How America Overtook Britain to Become the World's Economic Superpower

YouTube ^ | 07/05/2026 | Uncover History

[SmokingJoe]

This video details the historical shift of economic power from the British Empire to the United States across the late 19th and 20th centuries. It argues that this transition was not an accident but a result of deliberate industrial, financial, and political strategies. Key Stages of the Economic Shift:

American Industrial Ascent (1860s - 1890s): Following its Civil War, the United States utilized Alexander Hamilton's protectionist blueprint, infrastructure investment, and the rise of powerful industrialists (Carnegie, Rockefeller, Morgan) to overtake Britain’s manufacturing output by the 1880s (3:30 - 6:50).

Impact of World War I (1914 - 1918): The conflict drained Britain's treasury, turning it from the world's largest creditor into its largest debtor, while the United States emerged as the primary global creditor (7:35 - 9:55).

World War II and the 'Arsenal of Democracy' (1939 - 1945): Through the Lend-Lease program, the U.S. gained long-term strategic leases on British military bases and forced the liquidation of British overseas assets, while American industrial production peaked to support the Allied effort (12:00 - 15:15).

Bretton Woods and the Dollar (1944): The conference established the dollar, pegged to gold, as the new global reserve currency, effectively dethroning the pound sterling (16:25 - 18:40).

The Suez Crisis (1956): The final blow to British imperial prestige occurred when the U.S. threatened to crash the pound, forcing Britain to withdraw from Egypt and signaling the end of Britain’s status as an independent great power (21:10 - 22:50).

Core Takeaways:

The video concludes by noting that while the shift seemed peaceful, it was driven by the aggressive, calculated application of economic leverage. It serves as a warning for modern policymakers to study these historical patterns, as the rise of new powers may repeat the cycle of displacement for the current economic superpower.

---

TOPICS: Chit/Chat; History
KEYWORDS: britain; ustruth

[Carry_Okie]

The 14th Amendment citizenship clause made the Federill government one stop shopping for foreign corporate investment.

[marktwain]

the Swedish tool maker who manufactured the world's standard measuring instruments had emigrated to America in the teens and had decided to just use the American definition.

-------------------------------------------------------------

L The video I watched showed the Swedish toolmaker chose a number in between the the British and American definitions, because he did not want to have two assembly lines for his precise tools for rifle manufacture. It was Carl Edvard Johansson. He developed the system in Sweden. Later, Ford bought the company outright because the Swedish company was going bankrupt.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w_yurKxgtLs

[marktwain]

What we need to know and analyze is how we allowed China to assume manufacturing power over the U.S.

---

We gave it to them, and we allowed them to steal it.

The bad assumption was if they became prosperous, they would become a liberal democracy. It was a false assumption about the nature of reality.

[desertfreedom765]

“the United States utilized Alexander Hamilton’s protectionist blueprint, infrastructure investment, and the rise of powerful industrialists”

—

But, But Tariffs are always bad. The media always tell me so.

They make Walmart junk more expensive.

[StAnDeliver]

Bretton Woods assured the eventual EU would be headed by Germany — how ironic — and simultaneously made a servant state to NATO.

[Paladin2]

King Charles remains a Dunce.

[rlmorel]

Thomas Sowell has written a superb book on this exact subject:

Conquests and Cultures: An International History

It is a book that astonishes me as he demonstrates his in depth grasp of history in addition to his established knowledge of economics. The man is broad and wide in so many ways.

He has an entire section of the book dedicated to how Britain came to be a world power, and how it was supplanted at its peak by the United States. An excellent read.

[Doc91678]

Indeed, from Nixon, Bush ‘41’, Clinton, Obama to Biden we've willfully given China access to our trade and actually encouraged intellectual theft of too many products.
By giving China access to space technology during China-Gate China was allowed to accelerate their advances.

[rlmorel]

Here is how we are going to do it, and the key is tariffs. Cutting spending wouldn't even come close. Taxing more, even worse. Both of those, if depended on, would fail as once they start biting into the debt because it would slow down the necessary expansion of the economy.

This shows why Trump, as the energy-centric President he is, is brilliant in his approach to energy. I heard Doug Burgum (Secretary of the Interior) discuss just that recently. We should harness exploitation of the wealth of resources we possess on public owned lands to take a share in solving this debt.

We will survive this $40 trillion dollar debt by:

1. Cutting taxes in a way that protects revenue.
   
   
2. Cutting spending in a responsible way by getting rid of fraud and by eliminating programs that do not benefit this country.
   
   
3. Exploiting our public-owned natural resources to decrease consumer costs and generate revenue by the leases and sales.
   
   
4. Implementing tariffs to re-shore our industrial base and expand our economy
   
   
5. Embracing AI and other derived technology to increase our industrial productivity as our expanding industrial space grows due to re-shoring by tariffs.

That will do it. We can work our way out of this debt. I can be done, I believe it.

[pierrem15]

I couldn’t recall the details: but that’s the same video I watched. I think Johansson also went with the company to Ford.

[SmokingJoe]

Britain Built the World's First Industrial Powerhouse — So Why Did It Stop Making Things?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_R76gtIuBx0

[ConservativeMind]

6. Forced harvesting redundant organs of criminals and illegals for use only by US citizens.