Yes, faith is most definitely a factor. Jesus had a lot to say on the subject of haughty pride and selfish greed so Christians are not "free market at all costs", "I've got mine so screw you", "If you are poor it is because you are weak and stupid and lazy and you don't deserve to live" types. We hear the same smug proclamations from the free market types about how roaringly prosperous a country with massive debt burdens and no savings rate is. You don't have to be a genius to figure out that if most households in this country are massively in debt (net downwards social mobility staved off with plastic) and saving nothing they are one job loss or major illness away from disaster.
I wonder if war exacerbates strains. It is very, very obvious that it is the poor Republicans who are in Iraq and Afghanistan. Most assuredly NOT the rich Republicans. Orwell in England, Your England correctly observed the decadence of a ruling elite in terms of their unwillingness to share the risks and the dangers and put their own butts on the front line. I think we are seeing in the recent precipitous drop in Army recruitment rates a mounting class resentment against this.
The great kings of old were leading their soldiers in the battle. And the rank of the nobility was derived from the bravery in war.
But we live in the times of moneybags:
Rainer Maria Rilke
from Book of Hours
The kings of the world are grown old,
inheritors they shall have none.
In childhood death removes the son,
their daughters pale have given, each one,
sick crowns to the powers to hold.
Into coin the rabble breaks them,
today's lord of the world takes them,
stretches them into machines in his fire,
grumbling they serve his every desire;
but happiness still forsakes them.
The ore is homesick. And it yearns
to leave the coin and leave the wheel
that teach it to lead a life inane.
The factories and tills it spurns;
from petty forms it will uncongeal,
return to the open mountain's vein,
and on it the mountain will close again.
(Translated by Albert Hofstadter as part of Heidegger's What Are Poets For?)
What is this all about?
You don't have to be a genius to figure out that if most households in this country are massively in debt (net downwards social mobility staved off with plastic) and saving nothing they are one job loss or major illness away from disaster.
They can change this behavior. Being massively in debt is a choice in most cases. Usually a pretty stupid choice. Want out? Sell all of your crap, set up an emergency cash fund, don't ever take on debt again exept for a mortgage. http://www.daveramsey.com/
So you are for protecting our jobs with tariffs and taxation on imported goods? Americans should pay whatever the domestic market charges for goods to protect American jobs? Or are am I misunderstanding what you are tying to convey?