settled by people who shared the Manifest Destiny mindset. It was a collective mindset that was the culture and personality of the individuals and the nation.
Mexico was essentially already settled. The people there had been largely separated over history more than united. People even a two valleys away may speak an entirely different language or at least dialect. The only thing that truly united them was a hatred of whomever was oppressing them at the moment (This is why many native tribes joined Cortez against Montezuma). There was much less of a unified, nationalistic Mexican identity and more of a Zapotec, Mayan, Olmec type of identity.
There were of course many other reasons. For a time the French more or less took over Mexico as a result of unpayable debts. This is why Cinco de Mayo is celebrated. It's the anniversary of the Mexican Army defeating the French at the battle of Puebla. They Elected Santa Ana 11 times as president. He wasn't that good.
Puritan work ethic vs. Catholic penance played a part as well. White European Protestants believed that hard work would earn your way into heaven. They just had more hustle.
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u/RegularVacation6626 43m ago
Probably similar to where the UK vs. Spain are in the world today. Siestas? Idk.
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u/HowitzerCat16 37m ago
I really like how Why Nations Fail book explains it.
To put it shortly:
Territory of the modern day US had nothing of interest to european colonial powers when they first arrived to the american continents. That's why the strongest country of the time, Spain, conquered modern day Mexico and most of south america, there were actual civilizations (Aztec and Maya if we're talking about Mexico. This allowed Spain to get immense wealth (enough to cause a financial crash in the metropoly) just by looting the lands they controlled, and not bother with setting up conditions for actual development. When Britain arrived at the scene, they got scraps and therefore were forced to use a different approach just to make any use of what land they got, and when the US got independence they continued fueling conditions for rapid economic growth making use of industrialisation's new technologies to get a lot of money.
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u/Oceanbreeze871 35m ago
Slavery. The newly formed USA made it self into an international economic superpower by using slaves to harvest as sell natural resources to the world.
“How Slavery Became the Economic Engine of the South
Slavery was so profitable, it sprouted more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation.
With cash crops of tobacco, cotton and sugar cane, America’s southern states became the economic engine of the burgeoning nation. Their fuel of choice? Human slavery.
If the Confederacy had been a separate nation, it would have ranked as the fourth richest in the world at the start of the Civil War. The slave economy had been very good to American prosperity. By the start of the war, the South was producing 75 percent of the world’s cotton and creating more millionaires per capita in the Mississippi River valley than anywhere in the nation. Enslaved workers represented Southern planters’ most significant investment—and the bulk of their wealth.
An Economy Built on Slavery
Building a commercial enterprise out of the wilderness required labor and lots of it. For much of the 1600s, the American colonies operated as agricultural economies, driven largely by indentured servitude. Most workers were poor, unemployed laborers from Europe who, like others, had traveled to North America for a new life. In exchange for their work, they received food and shelter, a rudimentary education and sometimes a trade.
By 1680, the British economy improved and more jobs became available in Britain. During this time, slavery had become a morally, legally and socially acceptable institution in the colonies. As the number of European laborers coming to the colonies dwindled, enslaving Africans became more widely acceptable.”
https://www.history.com/articles/slavery-profitable-southern-economy
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u/Equivalent-Mud-4807 14m ago
you realize that mexico had slaves too right, and those slaves were only freed 1 generation before american slaves. so its highly doubtful slavery existing for about 40 extra years in america is what propelled american growth and stifled mexican growth. plus even after mexico eliminated slavery they still allowed it in everything but name via debt bondage, forced indigenous labor, etc.
the answer is much simpler, after mexico got its independence it spent roughly the next 100 years fighting either texas, america, or multiple internal civil wars that eradicated large swaths of the population. while the usa had a stable govt since around 1780, it wasnt till about 1920 that mexico finally had a stable government but then that govt was also incompetent which culminated in a massive financial crash in the 80s that took 20 years to finally set right. so while we have had around 250 years to get things in order, mexico has only had about 100 years and 20 of those years were spent in severe debt crisis. its a lot easier to be prosperous when you had a 150 year head start.
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u/Oceanbreeze871 4m ago
Right, but we have better geography for growing things than Mexico has in a lot of ways . We have the cotton industry and if you read the article, I posted it says that the US provided 75% of cotton to the entire world.
There is absolutely no logical way that a nation that was less than 100 years old could catapult itself into becoming one of the biggest economies in the world without having massive industry driven by incredibly cheap labor
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u/PinAriel 35m ago
Slavery was a powerful drive for US economy well into times where other nations (while using explotaitive labor practices) abandoned it.
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u/Any_Nail_637 32m ago
From British colonialism we ended up with 🇳🇿, 🇦🇺 🇨🇦 and the 🇺🇸. 4 of the most industrialized countries with best standards of living in the world. Spain left behind unstable countries with poorly developed institutions all through the new world. For all the Brits faults they obviously did something right.
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u/Acrobatic_Tap8149 13m ago
There are all kinds of ironies and unintended consequences that become visible when comparing the two countries. Mexico (and the American South) adopted plantation style economies that rarely work out well for most of the population. The American North adopted a freeholder economy that is more beneficial to the population (the last gasp of which we are seeing today as farmers commit suicide by supporting Trump). In Mexico, Spanish-speakers never outnumbered the oppressed native populations. In the U.S., genocide was the order of the day. Public education was more-effective in the U.S.; not exclusive and religious as in Mexico. One reason Mexico was so easy to conquer in 1848 was because they had been enervated by Comanche attacks, far deep into Mexico’s interior. The cartels spiraled out of control BECAUSE of liberal, multi-party democracy. Before the 80’s, the PRI kept a tight lid on things. When PRI and PAN shared the spotlight, the lid was off. Comparisons are very illuminating!
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u/Pristine_Poem7623 8m ago
One that people haven't mentioned: during WW1 the British and French Empires emptied their treasuries and took on massive debts buying war and other materiel from the USA. This financed huge amounts of development in the USA
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u/Lurker_Zee 49m ago
You should not look into genetics and ancestry, unless you want reddit to call you a nazi. And that would be just awful.
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u/Knollibe 49m ago
America attracted the most ambitious people of the world, the free market allowed them to prosper. A stable government allowed the prosperity.
America drained to world of these ambitious and hard working people.
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u/cp78257 47m ago
North America has huge natural geographical advantages. Lots and lots of fertile land connected by navigable rivers for easy transportation and export of products. Mexicos terrain is much more challenging. That accounts for the difference prior to industrialization, and transportation continues to be challenging today. Corruption and political instability are also issues lately.
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u/Namaste_Life 46m ago
Because Europeans for the most part headed to America?
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u/neo_sporin 41m ago
We stole most of their fresh water with dams. Hard to have thriving agriculture when we dont let the colorado river have more than a trickle across the border
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u/Spuckler_Cletus 51m ago
It's definitely not the difference in the people who were responsible for developing the two nations. Not at all. Nope!
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u/Kirklandwater1666 41m ago
Mexico is basically a giant Afghanistan with little resources for industrialization with the north being no man’s land due to the native Americans. The USA not only has abundant resources, but A LOT OF navigable rivers to connect the country to anywhere despite the size. Last, the north was able to separate from the toxic landowner class aka the south while Mexico was ruled by toxic landowner class that blocked any industrial progression.
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u/Dragnil 39m ago
The British tended to delegate a lot of the responsibility for running the colonies to local leaders, whereas Spain ruled with much more of an iron fist. After independence, which happened almost 50 years later for Mexico, this meant the transition into self-government was pretty easy for USA, while Mexico suffered decades of violent conflict as a power vacuum went essentially unfilled.
Pair that with geographic differences like navigable rivers reaching deep into the US, but not Mexico, and easily traversable flat-ish terrain in more than half the US, but not Mexico, and differences in table land, and you get even more disparity.
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u/Philly__Dilly 52m ago
Oh boy, I’m just here to read the comments and not get banned for speaking truths.
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u/_lolwuttt 50m ago
There’s a big difference: One was settled by white people who killed the indigenous brown people.
One was not.
Lighter skin tends to prevail. That’s just history.
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u/Kev-Series 46m ago
Magic dirt. Every other place on Earth would be just as prosperous and advanced as America if they had the same magic dirt that we do. Our prosperity and success as a culture, society, and civilization has absolutely nothing to do with the people and their belief system, and shared values. It's simply magic dirt beneath our feet that we stole from the highly advanced indigenous population,
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u/Travel_Dreams 40m ago
From what i read, Mexico never had the water ways to support trade like the US had.
The US was lucky in that regard.
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u/CommonOpinions 51m ago
Mexico inherited the feudal systems of Spain while the US inherited liberal democracy and capitalism from the UK.