As an ecologist (with a background in economics), there is a logical phenomenon called survivorship bias. (
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias , here is a link. I suggest all read this as it is one of the largest logical lapses in our society). Essentially, with this bias, people fall victim to focusing primarily on the "good outcomes" regarding people/events/history/etc because the "good outcomes" are the ones that survived. The "failures" are forgotten about, because we have evolved primarily through the mechanism of mimicry . Survivors (more accurately "want to be survivors") mistakenly don't think enough about failure. They convince themselves that they'll succeed like everyone else.
A common example would be a kid dropping out of school to pursue a start-up opportunity, "look at Bill Gates, he dropped out of college." Everyone is familiar with this story, because he survived (and then some) and the media has highlighted his success. On the reverse, people don't listen to stories about the "failures". They see that Bill Gates has taken this road and succeed, why can't I? In reality, there are orders of magnitudes separating the Bill Gates' of the world from the Joe Blows.
This bias is known well by politicians, and they play it to their advantage. Republicans (most) have convinced the middle class that they should take care of themselves, they shouldn't increase taxes for entitlements. Because (as they say), "if you work hard, even you can be president!!!" (more generally, "if you work hard you can succeed like I have!").
You sir, are a survivor, as am I. I congratulate you. But unlike yourself, I believe that their are many people that need help. There are many, many failures in our society. Of course I'll admit that some have failed under their own misdoing, I'd be foolish to not admit this. But, I know many, many people that have failed, that HAVE worked hard. Working hard =/= 1.0 correlation. In my original post I specifically, intentionally said, (paraphrasing) "...you can crawl your way out, but its more difficult."
I want to live in a society in which a child born into a poor, inner-city, crime ridden neighborhood has the same statistical likelihood of "making it" (however you chose to define success) in America.
As for giving the government our money for "wasteful programs," who do you suggest fights corporations for us? A single person has no power. Even a massive group of people has no institutional power (although, you could always go the French Revolution route I suppose). This is what a democracy is for, they represent the PEOPLE of this country, not corporate lobbyists. We do not practice this any longer, our system is broken. With a Bernie Sanders-esque type of change, the people will have more control than we have in many decades.
Everyone must stop focusing solely on the good things that our country has done in the past, and we must focus on the problems that are only continuing to worsen. Capitalism "worked well" in terms of jump-starting an economy for a newly developing nation. Now, capitalism is so "fined tuned" that everything that can be made into a "market" has been made into a market. Everything that could be sold at a higher price, is being sold at a higher price (and will continue to rise until we stop consuming).
You can say that I'm being "naive" or "overly ambitious", but we are humans. We are highly intelligent beings. If we can evolve to the stage, consciously, were we value group well being over individual well being, we will no longer follow the Darwinian rules of capitalism.
