Quote:
Originally Posted by tankdriver
The acquisition of wealth has become (or maybe always was) an American ideal.
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As with most things, there is a measure of truth in what you say. However, there is also error of omission.-- In prior generations a Christian world-life view was dominant in the country. This is not to say that most people, or even a plurality were truly Christians, but that they lived with some sort of a conviction of future judgment. So the acquisition of wealth was often tempered with some giving back to the community. Henry Ford would be one example. He was a thoroughly complex man; sometimes appearing to be the simple idealist, while other times employing harsh business practices--certainly not a Christian. He employed minorities when it was not popular, but hated bankers, many of whom were Jewish, and published, w/o a copyright, the "World Wide Jew"--a scurrilous series if there ever was one. He accumulated fabulous wealth, yet shared with his employees much more than was common at the time. His reasoning for the $5 day was simplicity--The production lines methods had lowered his costs, and he passed that savings on to his customers. They, in turn, made him wealthy. But what of the employees? He felt it only fair to share the wealth with them, and granted a $5 day wage. It was somewhat more complicated than that, and served to reduce absenteeism, but it was about twice the prevailing industry wage. No one forced him to do it; he just felt it was the right thing to do.
There are similar examples of modern companies that are good to their employees; but less and less as time goes on, it seems.
Instead popular culture is all about accumulation of wealth w/o regard to legality or anything other than greed--or so it seems to me.