June 21, 2026
Backyard Wars, 1688 Edition
Smashing the NIMBYs created modern capitalism
A 1600s power shake-up made growth possible — and the comments instantly turned into a NIMBY war
TLDR: The article says England’s 1688 political shake-up helped clear away local roadblocks and set the stage for modern economic growth. Commenters immediately split between "yes, too many vetoes kill progress" and "hold on, this just sounds like capitalism steamrolling people’s homes."
A spicy history lesson about England’s Glorious Revolution somehow turned into a very modern internet cage match: is getting rid of local veto power the secret sauce behind economic growth, or just a nicer way to say “bulldoze your neighborhood”? The article argues that after 1688, Parliament finally untangled a mess of overlapping rights and objections that had blocked roads, farming upgrades, and big investments for ages — basically, fewer people able to say "no," more room to actually build things. The writer’s big swing is that today’s rich countries are stuck in a similar freeze-up and may need their own peaceful anti-veto revolution.
But the comments? Oh, they were not ready to quietly salute modern capitalism. One reader immediately complained the piece’s "non-linear storytelling" made it a chore, which is the most polite possible way to say: I’m lost and annoyed. Then the real fight broke out. One camp argued that calling people "NIMBYs" — short for "Not In My Back Yard" — is itself part of the problem, because everybody loves progress until the rail line or apartment block lands next door. Another commenter went straight for the jugular: "does this article presume that lots of people want MORE capitalism?" And the darkest, funniest hot take came from someone who openly admitted they didn’t even read the article before declaring that capitalism’s whole thing is wrecking places for the benefit of people somewhere else. Brutal, honest, extremely online.
Key Points
- •The article argues that the 1688 Glorious Revolution in England created conditions for later industrial growth by shifting power to Parliament and enabling changes to property rights.
- •It describes seventeenth-century Europe as largely stagnant and overwhelmingly agrarian, despite advances in science, mathematics, and institutional innovation such as patent systems.
- •The article says fragmented property ownership, rigid inheritance rules, and poor road responsibility discouraged investment in land improvement, infrastructure, and trade.
- •It presents multiple historical examples of weak or reversed long-term growth, including Spain, Sweden, Portugal, Italy, and the Netherlands after its golden age.
- •It says reform attempts in other European states often failed because monarchs relied on nobles, clergy, and other landholding interests that resisted changes to taxes and property systems.