> An American barely surviving on minimum wage is very unlikely to move to Europe.
And even if they did they would be far less likely to contribute meaningfully to the commons in Europe to support that social safety net. Therein lies the rub.
The only way to provide the productivity that funds the social safety net is when those providing the safety net far outnumber those consuming it. As this gets out of balance, those providing it start to resent those consuming it.
When it gets out of wack, you get situations like the DDR and North Korea, where the government needs to erect walls to prevent the productive people from escaping that shitty deal.
You can only achieve this balance in a high trust society where there is social pressure not to be on the consuming side for longer than is reasonable to get back on the producing side.
Guess what destroys that high trust condition? Bringing in outsiders faster than can be assimilated and/or eliminating the expectation of assimilation as the US is doing and Europe is now starting to do.
It's not that you can't bring in outsiders and maintain a high trust society. You can. But that takes work and it requires an acknowledgement that a high trust society is something that we should be trying to preserve while we do things that can hurt the current state of trust in a country.
From a trust perspective, the US is at a low probably not seen since either the Civil War or the Great Depression. We should solve the trust issue if we are to have any hope of building the social safety net features that rely on high social trust as a foundation.
Yes, the obviousness of the limited capacity of multicultural integration should have been easily deducible to anyone in a position of real power back in the 70s and 80s when the decison was made. Yet, for several decades major countries, having decided to go down the multicultural road, also decided against a sustainable rate of integration over centuries, such as a constant 0.2% annual immigration influx until 2200 CE. The key decision makers instead favoured a destructive course of short term profits within their lifespan, and immense long term costs, that has led to the current outcomes with all the eventual consequences.
Interestingly, America is one of the best places to be if you are wealthy (part of the motivation on this thread). So it's also unlikely for a wealthy American to move.
Believe it or not, a lot people, in poverty or otherwise, really like the unique things in this country and most would rather have it this way than to move to Europe (which has its own share of major problems despite being a cool place overall).
Also, poor people rarely know the reality of other countries. I have friends in the States who firmly believe that Europe is a hellhole even though they are literally a medical emergency away from a bankruptcy.
Maybe that is because they value something more than Free Healthcare. Maybe they are not willing to trade this liberty for the safety of government services.....
Hmm Actual Freedom of Speech (we are not putting people in jail for jokes on YouTube as an example), The right to Self Defense (aka 2nd Amendment), the relationship between government and the people (i.e we believe rights transcend government and are not granted by same), I could go on and on
Yes. However, the main reason I phrased it the way I did is that "if you don't like it, move to a different continent" is a very arrogant approach.
An American barely surviving on minimum wage is very unlikely to move to Europe.