Excuse me, no.

In 1629, England had neither government nor democracy.

I propose an alternative hypothesis, the Puritan Hypothesis: chiefly, that the conquerors of Massachusetts were a race of kings such as seen not before nor since. To wit,

Whoever has had opportunity of acquaintance with society in New England, during the last twenty-five years, with those middle and with those leading sections that may constitute any just representation of the character and aim of the community, will have been struck with the great activity of thought and experimenting. His attention must be commanded by the signs that the Church, or religious party, is falling from the church nominal, and is appearing in temperance and non-resistance societies, in movements of abolitionists and of socialists, and in very significant assemblies, called Sabbath and Bible Conventions, — composed of ultraists, of seekers, of all the soul of the soldiery of dissent, and meeting to call in question the authority of the Sabbath, of the priesthood, and of the church. In these movements, nothing was more remarkable than the discontent they begot in the movers. The spirit of protest and of detachment, drove the members of these Conventions to bear testimony against the church, and immediately afterward, to declare their discontent with these Conventions, their independence of their colleagues, and their impatience of the methods whereby they were working. They defied each other, like a congress of kings, each of whom had a realm to rule, and a way of his own that made concert unprofitable. What a fertility of projects for the salvation of the world! One apostle thought all men should go to farming; and another, that no man should buy or sell: that the use of money was the cardinal evil; another, that the mischief was in our diet, that we eat and drink damnation. These made unleavened bread, and were foes to the death to fermentation. It was in vain urged by the housewife, that God made yeast, as well as dough, and loves fermentation just as dearly as he loves vegetation; that fermentation develops the saccharine element in the grain, and makes it more palatable and more digestible. No; they wish the pure wheat, and will die but it shall not ferment. Stop, dear nature, these incessant advances of thine; let us scotch these ever-rolling wheels! Others attacked the system of agriculture, the use of animal manures in farming; and the tyranny of man over brute nature; these abuses polluted his food. The ox must be taken from the plough, and the horse from the cart, the hundred acres of the farm must be spaded, and the man must walk wherever boats and locomotives will not carry him. Even the insect world was to be defended, — that had been too long neglected, and a society for the protection of ground-worms, slugs, and mosquitos was to be incorporated without delay. With these appeared the adepts of homœopathy, of hydropathy, of mesmerism, of phrenology, and their wonderful theories of the Christian miracles! Others assailed particular vocations, as that of the lawyer, that of the merchant, of the manufacturer, of the clergyman, of the scholar. Others attacked the institution of marriage, as the fountain of social evils. Others devoted themselves to the worrying of churches and meetings for public worship; and the fertile forms of antinomianism among the elder puritans, seemed to have their match in the plenty of the new harvest of reform.

With this din of opinion and debate, there was a keener scrutiny of institutions and domestic life than any we had known, there was sincere protesting against existing evils, and there were changes of employment dictated by conscience. No doubt, there was plentiful vaporing, and cases of backsliding might occur. But in each of these movements emerged a good result, a tendency to the adoption of simpler methods, and an assertion of the sufficiency of the private man. Thus it was directly in the spirit and genius of the age, what happened in one instance, when a church censured and threatened to excommunicate one of its members, on account of the somewhat hostile part to the church, which his conscience led him to take in the anti-slavery business; the threatened individual immediately excommunicated the church in a public and formal process. This has been several times repeated: it was excellent when it was done the first time, but, of course, loses all value when it is copied. Every project in the history of reform, no matter how violent and surprising, is good, when it is the dictate of a man’s genius and constitution, but very dull and suspicious when adopted from another. It is right and beautiful in any man to say, ‘I will take this coat, or this book, or this measure of corn of yours,’ — in whom we see the act to be original, and to flow from the whole spirit and faith of him; for then that taking will have a giving as free and divine: but we are very easily disposed to resist the same generosity of speech, when we miss originality and truth to character in it.

There was in all the practical activities of New England, for the last quarter of a century, a gradual withdrawal of tender consciences from the social organizations. There is observable throughout, the contest between mechanical and spiritual methods, but with a steady tendency of the thoughtful and virtuous to a deeper belief and reliance on spiritual facts.

In politics, for example, it is easy to see the progress of dissent. The country is full of rebellion; the country is full of kings. Hands off! let there be no control and no interference in the administration of the affairs of this kingdom of me. Hence the growth of the doctrine and of the party of Free Trade, and the willingness to try that experiment, in the face of what appear incontestable facts. I confess, the motto of the Globe newspaper is so attractive to me, that I can seldom find much appetite to read what is below it in its columns, “The world is governed too much.” So the country is frequently affording solitary examples of resistance to the government, solitary nullifiers, who throw themselves on their reserved rights; nay, who have reserved all their rights; who reply to the assessor, and to the clerk of court, that they do not know the State; and embarrass the courts of law, by non-juring, and the commander-in-chief of the militia, by non-resistance.

…

With this din of opinion and debate, there was a keener scrutiny of institutions and domestic life than any we had known, there was sincere protesting against existing evils, and there were changes of employment dictated by conscience. No doubt, there was plentiful vaporing, and cases of backsliding might occur. But in each of these movements emerged a good result, a tendency to the adoption of simpler methods, and an assertion of the sufficiency of the private man. Thus it was directly in the spirit and genius of the age, what happened in one instance, when a church censured and threatened to excommunicate one of its members, on account of the somewhat hostile part to the church, which his conscience led him to take in the anti-slavery business; the threatened individual immediately excommunicated the church in a public and formal process. This has been several times repeated: it was excellent when it was done the first time, but, of course, loses all value when it is copied. Every project in the history of reform, no matter how violent and surprising, is good, when it is the dictate of a man’s genius and constitution, but very dull and suspicious when adopted from another. It is right and beautiful in any man to say, ‘I will take this coat, or this book, or this measure of corn of yours,’ — in whom we see the act to be original, and to flow from the whole spirit and faith of him; for then that taking will have a giving as free and divine: but we are very easily disposed to resist the same generosity of speech, when we miss originality and truth to character in it.

…

New England Reformers, by Ralph Waldo Emerson

“An Englishman enters a naval action with the firm conviction that his duty is to hurt his enemies and help his friends and allies without looking out for directions in the midst of the fight; and while he thus clears his mind of all subsidiary distractions, he rests in confidence on the certainty that his comrades, actuated by the same principles as himself, will be bound by the sacred and priceless principle of mutual support.

Accordingly, both he and his fellows fix their minds on acting with zeal and judgement upon the spur of the moment, and with the certainty that they will not be deserted. Experience shows, on the contrary, that a Frenchman or a Spaniard, working under a system which leans to formality and strict order being maintained in battle, has no feeling for mutual support, and goes into battle with hesitation, preoccupied with the anxiety of seeing or hearing the commander-in-chief’s signals for such and such maneuvers…

Thus they can never make up their minds to seize any favourable opportunity that may present itself. They are fettered by the strict rule to keep station which is enforced upon then in both navies, and the usual result is that in one place ten of their ships may be firing on four, while in another four of their comrades may be receiving the fire of ten of the enemy. Worst of all they are denied the confidence inspired by mutual support, which is as surely maintained by the English as it is neglected by us, who will not learn from them.”

https://chicagoboyz.net/archives/56200.html

Technology is very important, but it’s not everything. Culture is real.

Look in an old map of the US for the “Great American Desert”. It described a vast area of trackless, useless land. We now call that land, “Iowa, Nebraska, etc.”

This whole Isegoria posting and comments are an attempt to explain why the arrow hit a target that was drawn after the arrow landed. Always fun to do. Always hard to do.

Of the speculations so far, I like @Kirk’s.

I fear I have to disagree with your premise. After all, if superior technology was the driver, why then did the Persians fall to Alexander, and the Chin to Ghengis Khan?

Modern warfare started back around the time that the Dutch brought back drill. In that period, I would say that much of military technology was a level playing field–If you wanted it, you could do like the Turks did and hire someone to build your bloody great cannon for you.

So, tech was not the primary advantage. The real advantage that the Brits had in India was that they had their shit much more together than the locals, and that they were motivated. India was not some stone-age backwater; they had guns of their own, and fairly effective military forces. What they didn’t have going for them was a sense of unity or organization, and they still don’t. Good grief, it’s the 21st Century, and India still can’t manage to produce a workable indigenous infantry weapon. Their military procurement is entirely of a piece with the rest of their history–Bribery and back-scratching as an art form, rendering them nearly entirely ineffective on the battlefield. I would need a three-volume book to lay out the malfeasance and idiocy inherent to their procurement programs, and that still wouldn’t do it justice.

So… Culture, I would say. The tech is a side issue. What it boils down to is culture, will, and sheer bloody-mindedness. Once the Brits lost the will and the bloody-mindedness, they lost their empire.

So much hinges on technology. I say technology makes the times, and some cultures are better at creating technology than are others.

Both Spain and Britain had technology for conquest, but Spain had it first. Britain later developed technology for the improvement of quality of life and population growth. Spain never did. I think cultural priorities may have had something to do with it.

The conquered peoples did not have the same level of technology. That’s why they got conquered.

Great inventors drive history. The conquerors merely use what the inventors give them.

I could have phrased that more clearly…

What I was getting at was that the Brits in India were far more like the Spaniards in South America than they were with their own green-fields colonies in North America, Australia, and New Zealand. In terms of taking things over and then running them for their own benefit, India looks an awful lot like the Incan or Aztec empires that Spain took over and exploited. And, yes, the Indians did get treated better in some ways, but that’s got more to do with the times and the technology than anything else. I don’t doubt but that if the Spanish had been doing the colonial thing during the Industrial Revolution, then Mexico and Peru would have gotten trains the way India did.

Well Eugenism was going full in Protestant countries while Catholic ones resisted strongly. A veneer of scientysm and the whole individuality disappears from Protestant culture in one go.

It maybe that the reason is that some cultures allow different ways to measure value while others are conservative.

Catholic Church had a sort first multinational in Knight Templars — they had the same fate as Jews along history: A french King was indebted to them so he managed that the Pope called them heretics and burned at stake…no more debt. Italy Republics and Monarchies had the first banks.

Which it also creates, because Islam says it’s OK to have four wives while also knocking up your black African concubines. So within a century or two of a nation falling to Islam, everyone in it is brown and stupid.

Monogamy (real monogamy, no sex outside marriage and prostitution) forces men to be more selective in who they impregnate, and consanguinity laws force them to marry outside their tribe, so that tribes eventually dissolve and merge into a nation.

USA is like Goldilocks. Not too hot. Not too cold. Just right.