I appreciate you for taking the time to write it.

No problem.

You've filled in a few gaps for me, particularly with the tax burden forcing farmers into the cities.

I have a bad habit of not explaining every detail in the process, and after viewing the wikipedia page, it seems to leave out that farmers had to pay toll when moving to a city to sell their products. The laws also blocked foreign grain imports, so the food prices went up without possibility to do much about it. Well, at least wikipedia doesn't hide the fact only big land owners profited from the arrangement.

I think because Europe is very old, people value history more than Americans do.

I have mixed feelings about this. Most European nations are just wallowing in self pity while every news media broadcasts how racist / colonial etc. we have been in the past.

"While mainstream "centrists" will acknowledge that our current way of doing things is unsustainable, they resist making meaningful change. This is because of a cognitive glitch humans have called status quo bias, which can cause us to fallaciously equate change with danger." Quote is from blogger Caitlin Johnstone.

That's a good quote.