You missed an important part of your story re the history of “capitalism”: The concurrent rise in broadcast media. Then the old Steinbeck quote,
“Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires.”
that story, takes full flight starting in 1950. You see the rich on television, in advertisements, why, they are just like you or me! And lo, I see success stories, their families, the Waltons! The first Walmart had shelves built from wood and cinderblocks. Then they got rich. Me too! I wanna be rich, not a shop steward! This close psychological bridge between the rich and poor, via television and radio, and a ton of print (magazines, and cut out the pictures) allowed CEOs to increase their net worths all out of proportion to their performance, and no one cared, because…I will soon be among them!
Don’t call it “capitalism”, when corporations buy back their own shares! “I thought selling shares allowed you to go into business!! Why would you buy back shares?”
We live in a “Rules Economy”. Taxation, accounting, these are all set with the idea that if you can hop the wall and get to the side of the exploiters, leave behind the exploited, there’s no looking back. You did it!
By the way, the Russian Communists (big “C”) knew that Russia was far too backward to have a real communist economy as Marx envisioned. So for seventy years, they lived under the “Dictatorship of the Proletariat”. Look it up. True Marxism was always in the future. Meanwhile, you had a criminal organization for seventy years, forbidding all freedoms and punishing at will.
