By Bhabani Shankar Nayak
Despite the flag-waving white supremacist an ti-immigration policies and propaganda promoted by governing capitalist classes, and their reactionary politics, increasing numbers of people are leaving the capitalist heartlands of the USA and the UK.
In the name of reactionary nationalism, capitalism attempts to survive through wars and austerity policies at the cost of people’s well-being. However, recent reports suggest that more than 68% of Americans wish to move abroad permanently.
The UK’s Office for National Statistics (ONS) reported that 257,000 British citizens left the country in December 2024, and the number continues to grow. According to reports, more than 295,000 people have left the US in 2025.
People are moving to the European Union, Mexico, and other parts of the world in search of peace and better quality of life. Many are also renouncing their citizenship. Such trends, reminiscent of the Great Depression of 1929, reveal deeper structural issues beyond divisive politics and rising cost-of-living.
Most people who have left, or are planning to leave, the USA and the UK speak openly about reasons behind their decision. Many say that they are leaving because these countries no longer offer a life worth living, but merely a struggle for survival.
Working to pay monthly bills has replaced the possibility of a fulfilling life. Access to quality healthcare, housing, and education is increasingly becoming an unattainable dream for the people and their children. Reactionary political propaganda and the consolidation of right-wing politics have damaged social harmony and internal peace within these countries.
The combination of economic, social, and political crises has created a toxic culture and social environment in which human well-being and happiness are becoming increasingly alienated. According to the US Census Bureau, sixty-nine US cities are shrinking due to economic distress and population decline.
Similarly, major UK cities such as Aberdeen, Bradford, Coventry, Birmingham, Glasgow, Manchester, Sheffield, Hull, Newcastle, and Newport are either stagnating or showing signs of economic decline. London’s productivity growth, along with that of the wider economy of the capital city, has been declining since 2019. In the World Happiness Index (2025), the UK fell sharply from 21st to 29th place globally.
A similar trend continues in the USA, where happiness is becoming increasingly elusive because of weakening social connections. The World Happiness Report (2026) also revealed that young Americans are deeply unhappy and dissatisfied with their lives.
American dream is an illusion. It was constructed to promote capitalism and capitalist dreams are falling apart. According to the American Psychiatric Association, there is a growing crisis of anxiety, depression, and mental health issues in the US, where one in three people suffers from some form of mental health issues. Mental health prob lems affect one in four adults in the UK.
American dream and its affiliated capitalist dreams were curated with the ideals of equality, right to live, liberty and pursuit of happiness. These dreams were designed to create a desire-based society where people can die by working to realise these dreams in reality.
After centuries of human experience with capitalism in USA and UK, it is clear that capitalism is neither designed nor capable of providing homes to the homeless, health and well-being to people and economic stability to families and cannot provide happiness to individuals.
There is no way to humanise a system built on patriarchy, feudalism, colonial and imperialist plunder of people and nature. It can only be dismantled through the struggle of working people to create a new system capable of delivering peace, progress, and prosperity without any form of exploitation and inequality.
The writer teaches at the London Metropolitan University
