I thought you guys always did things big

Hillhater said:

swbluto said:

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Interesting, no where near Sydney. And it does not have any obvious geographic advantages compared to other locations (Well, It is kind of close to America and to the Panama Canal compared to other locations. I wonder if Australia makes high use of the panama canal in export to Europe?), so that suggests it's the longitude white people naturally want to live in. According to google, Sydney is...

33.8688° S, 151.2093° E
.

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Pretty much the reason is the climate and resources (for living) around Sydney.
Remember it was the first landing point for the European colonisers and settled because of its safe deep water harbour, fresh water supply from the mountain range inshore, and the temperate climate for farming.
Those factors are still important in a largely dry and hostile environment.
Much further south and the southern ocean weather dominates ( cold , wet, windy etc), and much further north the humidity and heat become an issue. Inland only a 30 min drive and the "desert" type climate takes dominance ( hot days , v cold nights).... So, Sydney is a very plesant compromise for most folk.

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Oh yeah, I wondered about how the wind patterns related to Australia's legacy. The easterly "Roaring 40s" ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roaring_Forties ), seems to explain the historical population centers of Perth and Melbourne after the British clipper ships rounded the Cape of Good Hope in southern africa during The Golden Age of Sail ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Age_of_Sail ).

The global British Sailing Diaspora over the last 3 centuries seems like a pretty fascinating thing (What some call 'Imperialism'). The fact that the population has always been 'bursting out of Britain's seams' seems to easily explain this trend.

I find it funny that several accounts suggests that British people were widely 'tricked' to board the colonial ships to populate America. I get a strong feeling many people were simply seeking a better life in a far less crowded, less competitive place. (I have a feeling land ownership was easier in America circa 1700 than Britain 1700. But, then again... maybe it was easy just about everywhere back then? lol. Maybe not, european monarchies and the widespread feudal system of the time, often meant 'ordinary people' didn't really own land, I'm assuming. I wonder if this was true in Britain 1700?)

In the early days of coal-fired steam engines starting to power factories, the major cities quickly became horrifying places to live. Also, at the time of the Irish potato famine (where thousands were literally starving to death) the government and land-owners were exporting food for profit.

Oh, looks like "individual property rights" became a thing in Britain by the 1700s.

https://fee.org/articles/europe-meets-america-property-rights-in-the-new-world/

Interesting insights on the overall productivity/wealth differences between communism (Collective ownership) and individual ownership.

In Jamestown land was to be held and managed collectively and each colonist was to receive an equal share of the colony’s production regardless of his contribution. Two-thirds of the initial 104 colonists died of starvation and disease before the first winter, and the population, after soaring as hundreds of new colonists arrived from England, plummeted to 60 after the winter of 1609. When Governor Thomas Dale visited the colony in 1611 he found living skeletons bowling in the streets while fields went untended. After Dale partially converted the communal lands to individual three-acre tracts in 1614, productivity increased seven-fold. The remainder of the communal land was privatized by 1617.

Similarly, the Plymouth colonists began in 1620 with communal land and were near starvation when land was privatized in 1623. As William Bradford noted, the change “made all hands very industrious, so as much more corn was planted than otherwise would have been.” Taken together, natural-rights theories, legal doctrines, and practical experience combined to give the American colonists a strong sense of the role of private property rights in ensuring their survival and prosperity.

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Looks like American started off with communism, and came to realize private enterprise/ownership was far more beneficial.

It's interesting how long it's been taking China to learn that lesson. Those Brits are some smart cookies.

I don't think Jamestown counts as socialist, it was a business deal and probably better than anything they had back home. Socialist would be so many French colonies, one actually called Utopia and still bearing that name today nearly two centuries after it had been as miserable a failure as all the social democrat experiments in North America have been.

Dauntless said:

I don't think Jamestown counts as socialist, it was a business deal and probably better than anything they had back home.

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I could be wrong, but I don't think corpses were littering London's streets in 1603?

Update: Oh man, looks like I was wrong...

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

As in other European cities of the period, the plague was endemic in 17th century London.[8] Periodically, the disease would erupt into massive epidemics. There had been 30,000 deaths due to the plague in 1603, 35,000 in 1625, and 10,000 in 1636, as well as smaller numbers in other years

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I'm guessing that was good enough motivation for a few settlers of the time.