Decline of the Spanish Empire

>>1585454
We have like 2 other threads of the exact same subject.

>>1585454
>Was it primarily inflation from the devaluation of silver? A desire for Catholicism in all subjects leading to instability and opportunistic war? Did the very poor placement of a capital in Madrid becoming a significant burden on the economy play a part? Etc.

None of that
It was France
France killed Spanish dominance in the mid 17th century and then finished off what was left of Spain with the invasion under Napoleon (which resulted the decolonization wars in Latin America)

>>1585454

You misunderstand "the Spanish Empire". It wasn't a carefully schemed plan plotted by upper oligarchs and merchants into acquiring useful clay and resources in order to create a sustainable network of trade routes and commerce for shekels and domination. Instead, it was a variety of pretty much autonomous states with their own laws, currencies and etc coming under the authority of the same monarch. The first merge, Castille and Aragon was on purpose, the second one, with the burgundian realm happened by purely dynastic accident. The discovery of America was another accident; the exploration and conquest of that continent and other places around the world driven by a renaissence desire to expand christianity across the globe. The Portuguese Empire is actually the first global one that was planned and conceived from a strictly commercial point of view.

The gold and silver of America were thus not invested in any long-term carefully planned scheme to develop commercial corporations n shit because of the structure itself of the realm and its foundations. It was essentially medieval with touches of Renaissence splendour.

The abundance of gold and silver actually empoverished the population through inflation, and heavy taxation to support wars -the majority of defensive nature- while the upper nobility got really wealthy and displayed a luxurius way of life.

By the XVII century, the core of the realm, Castille, had been empoverish to death, other realms wouldn't contribute funds as easily due to their own charters and privileges. A combination of a development of merchantilist-shekelian societal structures in other powers, namely the Dutch, the French and the English, getting rid of Renaissence values for pre-capitalistic ones combined with necessary predations on the Spanish overseas posessions allowed them to take off and surpass the Sp. Realm economically. Also, the disconected/clusterfuckish nature of the realm in Yurop made it complicated to defend.