The pico blogg is simple: The USA is where Europe sent the dispossesed optimists, opportunists, con men and religious freedom seekers. I mean to say that in the various depressions, recessions and spells of attractiveness to move to the USA (like the gold rush, the napoleonic wars, the pogroms, the persecution of lutherine or catholics by their opposites) got people who had a different attitude to the risk-benefit than those who chose to stay behind. In other words, the cautious types who were somewhat satisfied with their lot on Terra Europus chose to not go to the USA or at least postpone the decision until it evapourated away in reports of carnage or disease visited upon immigrants to the new land.
Genetically speaking then, the braver, stronger and crazier and above all, those who see more positive outcomes in higher risk behaviour have moved on mass from various societies, races etc over the ponda del medio: this is a genetic which has been depleted in all these different societal strata, or maybe rather you can say the obverse: the genetic composition which have been concentrated in the USA.
So you have a lot of actually quite conservative types left behind in europe- conservative with the small "c". Those happy with the social order, even if that meant unhappiness, it was certainty and predictability. Also on a more posiitve note those who were more interested in building upon existing systems and societies against the forces of entrenched conservatism, like the french republicans, the English trade unions and the scandinavian farmers lobby. A more patient type, looking to reform and improve society in small, acheivable increments rather than rejecting society and governance and simply seeking to establish somethign new elsewhere, or find a more radical evolution they could ride into.
Saying this constitutes a psycho-genetic bias between two continents may sound far fetched, and you also say immediately that a major part of the USA is composed of decendants of slaves and more recent latin economic immigrants ( who are not faced with a hazardous sailing passage and hostile native tribes in so many words the last 100 years) However the ruling elite and the owning lobby are by in large from either oldish US money and the Ivy league or waves newer immigrants who have saught the meritocractic ideals and stabbed their way into money and power.
You could probabloy look at canada, which was / is a social democracy as an example of kind of the opposite: it was a safer ride for British and French ex pats to move to a colony rather than a newly constituted and un-amended land like the USA.
As genetic analysis reverals a picture of meta-genomic gene splicing and control, we will also continue to find individual genes and clusters of genes which relate to distinct behavioural tendancies: you can always exxaggerate/exaserbate these in environment but over a population with a bias to some inherited traits, then a genetic factor in the difference between two societies can be seen as the root cause of collectively different behaviours.
Take the highland clearances: the optimists fucked off : "right morag, theres a ship going tommorrow to the new provinces / USA , grab the kids we're on it!" Whereas the less brave or fool hardy you may say, decided to stay at home and be decanted out of highland hovels into languishing slums which have reinvented themselves in different parts of the Scottish cities over the last 170 years.
I wouldnt say we are left with a bunch of intrasient stick in the muds or proto conservatives in the EU: we have a different view though on society as needing planning and controls. "small government" is not so attractive - I mean look at Somalia where weak government and gun control are coupled to a rather mature yet aggressive attitude to free enterprise. Europe has radicals and optimists, but they want to do things through structure and open politics; not by destructuring to "small government" ie more anarchy, and lobby based politics.
My point from all this and the notes in this very non-pico rant, is that the USA is different than the EU for these type of reasons: socioeconomially, politically, culturally ...but maybe there is more genetic predisposition to these cultural differences ?
I see the conservatism in people all the time here because I am kind of frustrated ground-breaker: i never get accepted into the grey suit gang and so I never get to play with grey suit money in a way! However I know that my positivity and blindness often to negative outcomes would take me further in the USA where people would actually support me in my rants! Even in risk areas, in fact especially in risk areas of new company and product development, companies look for soft capital cushions and individuals look for plan B if things go wrong more than US would in my opinion.
So social democracy just wouldnt work unless actually the hispanics and negros voted for it en masse. The caucasian population is just too entrenched as a slice of european society who wanted to take risks, who did not want restrictions and who did not ask for safety nets.
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I don't believe actually that Barack Obama has presented very much evidence or real intention of the USA being moved towards a social democracy. The USA post revolution has been a place for oligarchs, it is just that the first founders of the state tended to have a more egalitarian slant on the power the seized and weilded.
Would social democratic policies work in the USA? Well no. I mean even actually creating a mechanism to change the market for healthcare and open it to millions is seen as counter-revolutionary. Car insurance can be a federal mandate, while buying yourself insurance in a new market place is interventionist. Intervention is okay as long as it is behind closed doors and done on the sly, like the securing of Iraqi oilfields in a total bluff about the actual threat Saddam presented to the "free world". A world free for lobbyists, PR and smear campaigns where dollars fight dollars in a war of branded catch phrases and ecconomic attrition.
So why wouldn't an EU or scandinavian social democracy not work in the USA?
Well we kind of have to think
1) Why it works so well in europe (until the eurozone and recession came)
2) the historical genetics which make the USA tick differently
3) how much money would be put against it
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