If things are more equal in other countries with more socialistic policies, why are their citizens seeking to come to American for the opportunity? I stated in another post in this chain that I was born into a poor family. The motivation to improve my station in life was to see the opportunities and potential around me and the fact that I wasn't stuck in my particular social class. Government charity tends to make people unmotivated. I also tend to think another de-motivator is high taxes. Why work hard to get ahead if it's going to be taxed away?
Europe hasn't been the main source of immigrants in decades. In 2013, European immigrants only accounted for 11% of immigrants, half of which came from Eastern Europe (which is still poorer than the rest of Europe). Mexico, just by itself, almost had three times as many legal immigrants as all of Europe. If you look at the total populations of Europe and Latin America, it actually makes that 11% look like more of the result of simply having a larger population. Nobody in Western, Northern, or Southern Europe really sees America as the land of opportunity anymore. I've lived in Europe, and my experience there and interacting either Europeans online think America should be more like Europe. The idea of moving to America for better opportunity there died out decades ago. In fact, if anything American
emigration to Europe is actually rising.
Yes, I did see that you were born poor family. Every family in America sees the opportunity, that's one of the points of cartoon and the illustration. In reality, the chances of it actually happening are outstandingly higher than we want to think. We want to think that anyone and everyone can "make it", but that doesn't economically or mathematically work. It's like saying we want everyone to be above average, it's simply not possible. What is possible is raising the standard of living for the lower class, but it's not possible to simply not have one. There has never been a truly classless where everyone is truly equal with the exact same opportunities. I'll touch on this at the end.
The issue with taxes comes down to the difference between Americans and Europeans. We're taught taxes are, at best, a necessary evil, at worst, morally wrong. A lot Americans have the mentality "I don't want to pay for dead beat mom's second kid", instead of "I have higher taxes so a major medical emergency won't bankrupt me." In the UK, for example, they see the government as a provider. Americans don't think like that, this is why we see things like welfare, taxes, etc. as de-motivators. If this was actually true, we should be vastly more wealthy than everyone else, but we're not. We're 10th in GDP per-capita, but we are first in GDP. We do have a large economy, but we're also the third largest country in the world and more advanced than the two above us. GDP Per-Capita, we're anywhere between 10-14 depending on the source.
One question that needs to be asked; How was the $15/hour minimum wage established as a livable wage? No one seems to be able to provide an answer based on hard facts.
I did try to look it up, but with no solid results. I would say, depending on your location, somewhere in the $9-$10/hour would be a livable wage.
Your trash can example is interesting, I'll offer an alternative on this theme. If the students were arranged in a circle around the trash can (equal opportunity) then each student would have the same opportunity. Those who failed would need to try again (practice, train, and work at) to get it in the bucket. Some students won't reach the bucket due to disability, however most who fail will give up due to a lack of motivation. It's my opinion that disabled students should be given assistance to reach their maximum potential. Not much can be done about motivation as this comes from within.
The American dream is based upon equal opportunity not equal results.
That's what I've been saying, equal opportunity does not truly exist in America. Yes, everyone may technically have access to the same to the opportunities here, but that's not what happens in reality, and that's another point in the cartoon. It's a nice thing to think about everyone having the equal opportunities, but it doesn't actually work like that. I came from the upper class, believe me, I guarantee that you did not have same opportunities as me. Unless they had an actual learning disability, nobody at my level had to actually work hard to get where they are in life, and even then, most of them had private tutors on top of the assistance from the school. Most things we've had, we didn't have to "work for". I'm talking about opportunities, our parents are those at the top of their fields, they have connections everywhere, they can afford those private tutors and help pay for more of their child's college tuition, etc. Here's a real life story to illustrate this: I have been life-long friends with four other guys, I'll say there name are Mark, Luke, and John. Luke's, John's, and my family are all about on the same socioeconomic level, the line between middle and upper class, but Mark's is very smack-dab in the middle. All four of us went to the same church growing up, lived in the same part of the city, and then went off to the same college and pledged the same fraternity. On the exterior surface, we have pretty identical lives. We're even all of fairly similar intelligence, made similar grades, etc. Now, there were small times in high school, but our advantages really didn't come into show until college. Luke and Mark were up for the same scholarship through our university. Luke, in the upper class literally had a specialist hired from his parents to help with college applications and scholarship interviews like the one he was up for, while Mark did not. Luke got the scholarship even though they pretty much had similar resumes. Now that we've all graduated, Luke, John, and I are not a few steps ahead of Mark mainly because we don't have to worry about the student loans he is know worrying about. On the surface, equal opportunity exist, below the surface, you'll see it really doesn't.
