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Comment by rossdavidh | Hacker News Reader

So, the ascent of U.S. universities to high status on a worldwide scale, happened in the first half of the 20th century really. Why? Well, because Europe was tearing itself apart in two world wars, and the U.S. sat out the first half of both of those, while receiving a lot of talent fleeing those wars. If you have the money, and the former top-of-the-heap has bombed their wealth into rubble, it doesn't require any magic formula to use that money to get top notch research talent. I don't think any of the rest of what he discusses is necessary to explain this.

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It wasn't just the U.S. receiving that talent. Latin America, particularly Mexico, Brazil, Argentina, and Chile also saw 10s of millions of European immigrants.[1] Germans, Italians, Jews, Poles, etc, as well as Japanese and Chinese. Canada and Australia also saw significant migration.

So the mere fact of the emigration of European talent doesn't quite answer the question. The role of European conflict driving emigration isn't at question here. But what distinguished U.S. schools? Why were they better able to leverage this accidental human bounty than other systems? It's not like there was a complete dearth of higher education institutions in Latin America. In the first few decades of the 20th century Argentina and Chile were some of the most well-developed nations on earth, scientifically and politically.

[1] Circa 2003 I met a 90-ish-something Mexican born, ethnic Irish docent in the Bisbee, AZ museum. His parents fled Ireland to Mexico and worked a farm in Sonora, then killed in conflict between the Mexican Army and, IIRC, Apaches. He and his older brother trekked through the desert for several days to cross (illegally, I might add) to the U.S. I always thought that was a fascinating story--a nexus of different historical threads that, as an American, you would never really consider together.

You might be interested by Operation Paperclip [0].

The US was actively looking for key scientific talent in then devastated Germany to bring back home after World War II.

This concentration of talent, coupled with intense investments in fundamental research during the Cold War and better living conditions for scientists made it an obvious choice for any academic to relocate to the United States.

Even today, the US immigration system still has a preference for foreigners who can meaningfully contribute to the advancement of science.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Paperclip

Although the Soviets had a very similar system (Operation Osoaviakhim) to get German scientists after the war, although less well known (and also a bit less voluntary on the part of the scientists)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Osoaviakhim

The Soviet's didn't really know how to properly make use of "their" Germans though, at least for working on concrete projects. Only very few designs of German teams actually made it into production (like the turboprop engines used in the Tu-95: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tupolev_Tu-95), but the Soviets never trusted their Germans enough to really integrate them longterm with Russian teams, instead the goal was to extract the German knowledge as fast as possible and then "dump" them (most German engineers and researchers captured by the Soviets were allowed to return to Germany around the mid- to late-50s, leading to interesting, but ultimately doomed projects like the first German jet airliner Baade 152: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baade_152).

Meanwhile the "American Germans" were welcomed, decided to make the US their new home and contributed heavily to the US space programme.

Easy to explain because the German fascists made a perfect match with the American fascists, whilst Russian communists had a problem with German fascists, plus under Stalin/Berisha everybody had a problem, also communist Germans and communist Russians. They nevertheless built up the Russian rocket and nuclear program.

In the US the germans could build the rocket program by their own without much US interference, until Lyndon Johnson broke it up.

Could you please elaborate on how "American fascists" are playing a role here? Sounds far fetched.

I think s/he is hinting at the fact that many Europeans and Americans believed that Hitler had the right idea about race and religion. Eugenics was a big thing in the US between WW1 and WW2. I also remember reading that one of the main reasons the ivy-leagues decided to change its admission system from money and meritocracy to the "search for all round candidate" also partially stemmed from anti-semitism - all the essay and interview bullshit that we see today was created to find reasons to reject the "wrong kind". Some old Harvard or Yale (don't remember which) admission applications of candidates rejected even had hand written notes, "looks too much like a jew". ( https://www.businessinsider.in/education/harvard-is-being-ac... ).

I don't have any sources to back this up, but it seems to me that you highlight this fact yourself in your argument. The US had the stability, the institutions and finances to enable the emigres talent to do the work instead of (in the extreme example) of fleeting for their lives.

What made you think it was schools that took advantage of the situation ?

I think a huge fact is simply the massive population and tax base. A lot of academic research is funded by the federal government. Most countries simply do not have the population or means to afford such a wide variety of directed research programs as the NSF, NIH, DOE, NOAA, USDA, etc., not to mention research grants from defense agencies. Academics from other countries regularly move their careers here to get research funding, we don't even produce enough local talent for some fields to meet the need for research.

Most of the european scientists went to the already famous US universities, not to Argentina, Brazil or Chile. Europe basically lost every scientist before, during or after WW2 to the US. Probably the biggest brain drain in history.

e.g. "Operation Paperclip was a secret US intelligence program in which more than 1,600 German scientists, engineers, and technicians, [...]" -Wikipedia

Yes, so obvious.

This is a general misconception you hear that America's dominance in the world (and universities) was due to the "old world" imploding in WWII. It obviously helped the US but already in the early second half of the 19th C America was dominating the industrial revolution, by a wide margin, and had cemented it's place as top GDP (overall and per capita), top global talent magnet, and top overall technical education levels.

IMO America has been the center of innovation with top universities because it is the top place where talent, globally, wants to go to make their fortune. This has been going on for more than a century.

Whatever country is the top magnet for global talent is going to have the top university systems as well as be the center of the world scene long term. E.g. if another country, say China, wants to succeed into this role it must be the top destination for global talent.

This is just factually untrue the GDP of the British empire was much larger than that of the US and in terms of scientific innovation Germany was widely considered to be at the forefront with France and UK as equals. The US was largely a scientific backwater.

I do not know what textbooks you read or economic history lectures you took to reach your conclusion. This is the second half of the 19th C, the US was absolutely dominating the industrial revolution in the era that produced the Carnegies Rockefellers JP Morgans and dozens of others of similar stature. Entire new industries and processes like interchangeable parts, telegraph, petroleum products, railraods, rise of malls/retail, electricity, meat packing, industrial farming, investment banking etc. was all either originating from or reaching heights in the US, which also had the highest patents per capita rate, and an international reputation for a general population that was technically competent for the industrial rev.

(Not to mention the gov was essentially giving away 160 acre plots to anyone who wanted to settle elsewhere, which created intense pressure to mechanize due to menial labor shortages, not to mention a broader based prosperity.)

> It obviously helped the US but already in the early second half of the 19th C America was dominating the industrial revolution, by a wide margin, and had cemented it's place as top GDP (overall and per capita)

If you look it up you can see for yourself that you aren’t saying true things.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/7174996.stm

The UK’s GDP per capita was still massively higher than the US’s as late as 1870. It didn’t overtake until 1890.

And the US obviously had a relatively late industrial revolution and adoption of things like railroads because they began in other countries and were imported.

I think like usual reality is more complex. The reason why America became such a economic powerhouse by the beginning of the 20th century was clearly the large scale immigration to a land that was generally considered the land of opportunities, without the crust of established economic structures in Europe. Someone from any social background could make it there. Due to this background there was a lot of aversion to "elites" forming which I have seen given as reasons for the high top income tax and the strong actions against monopolies . Now the growth founded also by large scale displacement and killing of the native population and slavery would also have contributed.

I don't think that alone would have made the US into the superpower it is today, in particular in terms of science. That was clearly a result of the two world wars that devastated Europe. If you look at the scientific discoveries the US really became the powerhouse after/during WW2.

It's somewhat ironic that the US which was founded on escaping the large "unfair" inequalities of old Europe and a strong anti-establishment/anti-elite basis has since become a beacon of a new elite/establishment and inequality. The "anti elitism" that was always part of the US psyche is now almost completely about intellectual elite (scientific/academic elite) not economic elite.

>It's somewhat ironic that the US which was founded on escaping the large "unfair" inequalities of old Europe and a strong anti-establishment/anti-elite basis has since become a beacon of a new elite/establishment and inequality.

It's probably one of those cyclical things in life. Your former greatness ends up becoming a burden that keeps growing. Eventually it'll become so heavy that things fall apart. From the ashes rises a new greatness that eventually...

US views on China repeatedly remind me of old-regime European commentary on a younger US.

Here's an example:

"The following comparison will illustrate my meaning. During the campaigns of the Revolution the French introduced a new system of tactics into the art of war, which perplexed the oldest generals, and very nearly destroyed the most ancient monarchies in Europe. They undertook (what had never before been attempted) to make shift without a number of things which had always been held to be indispensable in warfare; they required novel exertions on the part of their troops which no civilized nations had ever thought of; they achieved great actions in an incredibly short space of time; and they risked human life without hesitation to obtain the object in view. The French had less money and fewer men than their enemies; their resources were infinitely inferior; nevertheless they were constantly victorious, until their adversaries chose to imitate their example.

"The Americans have introduced a similar system into their commercial speculations; and they do for cheapness what the French did for conquest. The European sailor navigates with prudence; he only sets sail when the weather is favorable; if an unforseen accident befalls him, he puts into port; at night he furls a portion of his canvas; and when the whitening billows intimate the vicinity of land, he checks his way, and takes an observation of the sun. But the American neglects these precautions and braves these dangers. He weighs anchor in the midst of tempestuous gales; by night and by day he spreads his sheets to the wind; he repairs as he goes along such damage as his vessel may have sustained from the storm; and when he at last approaches the term of his voyage, he darts onward to the shore as if he already descried a port. The Americans are often shipwrecked, but no trader crosses the seas so rapidly. And as they perform the same distance in a shorter time, they can perform it at a cheaper rate.

"The European touches several times at different ports in the course of a long voyage; he loses a good deal of precious time in making the harbor, or in waiting for a favorable wind to leave it; and he pays daily dues to be allowed to remain there. The American starts from Boston to go to purchase tea in China; he arrives at Canton, stays there a few days, and then returns. In less than two years he has sailed as far as the entire circumference of the globe, and he has seen land but once. It is true that during a voyage of eight or ten months he has drunk brackish water and lived upon salt meat; that he has been in a continual contest with the sea, with disease, and with a tedious existence; but upon his return he can sell a pound of his tea for a half-penny less than the English merchant, and his purpose is accomplished."

--Alexis de Tocqueville, "Democracy in America"

http://resources.utulsa.edu/law/classes/rice/Jurisprudence/E...

Nice quote, and fun read - thank you.

I think this is also the explanation for American success in the 20th century. The United States as we know it is, like all empires, built on the spoils of war. The United States was able to capture the best and brightest scientists. These people were brought into a system whose structure and demands were dictated by the needs of a growing government and military. This is the fuel that drove American exceptionalism.

> built on the spoils of war

Negative, you may have confused the US with Rome. The US is the beneficiary of tremendous natural resources, temperate climate across a vast geography, natural isolation from external threats, and mostly very stable governmental structures.

Those natural resources were acquired by conquering and displacing the original inhabitants.

That's a statement that applies to nearly every society ever. What's the point of saying it? The post you're replying to is talking about a unique distinction in how 2 societies maintained power.

> That's a statement that applies to nearly every society ever. What's the point of saying it?

There's something to be said for relevance. It may be true for nearly every society, but the amount of relevance varies. The US conquered an astonishing amount of territory in recent history, which makes it relevant.

Much less than the Soviet Union.

Oh oh oh I have one: a peculiar form of chattel slavery considered more brutal and unforgiving than that of Rome.

The American South was built on slavery, but slavery was a limiting factor in the economic development of the United States and particularly the South. It's why the industrial revolution happened in the North. And as the largest market for Southern cotton Europe was at least as much a benefactor of American Slavery.

Some people spin this narrative because they think it secures African-Americans' place as legitimate and essential builders of American wealth and power. And sometimes also to justify reparations. But that seems unnecessary and a reactionary narrative that is simply the flip side of the coin of American racist ideology. There's no need to justify, let alone rank, the contributions of any group in the U.S., especially when you do it by reviving horribly misguided economic theories.

Also, don't forget that slavery was endemic to European colonialism in the Americas. AFAIU, only a fraction (less than 10%?) of African slaves ended up in the United States. Brazil alone, for example, may have received upwards of 40%. If slavery were the secret sauce to economic development, the U.S. should be one of the poorest countries in the Americas.

> slavery was a limiting factor

I would love a source for this

>Also, don't forget that slavery was endemic to European colonialism in the Americas. AFAIU, only a fraction (less than 10%?) of African slaves ended up in the United States. Brazil alone, for example, may have received upwards of 40%. If slavery were the secret sauce to economic development, the U.S. should be one of the poorest countries in the Americas.

I don't follow this, why would they be the poorest? Is this based on your previous claim that slavery being a limiting factor?

> Recent research argues that among former New World colonies a nation’s past dependence on slave labor was important for its subsequent economic development (Engerman and Sokoloff, 1997, 2002). It is argued that specialization in plantation agriculture, with its use of slave labor, caused economic inequality, which concentrated power in the hands of a small elite, adversely affecting the development of domestic institutions needed for sustained economic growth. I test for these relationships looking across former New World economies and across states and counties within the U.S. The data shows that slave use is negatively correlated with subsequent economic development. However, there is no evidence that this relationship is driven by large scale plantation slavery, or that the relationship works through slavery’s effect on economic inequality.

https://scholar.harvard.edu/files/nunn/files/domestic_slaver...

I haven't actually read much research in this area in particular. Frankly, it just seems intuitive to me based on all the literature I have read about American political, legal, and industrial development; the development of other countries, such as in SE Asia; and especially works related to the so-called "resource curse": https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Resource_curse

> This is done by examining whether there is evidence that countries that relied most heavily on slave use in the late 18th and early 19th centuries are poorer today.

How would this ever apply to the country with the largest economy by the turn of the 20th century?

> I would love a source for this

For one thing, the Confederacy was crippled by its inability to supply its military. The Civil War was arguably the first industrial war, and the slave economy failed miserably at it.

Those "tremendous natural resources" were all the result of the Indian wars. America was at war nearly constantly expanding its empire from 1775-1865.

Surely you didn't think north America was terra nullis or that the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources to European colonists?

Anglo-Powhatan Wars (3 separate wars), Pequot War, Kieft's War, Peach Tree War, Esopus Wars, King Philip's War, Tuscarora War, Yamasee War, Dummer's War, Pontiac's War, Lord Dunmore's War, Cherokee-American Wars, Northwest Indian War, the Creek War, First and Second Seminole Wars, Texas-Indian Wars, Comanche-Mexico War, Cayuse War, Rogue River Wars, Yakima War, Puget Sound War, Spokane War, Snake War, Nez Perce War, Bannock War, Sheepeater Indian War, Navajo Wars, Yuma War, Mohave War, Apache Wars, Black Hawk War, Yavapai Wars, California Indian Wars, Walker War, Paiute War, Goshute War, White River War, Red Cloud's War, Colorado War, Great Sioux War, Dakota War....

And I'm sure I'm leaving a bunch out. The US is definitely built on the spoils of war.

"Spoils of war" implies some degree of active, ongoing conquest beyond the borders of a nation, but the United States has relied almost entirely on resources within its own borders to gain its power.

You could say that America was "expanding its empire" but there was not substantial growth after the Gadsden purchase and most of the growth of universities (and the bulk of American power) came much later.

Attributing research and production to the spoils of wars fought nearly a century ago is kind of a reach.

"Spoils of war" on Wikipedia redirects to "war looting" or: "A prize of war is a piece of enemy property or land seized by a belligerent party during or after a war or battle, typically at sea." https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Prize_of_war

>but the United States has relied almost entirely on resources within its own borders to gain its power.

How did it attain control of those resources? You haven't addressed the parent's point.

> the natives just willingly gave away all those natural resources

The native Americans didn't even know about most of the natural resources, and what they did know about, they mostly didn't make any use of. That's a big part of why they ended up losing the wars against the European settlers: the latter actually turned those resources into wealth.

That blanket statement holds no water. Apart from -great- cultural differences - e.g. respect for nature - indigenous Americans had -a lot- of knowledge about their world, and how to care for it.

May we have time to catch up with that knowledge.

> Apart from -great- cultural differences - e.g. respect for nature

You can respect nature and still make use of natural resources. Even if native Americans did the former (see below--some did but many did not), they fell far short on the latter. There were many natural resources in the US that native Americans never made any use of, and European settlers did.

This is an example of the more general fact that the native Americans did not build very much wealth, while European settlers built much, much more. The native American cultures would never have built the medium through which we are having this discussion, for example. Or modern medicine, or modern sanitation, or all of the other things that have led to a huge increase in both average length and average quality of life.

> indigenous Americans had -a lot- of knowledge about their world, and how to care for it.

Perhaps some did. Many did not. Travel around the US Southwest and see how many sites there are where native American tribes lived and either died out or had to move on because they had mismanaged the local resources to the point where those resources could no longer support the tribe.

Unfortunately this isn't the case.

The Pleistocene North American mass extinction, which wiped out the saber-toothed tiger and North American mastodon, was a result of hunting pressure about 10,000 years ago.

The positive stereotypes you are selling aren't real. They're largely the product of Hollywood (e.g. the "Crying Indian" ads), just like the negative stereotypes of the same peoples. Native Americans are people; given the opportunity they wreck nature, and once given guns and horses they stepped up their hunting of buffalo, for example, to levels that would have been unsustainable even if white people hadn't been killing the Buffalo off at far greater rates at the same time.

Amen that. Speaking of resource-extraction, I'll just add-in US history in South America for over a century. There the wars were, and still are, fought by the dictators against their own people. For example, Thatcher's 'friend' Pinochet.

The Soviet Union had much more natural resources available.

But not a temperate climate over its whole geography or stable government structures over the last 200 years.

The USSR was stable for 70 years. Long enough.

The problem was lack of free markets. Free markets are the common thread among successful economic powers. Not population, not resources, not rivers, etc.

Agreed on the free markets point. Anything else is a nonstarter.

Huh? I don't think there was a single moment of stability anywhere in the whole Eastern bloc (was born there). Especially not political stability, and much less economical. People and businesses were continually deliberately destroyed on massive scale the entire time.

Though yeah, free markets are key.

As well as colonialism and puppet governments in Latin America.

I often think this factor is vastly under estimated. The US geography is almost the perfect design for building a prosperous and stable society. A massive breadbasket of fertile interior flanked on each side by coastline with access to trade with all corners of the earth but still isolated and highly defensible. Every natural resource you could possibly need available in abundance without ever needing reliance on external countries. If you were sitting down to a game like SimCity and constructing a country you'd probably make something like that, but here it was "by accident" just ripe for the industrial revolution to take hold and transform it.

Japan has none of this, and yet is highly successful.

But it's not number one, perhaps party because of geography too (size of country, lack of natural resources, location).

Relative to their size, they have done extremely well. The lack of natural resources has not held them back, nor has the location, lack of rivers, etc.

The feature that matters is a free market.

The best thing a poor country can do for its citizens is move towards a free market economy.

At a different scale and time Japan was indeed blessed with natural resources.

In the revised edition of Guns, Germs and Steel Jared Diamond tells us that the "agriculture package" sent from the Fertile Crescent 5kya arrived here late: 2.3kya - perhaps 1,000 years later than expected.

The purported reason: Jomon was perhaps the most sophisticated hunter-gatherer society ever. For instance, pottery was created by Jomon hunter-gatherers earlier than anywhere else.

In part, because of the sheer abundance of natural resources in Japan, the Jomon peoples had developed a rich society that agriculturism for a long time simply couldn't compete with.

The free market in the US explains it a lot better.

(The USSR also captured a lot of German scientists, the results of which were the Soviet successes with rockets and jet aircraft, for example.)

West europe didn't have good options to go to USSR. Politically it was a no-no, going there meant you would be tainted as a spy even if you went back after a while.

So, sure the USSR might not have been stellar, but in the cold war the camps were already cut either way and you didn't choose the US or USSR.

You only chose to stay were you are or go for top entity of your block.

Plus it might be one of those things were once you have momentum there's a positive feedback loop.

Top researchers may want to move to work with others in their field.

I would add to that control over top scientific journals. Before the war people used to publish scientific work in other languages, and in local journals. After the war the US took more control over published research. But it's also because of the money, and a good strategy ofc

Plus, the US is literally printing its own money with abandon.

Also Nazi Germany. German universities just tanked while many American universities became the home of Jews fleeing Nazism.

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