Things may look a bit different from a (West) European perspective. I know enough people who used to live in the US but left, partly because they did not want to inflict US citizenship upon their children. Among all wealthy countries, US citizenship is probably the least desirable one if you don't plan to live there permanently.

In any case, the expat/immigrant situation is familiar to many Europeans as well. The real difference is that most European countries are nation states, while the US is a land of immigrants and their descendants. "American" is an adopted identity. You become American if you have lived in the US long enough and consider yourself American. In contrast, "German" is an assigned identity. You are German if other Germans generally see you as German. You cannot become fully integrated into a nation state as long as other people pay attention to your origins.

Some Americans I know make a big difference between being a settler nation, like those who came to where there was no civilisation but hunters/gatherers, vs immigrants who move into the blooming civilisation

That's like, the difference between one ship full of Pilgrims and every subsequent ship, or between one wagon train and every subsequent wagon train, or between the people on the Mayflower and their kids (who showed up in a society that already existed).

The people who draw the distinction generally don't like the pilgrims settlers because of what they did when they got here. In contrast to immigrants, who did not "settle" anyone or any land. You can see a lot of this in today's politics as well.

The land is still being settled today; eg. Trump allowing previously unsettled land to be destroyed for oil and gas extraction

You are correct in that this difference between settler and immigrant is a gradient, but outside of programming few things are simply yes/no

It's more than a gradient, it's like counting up ones to make 1,000,000. Which one is showing up to a small number and making it big, and which ones are showing up to a big number and hanging around?

Ah, yes, the “Daughters of the American Revolution” types.

somewhere that you claim is hunters/gatherers*

Just because the farming and ranching looks different, doesn't make it not farming or ranching

this is a major factor to consider.

Also, the 20th century saw massive changes in where people lived compared to "their country".

prior to world war 1, this was a far more mixed affair (see, the austrian-hungarian empire and the greeks in anatolia).

> emigrants to other countries from America tend to stay American

I don't think that's true of Australia. American Australians tend to assimilate pretty well, and after a while people tend to mostly forget they were Americans originally, even if they still have a bit of an accent. The Australian politician Kristina Keneally is an example. She was born in Nevada, grew up in Ohio, didn't move to Australia until her 20s. But I don't think anyone really thinks of her as "an American". She's an Australian politician. You might like her politics or you might dislike them, but nobody really cares about where she was born and grew up. She's one of us now.

The Australian media has even taken to (at times) calling Virginia Roberts Giuffre (the most notable public victim of Jeffrey Epstein) "an Australian", without qualification. (She married an Australian man, had kids with him, now they live here.) Whereas the American media just calls her an American.

The Australian media always wanted to view Mel Gibson as an Australian, even when he said that he himself identified as an American rather than as an Australian. (I think they are less keen on that now that he has made himself a bit of a persona non grata through his behaviour. America, you can have him.)

Just googled Kristina Keneally. You're living out very relevant info.

Born to and raised by Australian mother. Then married Australian man before moving to Australia.

I think the blood and subsequent marriage connection helped immensely in how she is viewed. I think that would be the same for most other Euro nations. At least one parent of the land along with partner from the land and residing in the land for 30+ years.

> Born to and raised by Australian mother

I really don't think most people care about the fact she has an Australian mother. In fact, I myself had forgotten that fact. If she hadn't, I don't think it would really make a difference to how she is viewed in Australia. (My mother was born in Scotland but calling myself “Scottish” feels weird, like the real Scots are going to call me out for being a fake one.)

Virginia Roberts Giuffre has been called an "Australian" by the Australian media (e.g. [0]) even though as far as I am aware she has no Australian ancestry. She is also married to an Australian man but I think you are putting more emphasis on that fact than what counts. Most Australians, if they think of her as an Australian, it is because she has adopted this country as her homeland through immigration, not because she married an Australian. If she married an Australian but stayed in the US, nobody would think of her as Australian. If she had moved here as a single person, or with a non-Australian husband, people probably still would.

In somewhat of the reverse, the British politician Patricia Hewitt was born in Australia and grew up here, but I'd probably think of her as British first and Australian very much second. The country in which she has lived the bulk of her adult life, and in which she has had her political career, is more significant in identifying her than where she was born and raised.

[0] https://www.watoday.com.au/national/western-australia/virgin...

Australia, like the US, is an immigrant nation, you can move there from anywhere and be considered an Australian within a generation.

In which case the real difference here is not where one is immigrating from (America or elsewhere), but rather where one is immigrating to: an immigrant-dominated society like Australia, Canada, New Zealand, US, maybe Argentina too; or one dominated by people whose ancestors have lived there for countless centuries, such as most European, Middle Eastern, African or Asian countries.

The original quote we were discussing, "Immigrants to America tend to become American; emigrants to other countries from America tend to stay American" is mistaken because it is viewing it primarily in terms of Americanness, instead of the nature of the society receiving the immigrant

There aren't all that many immigrant nations like the US though. Canada, Australia, New Zealand, that's pretty much it? Maybe Singapore or the UK at a stretch.

I agree there aren't many. It still is myopic to view this as something specific to America, as opposed to a generic quality possessed by all immigrant-dominated societies, and the fact that there are only a few such societies doesn't change that. Many (obviously not all) American authors do tend to view it in that myopic US-centric way. America is never as exceptional as some Americans think.

Most of the Caribbean (save Cuba/DR?), Taiwan, Mauritius, Seychelles, Maldives, Argentina, Chile, maybe Uruguay/Costa Rica/Panama. Singapore doesn't seem like a stretch. The UK doesn't really count. Granted, most of these are pretty small.

The "truth" you see is the designed outcome of soft diplomacy through the export of US culture via movies, television and the internet.

I know lots of non-US folk who love the values and opportunities they experience in America. But I also know lots of others who don't.

I see my own country adopting more and more aspects from America: individualism over community, the excessive consumerism, the Starbuck-ification of every facet of our lives, that I think are more harmful than beneficial.

I am curious how being "individualists" had them end up with something like Homeowners Associations. I am an individualist myself to a relatively high degree and I do not understand how something like that can be tolerated at all.

My first inclination is that the individualism has turned from (admittedly, rosy nostalgia follows here) a propensity towards creative expression and unique identity amongst the whole, into an assertion of control that serves my needs at the expense of others. In my experience, while HOAs can be well-intentioned, they provide easy opportunity for people to build small kingdoms, and for most, being a king is quite tempting.

A HOA certainly doesn't seem to be about community. Community would be about embracing differences and respecting each person's right to live as they wish.

HOAs seems to be more about using bureaucracy to control others and force them to do what the person with power wants. There is a classic quote “There must be in-groups whom the law protects but does not bind, alongside out-groups whom the law binds but does not protect.

I think the dark side of individualism is that it can create the mindset that other's success comes at your expense, which pitches people and groups against each other, and makes differences a threat and not a strength. It also also discourages people from acknowledging their own limitations, because if someone is smarter or better than you then they will be more successful, and that means you lose.

That isn't true if you mean in terms of achieving the classic American dream… Canada, Germany, the Netherlands and others are moving more people out of lower/middle class to middle/upper class as a percentage. I do not know in terms of raw numbers but via % we are behind.

If you move to the USA from the developing world or even Eastern Europe, regardless of what job you do your salary immediately soars above whatever you made in your country of origin. Taxation on many consumer goods is also likely to be lower. (For example, electronics can be expensive elsewhere due to high import duties or VAT.) Of course, cost of living in the USA is also much higher, but nevertheless lots of immigrants feel that they have moved up in life just because of the higher wages and consumeristic lifestyle now available to them.

At this point I think the EU should just set aside a nice space somewhere and make it a raw capitalist, no taxes, no regulations, no safety net zone.

"Talent" seems to like that environment.

That would be terrible for anyone living there, as would the environment, and the environment of every country around that country, etc.

Regulation = Civilization, Taxes = Civilization, Safety Net = Civilization

Now that doesn't mean you want a regulatory nightmare, the USA has real problems with license monopolies and city regs in some areas, but you also don't want unrestricted capitalism like the USA has that destroys people, society, and the common environment. Europe has a lot of work to do as well but at least they grasp this fundamental concept. The middle ground between these two is always hard to nail perfectly.

Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than even the poorest American states.

Yes. when I lived in Sweden, I noticed that Swedes in general have less stuff. Smaller housing, fewer cars, less ability to buy stuff, and even go out. The average engineer salary was almost half (about 60%) of those in NYC and SF, while prices coffee/going out in Stockholm were almost the same as in NYC. Rent prices were lower though.

But, their quality of life seemed higher overall. Less stressful in general, more vacations and time off, more thoughtful planing of their cities, etc.

So, it seems like a tradeoff. If you are a blue collar or unskilled worker, Sweden would have been better, while you'd struggle in the US. But if you are a skilled worker (even blue collar, like plumber or electrician), you'd do better in the US.

I'd rather be a barista in Sweden than in the US, but I'd rather be an engineer in the US than in Sweden.

> If you are a blue collar or unskilled worker, Sweden would have been better,

The problem here is that for the Swedes to enjoy their social benefits, they cannot afford to have too many low skilled workers. The swedish economy is a high skilled economy, perhaps the highest skilled in the world. There are very few low-skill jobs, unlike the US which has an army of low skilled workers filling low skilled jobs. This is why the U.S. is able to absorb so many low skilled migrants whereas Sweden is having enormous problems finding jobs for their low skilled migrants. So while sure, you are better off being a low skilled worker in Sweden just as you are better off being a high skilled worker in the U.S., but that's because these two economies are structured very differently.

> The swedish economy is a high skilled economy, perhaps the highest skilled in the world. There are very few low-skill jobs, unlike the US which has an army of low skilled workers filling low skilled jobs. This is why the U.S. is able to absorb so many low skilled migrants whereas Sweden is having enormous problems finding jobs for their low skilled migrants.

How is that not backwards?

If you have 'an army of low skilled workers' then there's no room 'to absorb so many low skilled migrants', surely?

If you have 'a high-skilled economy' then surely you are 'having enormous problems' filling your low-skilled jobs, and welcome migrants?

Indeed, isn't Sweden famously highly accepting of migrants and in particular refugees? Presumably skewed low-skilled if at all?

(Neither Swedish nor American, so not pushing an agenda, just commenting. :))

> If you have 'an army of low skilled workers' then there's no room 'to absorb so many low skilled migrants', surely?

Why? The world doesn't work by laws of semantic symmetry. The Swedish economy is structured on automation, on lack of personal service roles, and on skilled industry. Swedish furniture manufacturers use robots and those on the shop floor that remain are required to have skills to operate those robots. Neither will you will find a huge pool of labor cutting people's lawns or being nannies or replacing roofs because there aren't many lawns to cut, roofs are made to last longer and be less labor intensive, and personal service is stygmatized. It's like Holland, which is the breadbasket of Europe but is a pioneer in agricultural automation and does not rely on large amounts of cheap migrant labor, whereas the US agricultural sector does. Even for something like restaurants, Swedish culture makes much less use of them -- e.g. San Francisco has 500 restaurants per 100K, But once you transition to a high skilled economy it becomes much harder to absorb low skilled workers.

Here, things like labor policies play a role. A high minimum wage, generous benefits and travel may pencil out for a high skilled worker that is willing to be paid 1/2 what they could get in the U.S., but they don't pencil out for a low skilled worker unless the low skilled worker's wages are high enough so that the various costs pencil out, which means there can't be too many of them as the services they provide will be more expensive means and thus have smaller utilization. That is why people complain about things like taxis, restaurant meals, bus trips, etc., costing a lot in Sweden, which is why Stockholm has 1/10 as many restaurants per 100K compared to Tokyo and 1/5 as many compared to San Francisco. Those high wages basically require a more capital intensive production processes and don't leave a lot of room for low skilled jobs.

Btw, that is one of the arguments for high minimum wages and generous benefits. The idea is that it will force firms to invest in more capital so that labor becomes more productive. That's the phenomena of McDonald's creating robot tellers and getting rid of workers. That's the process by which the revenue generated per worker is high enough to justify generous benefits. And the question with that approach is always can the economy transition to a high skilled economy or will there be a permanent underclass of unemployable low skilled workers. And Sweden has done a decent job of making this transition, although there is always a problem with high unemployment, it hasn't been the fiasco predicted, as most of the labor force has transitioned to high skilled work. But then that creates a problem when you dump a lot of low skilled workers on the economy -- they find themselves in the permanent unemployed class.

The U.S., on the other hand, has lower costs of employing labor and thus is able to absorb low skilled labor but the flip side is you do not have the same pressures towards automation and capital investment, so the US economy overall is much more mixed. It's not a high tech economy, it has a lot of low skilled jobs as well, and those low skilled jobs don't enjoy the same level of benefits.

It's a tough call which approach is "better". Culturally, the US will never become Sweden, but there are pros and cons of each approach.

dutch farming (especially kasbouw/greenhouses) are absolutely crazy. in 2019, they exported roughly 95 billion euro's. And they are the second exporter globally. Mind you the country is absolutely tiny in comparison to the number one exporter (the USA).

[0] https://www.government.nl/latest/news/2020/01/17/dutch-agric...

Thanks! That lead me down the rabbit hole.

Here is an interesting article with some pictures, demonstrating what Dutch high-tech farming looks like: https://www.nationalgeographic.com/magazine/article/holland-...

Yes, it's really a miracle of what you can accomplish with intelligence and capital investment. Very high wages even for agricultural workers, a small labor pool, and massive yields.

The other catch I see is how ‘life changing’ your job as an engineer can be in us vs rest of the world. US definitely is the better bet for the young and risk taking.

You can always go back and settled wherever you want after making a ton of cash in the US (assuming it works out), reverse isn’t true as much.

It is easy to confuse a large splashy salary with what a real "life changing" job is for the majority of people. A salary that pays for a good life, real health care that actually covers you when you get sick, a real safety net that gets you back on your feet if something goes wrong, an environment run by the rule of law, an environment that isn't polluted, and a country that is building a real future for ALL the people and not just engineers.

Would you want your kids to grow up in the USA?

That is usually a good question to ask, as it shows if we are succeeding as a country. I think the USA is great if you are in the ~10% of the population who want to make loads of money, work 80 hours, and are in tech/lawyer/doctor. Everyone else is stuck in the same cultural mentality IMO, it's like living in a persistent guerilla war that you don't want to be fighting in.

I think there are two major factors to life quality that many American cities somehow missed or never really cared about enough, being able to stroll through cities by foot and decent work conditions (mostly reasonable work and commute times & holidays).

A friend of mine moved to L.A. in the early 2000s, he's still there, married to an American, but he burned out in his job there very quickly. No wonder, they were living in a small apartment with a baby in downtown L.A. and he had to commute for 3 hours daily. He got back at 10 to 11 PM and got up at 6 AM to get to work again - every workday, with almost no holiday. That's insane by European standards.

Also, social control is quite a bit stricter in a lot of (especially northern) european countries compared to the US.

Showing one's wealth is in bad taste, and bragging about status is considering being an outlier. This is slowly changing (since about the 80's) but prior to that, showing off your middle class wealth as a status indicator was frowned upon in certain circles. especially considering the hardship most people endured during and after ww2.

That gets down to culture.

I was raised in the USA and I was raised that showing one's wealth is in bad taste. In fact I think most of the midwest feels similar. I still do. The point of money isn't to show it off, it is to put it to good use.

Ardit,

You need to measure purchasing power using PPP rate, but even still NY and SF known to be expensive areas with high tax rates.

SF engineer could earn 200k year but this money could be much low as 80k in another state if you compare purchasing power.

It's complex. The Americans can always buy a car but never foods. This become a meme in my home country.

There are always trade offs.

But are the trade offs equivalent?

There is a reason folks flock more to SF rather than to nowhere state. If you save 10%, it is still 20k saved compared to 8k. If you lose your job, there are 10 choices compared to one (or none), access to cutting edge of tech rather than reading about it on hacker news and so on.

> access to cutting edge of tech

Any examples?

I have not seen any cutting edge tech for while.

The swing from most to least expensive state is about 25%, not 75%. There’s a disparity between say California and Arkansas but it’s not that high.

There are perhaps other metrics to go for, other than 'just' monetary:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_Happiness_Report#2020_re...

Some other countries may have chosen to trade some personal income/wealth for other things.

Further, while there may be more money in general in the US, using averages skews things a bit due to inequality; social mobility is lower in the US than many other countries:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Gatsby_curve

If you're not already at/near the top in the US, good luck getting there.

Yeah, but that's because USA basically swims in cash because since world uses dollar as core currency for the global economy USA has to print more dollars to match the growth of global economy to avoid deflation. And once it prints dollars it does with them what it pleases. Mainly buys ton of stuff from the world, but still keeps enough to maintain status of wealthy country.

It's no wonder people can get more cash it the country that basically prints it for the whole world.

Once the global economy start shrinking or the world moves to yuan or euro USA will descend to level of Eastern European country in a generation or two tops.

If there is a global switch to the euro or the yuan, American imports could become more competitive, leading to increased economic activity in the US. Dollar or not, the United States still has substantial industrial capability.

Didn't US economy mostly switch to services?

Services account for more than three quarters of the US economy, but its manufacturing sector, which still accounts for more than a tenth of its economy, is second only to that of China.

https://www.statista.com/chart/20858/top-10-countries-by-sha...

"Yet people in most of Western Europe (discounting Switzerland and Luxembourg and maybe Norway) are objectively poorer than even the poorest American states. "

This is utter nonsense, how are you getting that?

Imagine that I offered you two deals:

1. You make $45k a year, but all your costs are 50% of the base rate. Plus health care is included that covers everything with no expenses, childcare is included, and college education is included.

2. You make $60k a year, but all your costs are 200% of the base rate. Health care isn't covered and covers nothing when you really get sick, childcare is $1500 a month per kid, and college is going to cost you half a million dollars.

Holistically Western Europe as a whole is doing way better for it's people.

"Recent studies suggest that there is less economic mobility in the United States than has long been presumed. The last thirty years has seen a considerable drop-off in median household income growth compared to earlier generations. And, by some measurements, we are actually a less mobile society than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries. This challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity"

https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpe...

Why is quality of life measured on consumption crap so heavily? Personally idgaf about useless doodads that waste resources and space in my home (or mind).

GDP per capita is lower, but household wealth is higher and when you add in all the benefits received (e.g. healthcare, pensions) you would get a pretty big difference between median household wealth in most of Western Europe and median HH wealth in the U.S., with western europe holding the advantage.

Comparing Europe and the U.S. is a complex business, and I find myself offending cheerleaders on both sides.

The "classic american dream" I believe involves being able to move up through hard work. At least in Canada, if we are moving people up class-wise it's by the government subsidizing them more than it is by rewarding hard work. So I believe the GPs point still stands.

That is not true based on the data.

Everyone in the world tries to move up through hard work, connections, and whatever advantages they are able to press.

"Recent studies suggest that there is less economic mobility in the United States than has long been presumed. The last thirty years has seen a considerable drop-off in median household income growth compared to earlier generations. And, by some measurements, we are actually a less mobile society than many other nations, including Canada, France, Germany and most Scandinavian countries. This challenges the notion of America as the land of opportunity"

https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/legacy/uploadedfiles/wwwpe...

I believe people who move to the US also like the comparably low bureaucracy, as well as opportunities in some sectors. Personally, I've lost my interest in moving to the US (or even visiting it) a long time ago, around the time of Bush Jr. for various reasons, but I'm still convinced that founding a successful company with low starting capital is easier in the US than almost anywhere else. The same is true for acting, music, show business and all the support like film cutting, audio engineering, special effects, etc. Despite the increased competition, your career prospects in these areas will probably be much higher if you move to L.A. or NY than if you stay somewhere else in the world.

America is certainly the country with the most opportunity for the most people.

A shift that has occurred from the 1950s to present is that there is less of a guarantee of an upper-middle-class lifestyle through a moderate [1] amount of effort.

That easier opportunity, however, was unique to the era. Prior to 1930, immigrants knew that America was a place for exceptionally hard work and tons of opportunity and freedom - that was the American dream. Not high taxation and government-funded class movement from lower-middle to upper-middle.

[1] 40 hours a week, one full-time job for an established corporate company supporting a family

You all work so hard for almost nothing (apart from 'stuff', that is now mostly made in China).

In Europe people have a much more relaxed attitude to work, yet somehow pretty much everyone has a very high quality of life - judged by quality of food, things working properly (e.g. washing machines and public restroom doors!), freedom from fear (e.g. of losing their job, getting ill, or interactions with the 'police'), and time to spend with people important to you.

Having grown up in (very) poor rural America (~3k population), gone to work/live in an urban area (close to 3 million metro population), and now live in an extraordinarily affluent but smallish (100k) midwest city, I really don't agree with your view of the US in the slightest.

[edit] I originally wanted to make the point that one of the things we buy is increased quality of life. Wrote the comment up and completely forgot to throw that in.

>You all work so hard for almost nothing (apart from 'stuff', that is now mostly made in China).

The hours of output from an individual varies greatly, from almost none to 120 hour work weeks (literally, I have seen the pay stubs). In addition, not all work is the same, and there are a _lot_ of cushy office jobs in which people may claim 40 hour weeks, have probably half of that is what one would call 'work.' You also imply that having a lot of things is somehow negative and that it's just 'stuff'. We buy plenty of stuff for plenty of reasons, which includes recreation and entertainment.

To further iterate on the point that it's not just 'stuff', there are a plethora of festivals, museums, theaters, outdoor spaces, theme parks, malls, and community gatherings. There is far more stuff to do than there is time in the day to do it here. I should also note, a lot of which is either completely free or at least pretty inexpensive.

To push the point home, it's also almost trivial to fly over to Europe. It's relatively normal among the middle class to take trips overseas. Airline tickets are not _that_ expensive after all.

>In Europe people have a much more relaxed attitude to work, yet somehow pretty much everyone has a very high quality of life

This is very true for many in America as well; a great deal many of the people I grew up with are still in poverty or working menial jobs... but they also are out boating every weekend in the summers, skiing in the winters, watching sports on huge flat screens. They may be cash-poor but are still reasonably rich in experiences. This is a tricky thing to measure from the economic lens alone.

> judged by quality of food

The food I've had in the US has ranged from Michelin star to Mac Donald's, both are fabulous, though one is more snobby. Perhaps in deeply rural areas with low populations, the food is more of the fast-food variety. Still, in most mid to large cities, the food has been consistently excellent across both price and quality offered.

> judged by things working properly (e.g. washing machines and public restroom doors!)

I don't think you could back this up by any data, and if I were to guess, this is based on some poor luck you had while visiting. Across the various places I've been, it's pretty unheard of not to have access to washers or dryers due to malfunction. Most areas have at least a couple of competing laundromats, and it costs no more than a couple of dollars to access them. Breakdowns happen to all equipment over time, and thankfully quality can be purchased if desired. If many still choose the initial price tag over that, so be it. Servicing a machine is cheap and easy, as is replacing one outright.

As for public restroom doors, I don't understand this at all as it hasn't been my experience in the slightest. Even in poor urban areas, doors work fine. I can assure you, the VAST majority of doors here work just fine!

> freedom from fear (e.g. of losing their job, getting ill, or interactions with the 'police'),

This entirely an individual thing; losing one's job isn't exactly the end of the world here either. Opportunity is all over the place. Maybe aside from suicidal people, everyone on earth fears getting ill. And maybe aside from high health care costs, assuming I didn't choose to pay for extra insurance, I'd still rather be 'poor' and uninsured here than most places in the world. It's not 'free' like many other countries, but if you're poor, you're typically not paying for procedures either. As for the police, is there a country where someone doesn't fear the police on some level? Is there any country that doesn't give them the right to put you in a jail cell? The statistics of unjustified police violence point to it being exceedingly rare, so much that when there is a case that it does happen, the people and media take to the streets, and every detail of the matter is covered nationally.

> and time to spend with people important to you.

All choices people make, nothing prevents someone in this country from spending more time with family. People who work insane hours wanting to provide more for themselves are making the decision to do so.

The United States is a _massive_ country, and I caution against painting it with such a broad brush. I'm not saying there are no issues, there are, but the ones you point out seem wrong to me. There are massive lifestyle differences here, and I don't see that as a particularly bad thing. If the people back in my hometown, for example, want to spend their days boating instead of working some stressful job, all the more power to them. If someone wants to burn the candle at both ends to acquire a boatload of money instead, that's great too. I suspect there is a far more significant amount of opportunity to both here than in Europe based on the data I've researched in the past.

Wasn't taxation very high during the period describe, and declining gradually since then?

I also thought home ownership was one of the main generators of wealth for families, and wasn't that government assisted in some way?

(Not a historian)

No, taxation was not very high. Some tax rates were very high but they had an extensive range of deductions that don't exist today. The effective tax rates, what people actually paid as a percentage of gross income, were similar to today.

They lowered tax rates simultaneous with eliminating deductions, making the changes over time roughly neutral in terms of taxes paid.

It’s harder to move to Canada though.

Canada is about to revert to the mean in a very hard way though, so I wouldn't count on that statistic too much.

I'm also curious to have more details. I'm Canadian and historically have been a big proponent of our country, to the point of smugness. But I'm currently very bearish on our future and curious to hear what others are thinking.

The continued closure of our shared land border doesn't indicate to me that you guys are headed in the direction of reason.

I would be very interested in hearing more about what changed your outlook.

Care to elaborate?

While the sentiment may be true for Americans living in America, if an American decides to emigrate to a different country then they obviously think living in this new country is better for them - unless they move back later, I don't think emigrating Americans remain "American" for long, certainly not after a generation or two.

Does the USA really offer the greatest opportunities to the greatest number of poor people as a share of the total population, of all countries in the world? Why do so many people from the USA believe this tripe without question?

It feels like the 'shining city on the hill' was extremely effective propaganda, for the domestic population.

Anecdotally, it feels true. I, like many Americans, know an enormous number of immigrants and poor people that moved into the middle and upper-middle class through hard work and discipline. There is still plenty of opportunity to do that US if you apply yourself. Economic mobility is very high in the US (which is distinct from social mobility).

When I've worked in Europe, it has always been evident that this is much harder to achieve there for poor people and immigrants. The entire social system is setup to limit the ability of ambitious people to rise above whatever station they were born into in a way that isn't really a thing in the US. This contributes to why engineering wages are relatively low in Europe.

> Economic mobility is very high in the US

Not so much. The U.S. is not even in the top 10 of countries for Economic mobility.

The US ranks very high in terms of absolute mobility. Measures of relative mobility are only comparable between countries if they have similar wage compression curves, which is also partially a function of country size. US wages are much less compressed than in Europe -- see also: engineering wages -- so they aren't meaningfully comparable in relative terms.

Given two countries with the same median wage (PPP), a 20k increase in income in one country may be relatively "economically mobile" and a 40k increase in income in the other is not, even though the income increase is much larger in real terms. When average people talk about economic mobility, they mean the second case; using relative mobility is misleading.

“Cutting down the tall poppy”

I am an American, and I have known a number of immigrants over the years, one who won the lottery in order to come to the US. They have mostly but not all been from Eastern bloc countries.

Every single one of those people is grateful to have come here, is amazed that the people born here do not take advantage of their birthright of opportunities, and absolutely does not think that talk about the greatest opportunities is tripe or propaganda. They are also dumbfounded at the problems that we create for ourselves as a country. Yet, to a one, they all wish they could bring their parents and families here.

I have had similar sentiments expressed to me from immigrants who have come to the country where I'm from (Australia).

It's possible that the opportunities given to migrants relocating to any highly developed nation are equivalent. That is, not a phenomenon unique to the USA.

> It's possible that the opportunities given to migrants relocating to any highly developed nation are equivalent.

That's an excellent point, and one I doubt even needs to be answered to any degree of certainty. Everyone wants a better life, and that can be had in many ways and places.

I can see how during the last 30 years opportunities become fewer and fewer in Canada. I assume it is probably the same in the US. Well we have to feed ever increasing appetites of 3-percenters or whatever the number is. On top of that there are generally more and more people and less resources.

One reason they dont give up citizenship is that you are "declared" death and the IRS will come an collect there share. It can become quite expensiv for expats.

From the 1880s to 2000 this may have been the case, but I don't think it is anymore. Any country with public health insurance that is decent is more attractive than the US. People are not blind, they see Americans dying of diabetes because they can't afford insulin that they attempted to crowdfund. [1]

The US has evolved into a modern dystopia under the first-past-the-post system and cloture in the senate. I think the election of Donald Trump was the signal to the rest of the world that America's democracy may not even be a democracy. Republicans are currently digging themselves in to remove as much democracy from the American political system as possible. [2] I'm not sure where the country will end up.

[1] https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/shane-patrick-boyle-died-a...

[2] https://www.theatlantic.com/newsletters/archive/2021/06/the-...

We never had a true working class party or the same kind of safety net as they have in Europe, because all the class divisions could be papered over with free stuff and money- first, a whole continents worth of free land, and then when all Europe was destroyed, a 60 year burst of huge profits. So you know, it’s material conditions in the end. Matt Christman and Sean KB did an excellent podcast on this called History is a Weapon: Q is You.

> The US has evolved into a modern dystopia

> America's democracy may not even be a democracy

> Republicans are currently digging themselves in to remove as much democracy

Here's the ideological intensity that the article mentioned. This is delusional.

The smartest, most driven people still come to the US to start businesses and seek fortune, because it's the best place in the world to do so.

I'm not from the US, so I suppose I don't know. One of my uncles immigrated there and works in a VA hospital. The stories he tells me, of people dying of ailments that are common in the third world, seems to suggest otherwise.

> The smartest, most driven people still come to the US to start businesses and seek fortune, because it's the best place in the world to do so.

Rates of entrepreneurship are higher in Scandinavian countries[1].

It's also easier to start your own business in such countries because you don't already have to be wealthy enough to afford spending $36k in premiums alone each year for your family's health insurance on the individual market.

[1] https://www.oecd.org/sdd/business-stats/EAG-2018-Highlights....

Everything f38zf5vdt said and that you've quoted here can be true (at least subjectively) while your own reply is also true. You're not actually addressing or contradicting their arguments, such as they are, just declaring them categorically invalid because "capitalism."

> The smartest, most driven people still come to the US to start businesses and seek fortune, because it's the best place in the world to do so.

Keep believing that myth.

If a highly-skilled individual wants to amass the most monetary wealth possible, which geographies do you think would be better than the USA and why?

>> Any country with public health insurance that is decent is more attractive than the US.

Depending on what you want to do with your life, this is mostly true. But immigration laws to countries with these kinds of welfare structures tend to be much tighter than ones without for reasons that are obvious.

"Tend to", perhaps, but it's not universal, in that there are huge gaping loopholes in some places.