Chapter 7: The USA and State-Capture

The United States of America has always been depicted as the land of opportunity where immigrants could reap the benefits of hard work and create their own wealth. The environment has been encouraging for new ideas and businesses with a democratic and stable system that had not faced major challenges to its existence since the independence from the British Empire in 1776 and with the exception of the Civil War between the North and the South (1861–1865). On the dark side, however, labor until the 1930s suffered from much hardships and at times brutal and bloody repression against their protest activities. Their conditions relatively improved after President Franklin Roosevelt's “New Deal” of 1932 which finally brought major reforms, including welfare benefits and organizational rights for labor unions (Sabry, 2017, pp. 249–251). The dynamics of this discrepancy between the power of businesspeople, and especially tycoons, and labor would continue to our present time.