[mjp]

but it could not produce the goods it needed at home, which in the long-run proved fatal to its standing as a Great Power and as an advanced society.

Like the Romans before them,the Spanish made conquest and plunder - not industry, production, trade, and commerce - their economic goal

[pepsi_junkie]

Rome lasted 1,000 years. Spain’s time at the top was less than 200 years. Rome did have a thriving merchant class, as the US does today (a.k.a. the middle class). Spain never did. They remained feudal with two classes, the really really rich, and the really really poor. As this article points out, they shunned industrial development.
Their economy was smoke and mirrors, propped up by an inflow of gold and silver from somewhere else. The US has a bit more going on than that.

[jpsb]

"Like the Romans before them,the Spanish made conquest and plunder - not industry, production, trade, and commerce"

Lol, Rome had industry, production, trade and commerce in spades and the Roman Republic/Empire lasted almost 2,000 years 400 B.C.-1400 A.D. Or a 1,000 years if you just count the Western Empire.

[PPlains]

Re: Like the Romans before them,the Spanish made conquest and plunder - not industry, production, trade, and commerce - their economic goal

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Conquest and plunder precisely describes the history of the USA, not Spain. The American Indian was all but wipred off the face of the the USA.

According to USA standards of “color/race”, all of Central America, and almost all of South America is inhabited by Indians. The proof of “conquest and plunder” is there in the population, for those with eyes to see, to see. Spain was used by God as an instrument for spreading of the true faith to Indians of good will.