| | What if... what if... L. Neil Smith's science fiction includes an alternate timeline in which the American Revolution was completely successful. What would that have led to? How would a truly capitalist society have grown through the 19th century, all other things being equal?
Would the USA have beaten up Spain for her colonies and annexed Hawaii? Would the USA have entered World War I?
Just consider that even if our actual Progressives of 1914 had decided to stay out of that war. Fascism developed in France and Italy, even though they "won" that war. If they had lost and Germany won, easily, we could be sitting here claiming that scientific advances of the Curies and French industrial power would have made France invincible had the USA not accepted her Jewish refugee scientists.
Consider World War One. All of the secret treaties meant that no one knew in advance who would ally with whom. England-Germany-Russia as family ties, against France, Italy, and Austria.
Bismark forced Austria out of the German Confederation, remember. While Austria and Italy had border disputes, they were perhaps not crucial if a wider interest, say in the Balkans were common to keeping Russian pan-Slavism at bay. While Austria was politically backward, Italy and France were constitutional republics with a nominally free press and nominally free elections. They had a lot in common and that is as it finally turned out.
So, what would a truly capitalist nation do? I do not see a capitalist USA involved in World War One.
Given that, then the next question is regardless of the name of the bad guy, what would a capitalist USA have done about World War Two?
The truly capitalist USA would not have experienced a Great Depression, of course.
The truly capitalist USA would not have had colonies in the Philippines and Hawaii for Japan to attack.
The truly limited government of the the truly capitalist USA would not be playing chess in Asia, putting China here when Japan moves there and then playing a gambit.
When Japan moved on the English and Dutch colonies, the natives did not care much. They learned to care, but they did not exactly yearn for their old colonial administrators. They wanted independence from Japan as from Europe.
But what would truly capitalist England and truly capital Holland have looked like without political empires? Remember that imperialism is a financial loss. Power is not just "less efficient" than market. Political power drains market resources.
All in all, it is obvious to me that any truly capitalist nation would be largely immune to any attack, having not provided any pretext for hostility.
Granted the existence of a "mad man" in what would have to be a "mad nation" - which most of Europe was one way or aniother. Look at Switzerland.
"Everywhere, where the order is to hold, it is the duty of conscience of each fighter, even if he depends on himself alone, to fight at his assigned position. The riflemen, if overtaken or surrounded, fight in their position until no more ammunition exists. The cold steel is next.... The machine-gunners, the cannoneers of heavy weapons, the artillerymen, if in the bunker or on the field, do not abandon or destroy their weapons, or allow the enemy to seize them. Then the crews fight further like riflemen. As long as a man has another cartridge or hand weapon to use, he does not yield. " -- General Henri Guisan (1874-1960), order to Swiss troops, 1940
http://www.swissworld.org
The Swiss government had a decentralised structure, so even the Federal President was a relatively powerless official with no authority to surrender the country. Indeed, Swiss citizens had been instructed to regard any surrender broadcast as enemy lies and resist to the end. ... The main strategy, however, was deterrence rather than fighting. Even though tiny Switzerland had an army of only 430,000 men, Germany never risked invasion.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henri_Guisan
I cannot remember if this was an actual story or something I dreamed up but image a German invasion of the USA. We already had guys with machine guns riding around in cars. How about the scene from Casablanca?
Can you imagine the Germans in London?
When you get there, ask me.
Can you imagine the Germans in your own New York?
There's neighborhoods there even I would not go into.
The war turned out the way it did because the nominally free USA and UK defeated the very unfree Germans and Japanese. Meanwhile, the USSR took the brunt of the German war effort, again, two socialist countries engaged in mutual slaughter.
Japan is an island nation. After Midway, its fate was sealed. The USA could have bottled them up, and never risked an invasion.
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