Unclaimed, fertile and abundant land that was practically being given away to people is a meaningful difference in easily available resources that early settlers of North America had available to them.
It’s not the ONLY difference, but certainly a meaningful one.
I totally agree on your final point, you’re in or you’re not.
The halfway programs cause problems, and they’re the ones I’m against.
Number of people relative to resources does matter though because otherwise India should be the richest country on earth…… but it isn’t.
I don’t have any great answers to that, but I can see the problem.
500 years ago, everyone, the west included, was poor, and everyone had basically the same amount of resources.
Then the west became rich. For many reasons, but certainly not resources per capita.
It may well turn out that in a century from now India matches the west in per capita income. Too early to say.
Unclaimed, fertile and abundant land that was practically being given away to people is a meaningful difference in easily available resources that early settlers of North America had available to them.
It’s not the ONLY difference, but certainly a meaningful one.