Question

Using the postulate of self interest, describe why the English colonies in North America evolved toward inclusivity whereas the Spanish colonies tended to develop in an extractive manner.

Answer 1

The postulate of self-interest, focuses that entity takes initiatives that are in the best interest of entity and serve them the best. Regarding the English colonies in the North America, they had colonies with sparse population and the area was highly underdeveloped. Hence, Britishers had to implement liberal & development programs, that could first develop the are for any further use and then British colonies could garner some profit. It made the evolution of the colonies to be inclusive, to be later on serving to the British owners. In contrast to it, Spanish control of the areas were already developed and with dense population. Hence, the Spanish rulers adopted the extraction best policies to serve their interests and collected taxes, and other wealth from already developed colonies. So, the theory of self-interest applied in both the cases, but approaches taken up by British and Spanish were different due to different level of development, type of population and density of the population.