> 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 meaningfull

> 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.