The traits that made America a healthy, vibrant society were a strong work ethic, a universal sense of morality, & a productive citizenry. To have a strong economy, most of the citizens must labor at something useful & productive for society. Moochers & looters should be minor factors, & in a healthy society, there is strong cultural pressure for them to contribute, rather than just take.
Being on the dole used to be an embarrassment, & many people, even those who needed assistance, would not take it. A sense of pride & dignity flavored the moral base of the nation, & even poor folks were reluctant to take 'charity', if they could manage at all.
I am intimately familiar with several poor families that went through the great depression. These are cultural examples of traditional American society. These were productive, hard working citizens, who felt their current condition was just a temporary embarrassment, & they would work their way out of it. None of these families went on the dole, or took public assistance of any kind. Oh, i know that fellow family members all chipped in if one had urgent needs, but this was a FAMILY problem, not a societal one.
1. My maternal grandmother. Born at the turn of the last century, her family came to Tx with some of the other Houstons from Ky before & after the civil war. She married & had a child in Tx, then 2 more in California, where they moved right before the depression. My grandfather worked construction, & the stress of the move, strong personalities, & no doubt the economic climate of the time took its toll on their marriage. They split, & my grandfather faded from the picture, by his own choice, aided by my grandmother who evaded him. Some of those details are lost in family folklore, but the end result was a single mother with 3 small children living in southern California.. grapes of wrath kind of thing.
She was very frugal, & told stories about when her siblings needed money, they would always look to her. 'Tiny has something hidden away', they would say, & sure enough, she had a bit of cash stashed, & it would cover a crisis. She was also a survivor, & remarried another construction worker, while living in Cal. When my dad was a teenager, he dropped out of school to work with his step dad on the panama canal. They sent money back to the family for their support. My dad was the oldest, & he put his brother & sister through school, until the Big War broke out. He had just turned 21, & joined the navy, no doubt from familiarity with ships & servicemen in Panama. His baby sister married a poor farm boy from Missouri, who joined the army. The younger brother also joined the army & went into the air corps. After the war, my dad got his GED, went back to college, graduated valedictorian as an electrical engineer, & designed power plants. My uncle became a dentist, & my aunt raised her kids, married to a career army guy, stationed in Japan, Germany, & other places over the years.
They all put their kids through college, sent money every month to their old mother, & lived productive, industrious lives. They all died well to do, beneficiaries of their hard work, opportunity, & a vibrant national economy, built by these kinds of people.. working people who made things, & provided necessary, useful services to society.
2. My wife's mother. Born at the turn of the last century, raised by an aunt after her mother & father died when she was an infant. She grew up in Emporia, Ks, the daughter of Irish, German, & Scotch immigrants coming from Ohio & Michigan to settle in Kansas. She married & had 3 kids with a bricklayer, & became a young widow when he died during the peak of the depression while working in Wyoming. She returned to Kansas with the small children, & remarried another bricklayer, & had 3 more kids with him. Work was scarce during the depression, & you had to go where it was, if you didn't have other means of survival. They moved to Kansas City after the war, where my wife was born. She was the only child in the family to go beyond high school, and most of the boys became bricklayers, like their dad. A couple became successful contractors, & all of them bought houses, & lived the American Dream.
3. My stepmother's family. My stepmother was born to descendants of poor farmers living in S. Missouri. She grew up in the depression, & her dad would work for $1 per day. They had a garden & an extended family with many aunts & uncles. They were very religious, & committed to family. They hunted to supplement their food supply, & raised chickens & usually a pig. They canned vegetables & fruits, & lived rural, fairly self sufficient lives. They never had much, but had strong, interconnected family & church/community ties.
These are examples of what made America. There are thousands, if not millions more, in every region, from every family. What they had in common was a strong work ethic & family unity. Each of these families went through difficulties that no modern family in America can relate to. They went hungry. Basic food supplies were scarce, & money was tight. Jobs were scarce, & you had to leave your home sometimes to go where the work was. There was assistance, but it was viewed with disdain.. you could stand in soup lines, or get a job with the WPA (we piddle around, said the old timers), but not very many people went that route. In the 19th century, civil jobs were mostly for the disabled or the addled, except for law enforcement. But street sweepers, lamplighters, etc, were often the less capable, mentally or physically. There were poor houses, for elderly paupers, who had no family & who had no means of support. So civil jobs were often seen as semi-charitable.. something 'make work' to provide for those who did not have the tools to work in the real world. Capable, able bodied & intelligent adults were not expected to do those kinds of jobs, as a whole. Big cities had a different culture, & civil jobs had a different perception there. But in rural, small town, middle America, which was the majority of the nation, there was no looking to govt to fix things, or provide for everyone. You were expected to work, not mooch off of everyone else. There was no tolerance for sloth or laziness.
"Socialism never took root in America because the poor see themselves not as an exploited proletariat, but as temporarily embarrassed millionaires." ~John Steinbeck
Production is what builds a vibrant economy. Hard work & intelligent industry is what makes production. Mooching & dependency is an enemy of a healthy, prosperous society, & needs to be discouraged by society.
But instead, mooching & looting are esteemed as superior means of living. Hard work is for saps, or for fools who aren't clever enough to make it by huckstering & chicanery. The end result of this 'new' ideology in America will be collapse & destruction.
"No country can sustain in idleness more than a small percentage of its numbers. The great majority must labor at something productive." ~Abraham Lincoln
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