Topic: Is the British Empire really that impressive?
Mr. Bloody Lemonade !0JqexkOGBc started this discussion 43 minutes ago #137,510
At the height of the British Empire, the largest empire in the history of the world, their GDP as a percentage of world GDP was 25%. So basically what the United States is right now.
Anonymous B joined in and replied with this 34 minutes ago, 8 minutes later[^] [v] #1,456,423
What country did better?
Mr. Bloody Lemonade !0JqexkOGBc joined in and replied with this 27 minutes ago, 7 minutes later, 15 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #1,456,427
@previous (B)
In 1960, the United States was 40% of the world economy, which is more than the British Empire achieved.
In 1960, the United States was 40% of the world economy, which is more than the British Empire achieved.
Mr. Bloody Lemonade !0JqexkOGBc double-posted this 23 minutes ago, 3 minutes later, 19 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #1,456,428
You also have to keep in mind, that in 1960 the United States had about 6% of the world’s population, but they had 40% of the world’s GDP. When the British Empire was at its height they had 25% of the world’s population. So the United States today with 25% of the world’s GDP and 4% of the world’s population is still more economically productive on a per person level relative to the rest of the world than the British Empire was even though the US has been in relative decline for decades (not absolute decline however).
Mr. Bloody Lemonade !0JqexkOGBc triple-posted this 19 minutes ago, 4 minutes later, 23 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #1,456,430
The United States was so powerful economically after World War Two, that the "developed countries" were basically just countries allied with the United States. Japan was rebuilt with American money. That’s why they’re developed today even though all their cities were demolish / burned. We were so powerful that we actually determined which nations would be successful.
Mr. Bloody Lemonade !0JqexkOGBc quadruple-posted this 16 minutes ago, 2 minutes later, 26 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #1,456,431
Then we got greedy and realized we could pay Chinese people lower salaries to manufacture everything we want to buy than we could pay American workers so we deindustrialized and now we have a whole rust belt of abandoned factories but we have the strongest military so it doesn’t matter even though how are we supposed to fight a war if we can’t make anything? Don’t know, don’t care, we don’t do mass mobilization ground wars anymore.
Mr. Bloody Lemonade !0JqexkOGBc quintuple-posted this 15 minutes ago, 1 minute later, 28 minutes after the original post[^] [v] #1,456,432
So now China and the US are the two biggest economies and nobody comes close. People will say Japan or Germany or the UK are in the top nth position, to make them sound more impressive, but if you say Germany is the third largest economy, that makes it sound like it’s close, but it’s not close.