This feels like a strawman, but I’ll give you the benefit of the doubt that it’s asked sincerely. Nothing I said was intended to suggest that the disparity across borders wouldn’t justify their journey. Many making that journey certainly do know something I do not, and I wouldn’t call anyone a fool for it. I’d add that my own response to myself below might better address this than the comment you’re responding to.
> Why is there not an exodus of hundreds of thousands of poor Americans tramping to other countries?
Last I checked, more people cross the southern US border to emigrate out of the US in recent years. Not sure what the numbers are, not going to dig them up to win at being right, I just think it bears mentioning that people migrate for a wide variety of reasons and I’ll leave it at that.
> Much of that occurred long before government social programs, high taxes, unions, anti-trust, etc. Take a look at things like height statistics for Americans throughout the 19th century. Height statistics are a good proxy for standard of living - people don't grow tall if they are malnourished as children.
Alright, I’ll grant that people got taller around the same time they were likely to die in factory fires. I won’t grant that being taller is an aspiration I care about as much as not dying in factory fires.
> Amazon has scores of millions of customers. They wouldn't be shopping at Amazon if Amazon was cheating them.
> Amazon turnover is such that the average employee works less than a year. This is incongruent with being forced to work there at subhuman conditions.
I’m not going to bother responding to these paragraphs, because I don’t understand your reasoning, other than I don’t think they say what I think you think they say.