Q - I think that what made both Canada and the USA very prosperous was the availability of a simply vast amount of unspoiled land rich in national resources of every kind and populated by relatively few Native people who were quickly displaced by the mainly European influx of people who set out to exploit this land we live on. They could not HELP but prosper!

It has taken about 500 years for the rapidly expanding population of North America to reach the point where their furious exploitation of those fortunately positioned natural resources has reached the point where the natural systems around them are now breaking down.

It's a spectacular example of not being able to see any farther than the end of your own nose while busily expanding "the economy" and making lots of money.

It can't continue much longer in that fashion...and this planet no longer provides an unspoiled "New World" to invade and exploit in that manner.

I hardly see it as the justification of the brilliance of capitalism! I see it rather as the end conclusion of a now bankrupt philosophy which pitted man against Nature by trying to put him outside it and above it, instead of placing him sensibly within it as just one creature who is a small part of Nature and who must follow Nature's ways to find himself a secure longterm future.