# Why was Mexico's revolution less successful than the American one? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 22, 2011, 3:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750 "2011-11-22T15:06:29Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![smiling\_bandit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e9a140/32.png) [@smiling\_bandit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/smiling_bandit)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 2:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/21 "2011-11-23T14:37:36Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Irrelevant. Mexico did not prosper after their revolution because they did not have the same productivity from their peons that we have from our slaves. I’m going to pick apart several of the things wrong with this statement. First, the early U.S. economy was not dependant on slave labor, in either the future Free or Slave states. There were a lot of them, but did not form a key or distinct sector. Nor was the nature of slavery fixed as firmly as it would two generations later; at the time, there was little difference betwee a poor white laborer, an indentured servant, and a slave. Second, the population of black slaves at the time was much, much smaller; it grew very rapidly post-war. Third, it wasn’t very productive. It didn’t become really profitable until the introduction of cotton cultivation alongside the rise of textiles in England, both partly a product of the Transportation Revolution. It wasn’t really until 1830 that cotton exploded, and the handsome “Old South” was a fairly recent innovation at the time of the Civil War. (Strictly speaking, the boom began much earlier, but needed fast, cheap water and rail transportation to fulfill its potential it also wasn’t identified with the slave plantation economy early on). [http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs\_es\_cotton.htm](http://www.slaveryinamerica.org/history/hs_es_cotton.htm) The raw growth of cotton might seem to be a smooth growth - or even growing faster in the early years of the Republic. However, you’ll note that the growth of cotton rose even after the price dropped immensely. While the deflationary nature of gold and silver might account for some of this, it’s not nearly enough for all. Cotton was profitable only with a huge international market on that scale. Fourth, slavery was probably correctly viewed as being on the way out in 1800, precisely because big plantations weren’t really all that profitable. Some families managed to hold large fortunes, but these were mostly large landowners in Virginia. Tobacco and sugar simply couldn’t guarrantee a slave economy. Fifth, the Free States were more stable and wealthier than the Slave states, and grew to be even more so, combining industry, commerce, and agriculture. This is altered a bit because the wealthiest counties in 1860 were in the slave states, but these were simply big centers of the cotton trade, which combined low population with lots of cash flow. For a modern equivalent, think of Hollywood. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 2:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/22 "2011-11-23T14:45:29Z")
> [@JRDelirious](#): > > But the US did not ONLY have slaves (and after slavery ended, had sharecroppers, child-laborers and poor immigrants who owed their soul to the company store, not that much better off than the _peones_ (_))_ It **also** had homegrown traders, industrialists, financiers,\* _ **capitalists** _, that helped use the abundant resources to sustain an expanding economy. These were classes that were not fostered in the Spanish Empire, heck, not even in Spain itself, until too late in the game. > The Spanish too often set up straight-extraction colonies w/o a value-added segment to the economy. Just dig up ores, preferrably gold or silver, or harvest sugar or whatever, and ship 'em out (exclusively through whoever the crown choses, natch). She then ruled them with no pretense of responsible government, often through permanent military rule, and held on to a closed-oligarchical sociopolitical system and a socioeconomic environment that at its best was crudely mercantilist, and quite often quasi-feudal. You were “grande” if you owned a lot of land and/or had a lot of people who depended on or owed you for your patronage. > Meanwhile the US, through its closer association with Britain and freer contact with Enlightenment Europe, was already at the starting line better able to take the next steps into capitalism, which makes for a more productive economy. The trader and shopkeeper were important people who could eventually rise to join the overclass; there was an incipient capitalist class who would use the natural resources not just to sell outright for hard currency but to create homegrown industries making things to add value to the production chain; plus there was the tradition of free farmers which coupled to an expanding frontier that allowed people to move on and have their own land (to the great detriment, of course, of the Native population), so not as large a segment of the population was “bound to the soil”. > Also, a tradition of some degree of representative civil government (for the free white population anyway) and respect for the common law meant that after independence there was a greater bench depth of leadership and willingness to abide by rule of law and maintain order and try to get ahead playing by the book. Meanwhile in a lot of the Spanish Empire “the law” simply meant whatever someone at the Viceroy’s palace said it was, and usually was just something else meant to slap you down and keep you in your place but you could get around it if you knew (or were) the right people. Not friendly to social development. The post-independence governments, alas, tended to maintain those trends. > > (\* Maybe, on the not-so-nice side of things, it could also be that the slave in the plantation, or the industrial child-worker, were not viewed in the US as patronage subjects who you may one day want to be your regiment in \*your \*attempted takeover, but as outright tools of production whose output was to be maximized.) And on top of all that, hostility to modernization in Spanish America came sometimes from [a quarter you would not expect.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mexican_Inquisition) ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/23 "2011-11-23T16:26:52Z")
Now you’ve drifted into [The Black Legend](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend), which makes the English feel great about their behavior in the 17th Century Americas in contrast to Spain’s (especially since Ireland isn’t in the Americas). ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 4:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/24 "2011-11-23T16:33:02Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Now you’ve drifted into [The Black Legend](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend), which makes the English feel great about their behavior in the 17th Century Americas in contrast to Spain’s (especially since Ireland isn’t in the Americas). Explanation is not justification. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 5:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/25 "2011-11-23T17:34:00Z")
I think it’s a combination of this: > [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > I would say in general cultural factors. The English speaking colonies had a tradition of liberty and representative government along with the colonies being dominated by small farmers and merchants while on the other hand Spain was an absolute monarchy and economically far more backward. …and luck. IMHO, the biggest factor in post-revolution success than whether or not the leaders of the revolution are nice people. In other words, the US lucked out when George “Snowball” Washington became the de facto leader of the Revolution. Russia, Mexico, _et al_ got Napoleon instead. The tradition of representative democracy simply made the odds better that Washington wouldn’t turn around and declare this the Republic of Washington and commence with the killing of the intellectuals. ---
**Author:** ![griffin1977](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/977dab/32.png) [@griffin1977](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/griffin1977)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 6:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/26 "2011-11-23T18:55:02Z")
> [@Fear\_Itself](#): > > Irrelevant. Mexico did not prosper after their revolution because they did not have the same productivity from their peons that we have from our slaves. There were simply more peons than slaves. Mexico was a peasant society. For every educated member of the landowning elite there were 10 landless dirt-poor peasants (and not much in between). That is an extremely difficult set-up to try a mold into a successful democracy. Slavery did cause instability in the US, but in the aftermath of the revolution the slave population was relatively low, so while that was a cause of instability (the southern states were constantly in fear of slave rebellion) it did not doom the whole exercise. Of course when slave populations did start to increase later on it ultimately led to the civil war. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/27 "2011-11-23T20:46:51Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > I think it’s a combination of this: > > …and luck. IMHO, the biggest factor in post-revolution success than whether or not the leaders of the revolution are nice people. > > In other words, the US lucked out when George “Snowball” Washington became the de facto leader of the Revolution. Russia, Mexico, _et al_ got Napoleon instead. > > The tradition of representative democracy simply made the odds better that Washington wouldn’t turn around and declare this the Republic of Washington and commence with the killing of the intellectuals. America got Washington because of a tradition of representative governance-the Founding Fathers didn’t come out of a vacuum. ---
**Author:** ![Evil\_Captor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f17d59/32.png) [@Evil\_Captor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Evil_Captor)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 9:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/28 "2011-11-23T21:04:11Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Now you’ve drifted into [The Black Legend](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend), which makes the English feel great about their behavior in the 17th Century Americas in contrast to Spain’s (especially since Ireland isn’t in the Americas). Except of course, there was plenty of truth to back up the black legend in relation to Spain. They treated the natives horribly, they imported lots of black slaves. The English did the same of course, the history of colonization is real fucking ugly, right up to Belgium’s heart of darkness in the Congo. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 9:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/29 "2011-11-23T21:43:41Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > America got Washington because of a tradition of representative governance-the Founding Fathers didn’t come out of a vacuum. No, America got Washington _partly_ because of that tradition. India got Gandhi despite having no tradition of representative governance at all. France got Napoleon in spite of a (brief) tradition of representative governance. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 10:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/30 "2011-11-23T22:08:55Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Except of course, there was plenty of truth to back up the black legend in relation to Spain. They treated the natives horribly, they imported lots of black slaves. The English did the same of course, the history of colonization is real fucking ugly, right up to Belgium’s heart of darkness in the Congo. So who was the worse colonizer, Spain or England? ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 10:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/31 "2011-11-23T22:35:41Z")
> [@Evil\_Captor](#): > > Except of course, there was plenty of truth to back up the black legend in relation to Spain. They treated the natives horribly, they imported lots of black slaves. The English did the same of course, the history of colonization is real fucking ugly, right up to Belgium’s heart of darkness in the Congo. However, my point was that Spanish colonialism was and is maligned to justify Anglo-Saxon colonialism. The Cheyennes notion af a Germanic race destined to follow the sun, from Northern Europe, marshaling on the British Isles, across the Atlantic, across North America, and onward across the Pacific. Hitler chose the swastika to represent that beckoning sun, but Teddy Roosevelt bought into the theory with no less enthusiasm. Anecdote: when the Anglo Saxons crossed the Pacific in 1898, searching to destroy the Spanish navy, they cornered them in Manila Bay. The US Asiatic Squadron had the Spanish ships outgunned, but the Spanish shore batteries had bigger guns and more shells than the Americans. However, here’s your black legend: the Spanish admiral forfeited victory because if he put his ships under his shore guns, most of the American shells would overshoot both and kill civilians. So he anchored down the shore where he was shot to pieces. And over the next five years the Americans killed 600,000 Fillipinos. ---
**Author:** ![Arkcon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/96bed5/32.png) [@Arkcon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Arkcon)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 10:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/32 "2011-11-23T22:50:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So who was the worse colonizer, Spain or England? I’ll bet there are a dozen or more Straight Dope Great Debates thread trying to cover _that_ topic. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 23, 2011, 11:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/33 "2011-11-23T23:46:17Z")
> [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > No, America got Washington _partly_ because of that tradition. India got Gandhi despite having no tradition of representative governance at all. That was because Gandhi was educated in Britain-there is a quote somewhere that basically says Gandhi was inspired by the Western heritage rather than anything Indian. In addition Gandhi’s native Indian elements included such things as support for the caste system. > [@](#): > > France got Napoleon in spite of a (brief) tradition of representative governance. Note the word brief-in other words no established tradition. > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So who was the worse colonizer, Spain or England? Spain by a mile. Just compare Canada and the US with Latin America ---
**Author:** ![slowlearner](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a88e57/32.png) [@slowlearner](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/slowlearner)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/34 "2011-11-24T00:14:31Z")
the mexican constitution of 1824 was a good federalist constitution but the great size of mexico and it’s very poor trade and communications network worked against uniting the several states, as did the many peculiar divisions of mexican political life, but the real clavelito for mexico was Santa Anna who was elected president in the 1830’s and abolished the constitution, becoming one of the most disinterested military dictators any country ever suffered from. abolishing the constitution became the proximate cause of the texas rebellion, which led eventually to the U.S. stealing the richest half of mexico in the 1848 war, which would screw up any country. and, of course, mexican politics have suffered from an incredible level of long term corruption, a level up to which we are just now rising… ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 1:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/35 "2011-11-24T01:18:02Z")
> [@slowlearner](#): > > the mexican constitution of 1824 was a good federalist constitution but the great size of mexico and it’s very poor trade and communications network worked against uniting the several states, as did the many peculiar divisions of mexican political life, but the real clavelito for mexico was Santa Anna who was elected president in the 1830’s and abolished the constitution, becoming one of the most disinterested military dictators any country ever suffered from. abolishing the constitution became the proximate cause of the texas rebellion, which led eventually to the U.S. stealing the richest half of mexico in the 1848 war, which would screw up any country. and, of course, mexican politics have suffered from an incredible level of long term corruption, a level up to which we are just now rising… It should be noted the land taken by the US in the Mexican American War were lightly populated. ---
**Author:** ![Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/e8c25b/32.png) [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Really_Not_All_That_Bright)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/36 "2011-11-24T01:51:50Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > Spain by a mile. Just compare Canada and the US with Latin America Kind of cherry picking there, aren’t we? ---
**Author:** ![Strassia](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e8c25b/32.png) [@Strassia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Strassia)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 2:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/37 "2011-11-24T02:28:48Z")
> [@Slithy\_Tove](#): > > Now you’ve drifted into [The Black Legend](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_Legend), which makes the English feel great about their behavior in the 17th Century Americas in contrast to Spain’s (especially since Ireland isn’t in the Americas). > [@BrainGlutton](#): > > So who was the worse colonizer, Spain or England? Worse for who? The nation states that formed out of the freed colonies, or the indigenous populations? It is easy to argue that the English model led to more stable countries, but if you look at how many of the native population remain and what their position in society is today, the argument becomes much more murky. ---
**Author:** ![appleciders](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/85f322/32.png) [@appleciders](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/appleciders)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/38 "2011-11-24T02:31:07Z")
> [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](#): > > America got Washington because of a tradition of representative governance-the Founding Fathers didn’t come out of a vacuum. Well, that and long-term engagement in Enlightenment philosophy and theory of government. The large middle class in America gave rise to lots of idealistic armchair philosophers, and some of those turned out to be damned good at it, like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John and Sam Adams, and Ben Franklin. To say that representative government produced these sorts of men as a matter of course is a bit of a misstatement. America had some of the most important thinkers of the age framing the Constitution and serving in the early government. To dismiss the influence of Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Montesquieu is silly. > [@Really\_Not\_All\_That\_Bright](#): > > Kind of cherry picking there, aren’t we? ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/39 "2011-11-24T02:39:32Z")
> [@appleciders](#): > > Well, that and long-term engagement in Enlightenment philosophy and theory of government. The large middle class in America gave rise to lots of idealistic armchair philosophers, and some of those turned out to be damned good at it, like Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, John and Sam Adams, and Ben Franklin. To say that representative government produced these sorts of men as a matter of course is a bit of a misstatement. America had some of the most important thinkers of the age framing the Constitution and serving in the early government. To dismiss the influence of Enlightenment philosophers like Locke, Hobbes, Rousseau, and Montesquieu is silly. And I wonder whether the Mexican creole class – the only class in Mexico that could have produced a lot of armchair philosophers – even had access to those books, which might have been Indexed. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2011, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750/40 "2011-11-24T02:43:51Z")
Well, anyway, what does Mexico need **now?** Yet another revolution? It’s really hard to mount an effective revolution against public corruption, which is the real problem here. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-was-mexicos-revolution-less-successful-than-the-american-one/603750.md?page=3)