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Closed 6 years ago.
Bernie Sanders recently described the United States as "the richest country in the history of the world," to make a point about income inequality.
I understand that this was meant as a rhetorical point, but I'm curious how historians would evaluate such a statement literally. We're not the wealthiest nation based on per capita GDP, and it seems like it would be hard to compare our economy to historical civilizations, like for instance, The Roman Empire or the British Empire under Pax Brittanica.
Is there a way that historians measure the wealth of nations comparatively over large spans of time? And is there any measure by which a historian would definitively describe the United States as the richest country in the history of the world?
This is my first post on the history site, so please be gentle.