369. The Reason North America's Ex-Colonies Did So Much Better

In his well-known book, Civilization: The West and the Rest, Dr. Niall Ferguson stated, "The reason North America's ex-colonies did so much better than South America's was because British settlers established a completely different system of property rights and political representation in the North from those built by Spaniards and Portuguese in the South." (His above book, p.14) Dr. Ferguson tries to answer the big question, why in recent 500 years the West civilization prevailed in the world. Many scholars have tried to provide their convincing answers to the question.

I don’t have desire to make an attempt to formulate an authoritative answer to it. However, I want to add my small findings to the answer, probably ignored by Dr. Ferguson in his efforts to create his compelling respond to the question. I believe that Chinese factor was one of the main factors that responsible for the different results of the two Americas’ ex-colonies.

From reading this blog and Dr. Dave Wang’s publications on the founders and Chinese civilization, a reader should learn that the founders made their consistent efforts to borrow positive elements from Chinese civilization in their undertaking to build a new nation in North America. Chinese civilization served as a positive force helping colonies’ growth from their formation to the early period of the republic. For example, Benjamin Franklin recommended using the Great Wall of China to safeguard the newly founded United States during the early years of the new republic. As for how the founders used Confucius to cultivate new private virtue for the Americans, you can read Dr. Dave Wang's article Confucius in the American Founding: The Founder's efforts to use Confucian Moral Philosophy in their Endeavor to Create New Virtue for the New Nation, in Virginia Review of Asian Studies, Volume 16 (2014): 11-26.