Surely the problem of "bad policy decisions leading to a bad system" is the fault of some backwards minded voter living in the midwest and not hyper-capitalist greed from politicians in both parties.
hm, I am not getting to the same conclusions reading his posts. To me, he believes capitalism is the best way to ensure economic growth for as many people as possible, but not unchecked capitalism. Just how far he thinks the government should go on limiting the negative effects of capitalism is another thing entirely.
Also, he isn't wrong at all. Conservative-minded people generally believe in capitalism while also believe in limited government, which is a harbinger for long-term economic and social disaster. Many people ran to those conservative-minded people (claiming they are economic conservative and socially liberal) but were really racist and did not want minorities getting government help even if it hurts themselves as well. This isn't something that can be refuted by the way as whites (especially white men) moved from being Democrats to mainly Republican except in certain scenarios.
There is a major reason why LBJ said this "If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you."
Those white voters moving from Democrats to Republican because of the Democratic policy changing to help minorities more is one of the major reasons U.S had/has unchecked capitalism for so long. Greed in capitalism is also a major reason, but like I said, you can't deny the big reason (which is well documented) why Republicans managed to grab and hold onto power for so long.
Racism paved the way for this much capitalism and inequality in U.S as it was used as the tool for greedy assholes to enrich themselves as the poor white man was too busy keeping as much as he can from minorities while getting robbed himself. Again, this is well documented, I am not seeing the issue with Kirblar's post here.
The WWII wage policy stuff was just legit bad policy because they didn't understand the consequences of leaving benefits uncapped while capping wages.
And it's not greed, it's just racism. It took us 4 decades to make substantial advances after LBJ.
I see you responded.. Kirblar, no one disagrees that racism was the tool that allowed this, but greed is one of the reasons that tool was used consistently. If you are using racial issues to divide people, so you can push policies that enrich yourself, family, friends, etc. then obviously greed is somewhere in there.
Just pointing out it is very intellectually dishonest to say greed has nothing to do with it and its only racism.