Something changed in the last two hundred years that changed continental migration from commonplace to unthinkable
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Replying to @drethelin @ContentOfMedia
you're an 18th century german or a 19th century irishman, america is the land of opportunity
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there you're destined to die poor as you were born, here you can own a farm or a business, leave it to your kids
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nowadays if you're broke, uncredentialed, and unskilled, what's the point of picking up roots?
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there isn't a realistic path to "make it" for laborers of average or less intelligence nowadays like there was
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Replying to @alicemazzy @ContentOfMedia
There wasn't really before, remember a huge swath of Americans were convicts transported as punishment. The ones who cashed in above average
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Replying to @drethelin @ContentOfMedia
I don't have stats onhand but I don't think pre-rev the whole "sell yourself into indentured servitude to cover..
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...the transit cost with the expectation you can become a freeholder on the frontier after" was that uncommon
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and through the 19th and early 20th I do think there was a reasonable expectation of being better off than before
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Replying to @alicemazzy @ContentOfMedia
Maybe the problem is no one actively WANTS to be a subsistence farmer on 100 acres anymore.
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problem is unskilled laborers more fungible and less useful than a century ago and pathways to ownership harder
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and it's only going to get worse for them
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