This is a fairly common refrain I've heard many times in normal conversations about America's less than honorable side of history, and while it's hard not to agree in principle, I've always wondered how much of that is a gross oversimplification. Or if it actually has been empirically measured somehow. It would be pretty fascinating either way.
Its not accurate at all. If anything, USA narrowly avoided the fate (which means: arrested development) of a resource-exporting country (like Brazil) by having the industrialist side (the North) win the economic struggle against the agrarian (the South) one. More commonly known as the Civil War.