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A Golden Island To The West — California ISOT from 2018 to 1850

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Midnighter13 said:
Sad and cynical as this may sound, hypercorporate neocolonialism is a way better option than what is actually coming down the line. Amazon and Apple have nothing on the British East India Trading Company. Modern corporations, bad as they may be, don't go around invading countries, raising armies, and generally wrecking havoc. Sure, modern corporations bribe governments, and subject poor people to effective wage slavery, but compared to being a literal slave (say on a Southern cotton plantation) wage slavery is great. Not objectively good, but certainly comparatively.
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The thing is that workers rights have been trending back towards the 19th century. The fact that they sell kids blood or brutally punish workers for taking bathroom breaks or force them to work through injuries is a pretty clear indication that the only thing limiting their brutality is the laws around them, and even then only just.

California actually has worse income inequality than anywhere else in the world at this point as well, so they don't have much to say to anyone about wealth redistribution.
 
the atom said:
The thing is that workers rights have been trending back towards the 19th century. The fact that they sell kids blood or brutally punish workers for taking bathroom breaks or force them to work through injuries is a pretty clear indication that the only thing limiting their brutality is the laws around them, and even then only just.

California actually has worse income inequality than anywhere else in the world at this point as well, so they don't have much to say to anyone about wealth redistribution.
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Truth be told the only thing allowing for serious wealth redistribution is the fact that so much of that wealth depended on global networks which no longer exist. If California pushes for it, if nothing else out of the need to survive the upcoming crises intact, then it could be possible if nothing else because the powerful and wealthy are currently on the back foot.
 
LHB said:
Truth be told the only thing allowing for serious wealth redistribution is the fact that so much of that wealth depended on global networks which no longer exist. If California pushes for it, if nothing else out of the need to survive the upcoming crises intact, then it could be possible if nothing else because the powerful and wealthy are currently on the back foot.
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My point is that if California isn't making any effort to push for it now, there's no reason to think they would in this situation.
 
the atom said:
My point is that if California isn't making any effort to push for it now, there's no reason to think they would in this situation.
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Based on the canon post regarding the state of the housing market in the future of California TTL I think it's possible there will be a serious push but it's going to have to get started right now to get any real momentum.

One thing in redistribution's favor is the big businesses like Amazon, Google and Apple who are at the top of the pyramid OTL just lost the global networks and markets that made their wealth possible. They can't continue to operate as they previously did and something will have to give.
 
Google was bought out by the University of California Regents to turn the googleplex into UC Mountain View as a way of keeping all that accumulated knowledge.

Amazon was gutted by the event and their remnants in California were bought out by CalEFDA for their distribution network.
 
I've got a question about how the housing problem was fixed. Did the state buy out all the property and just become everyone's landlord keeping all the pre-existing houses and apartments or did they build a bunch of Khrushchyovka's for everyone to live in.
 
So wait California hasn't actually fixed the housing problem then since construction can't keep up with population growth OTL yet alone with mass immigration.

Which will win, NIMBY or freedom of movement? Probably NIMBY.
 
Cloak&Dagger said:
So wait California hasn't actually fixed the housing problem then since construction can't keep up with population growth OTL yet alone with mass immigration.

Which will win, NIMBY or freedom of movement? Probably NIMBY.
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I did the numbers on this and the number of people moving to California at the peak of the gold rush is actually about a tenth of the net migration into California in 2018.
 
Cloak&Dagger said:
This California is less like the Gold Rush and more like Elysium Station though, it will attract far more people than OTL.
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Instant Sunrise said:
I actually did some research into this aspect and at the peak of the gold rush, California was taking in about 50,000 people per year.

The period from 2006-2016, which was considered a period of slow growth, had a net population increase of 160,000 people per year.

So even if downtimer migration were to stay at the level of the gold rush, or even double, it would be a drop in the bucket.
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The problem is that the global population of 1850 is a smaller well to draw from than the world of 2018.
 
HanEmpire said:
Less available transportation too. Transatlantic paddle-steamers were cutting-edge technology in 1850.
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Except that California will get the lion's share of that traffic.

Which is more valuable: a treasure galleon full of gold or spices, or a galleon with one Californian expat who has a laptop with a copy of wikipedia, and wants to be a noble in your nation?

The later, obviously.
 
Cloak&Dagger said:
That's an issue, yes, but there's going to be more people coming than in the Gold Rush, especially with more infrastructure being developed to reach California. That 50k OTL could easily become 300k or more.
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300k/year would likely be a serious drain on the countries people are leaving from. I'd expect them to enact restrictions on emigration if it reached that level.
 
Instant Sunrise said:
300k/year would likely be a serious drain on the countries people are leaving from. I'd expect them to enact restrictions on emigration if it reached that level.
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Japan by 1863 was suffering from overpopulation and lack of ability to grow enough food, and even new technologies brought from Germany and UK couldn't change that. It's even possible that modern medicine just helped the developing crisis.
By 1900 more than 1 milion Japanese emigrated to NAmerica and SAmerica. And there was 1/3? of that number going South-West.
That's an average of 25 thousand people a year just from that one country traveling east.

With a population of nearly 34 million after Perrys visit, 25 thousands is like a drop in a sea.
But if they know about the Northern territories and Sakhalin, who knows what they might do.
 
kaazmiz said:
Japan by 1863 was suffering from overpopulation and lack of ability to grow enough food, and even new technologies brought from Germany and UK couldn't change that. It's even possible that modern medicine just helped the developing crisis.
By 1900 more than 1 milion Japanese emigrated to NAmerica and SAmerica. And there was 1/3? of that number going South-West.
That's an average of 25 thousand people a year just from that one country traveling east.

With a population of nearly 34 million after Perrys visit, 25 thousands is like a drop in a sea.
But if they know about the Northern territories and Sakhalin, who knows what they might do.
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Californian agricultural technique, technology, cultivars, and GMOs.

You just explained how it can be a key carrot for opening up trade.
 
Too bad the Shogunate is likely to sell most of it like it did IRL. Despite the fact that rice production raised 20 times.
Upping it to 30 is just going to make them more greedy.

GMO is evil!
 
A 'imperial restoration' will most likely happen regardless, the only reason it hasn't is that the Shogunates enemies haven't managed to unite against it yet even as they bang the drums how the Shogun is dishonoring the emperor and most likely like OTL it will result in a government where the real power is in the hands of everyone else but the emperor as that is pretty much the historical norm of Japan for most of its history, the real power being around the emperor rather than being invested in the emperor.
 
As I said, power is going to end up in the hands of whichever faction can get their hands on the most Californian toys and support. If California opens up trade, that's basically guaranteed to happen. The only question is if it's somebody of California's choosing or if it's random chance and internal maneuvering over trade goods.
 
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Zap Rowsdower said:
As I said, power is going to end up in the hands of whichever faction can get their hands on the most Californian toys and support. If California opens up trade, that's basically guaranteed to happen. The only question is if it's somebody of California's choosing or if it's random chance and internal maneuvering over trade goods.
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Do you think we could help the Republic of Ezo succeed?
 
Antix_Shadows said:
Do you think we could help the Republic of Ezo succeed?
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I mean, Enomoto Takeaki is currently 14, so much like how it's going to be a Komei Restoration rather than a Meiji Restoration, any factions that are involved will likewise be different due to being twenty years ahead of schedule and as such having vast personnel differences and circumstances. While a Republic of Ezo to support is possible, the circumstances would be different and I don't really know enough to say if it would happen or if it would be the best option given that difference.
 
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