In Greed We Trust
The Hidden History of How The Love of Money Became a National Value, and How Compassion Could Be the Cure.
As the stock market crashed, talking heads took to television yesterday to breathlessly declare that he’s finally lost the business community.
Ten years of chaos didn’t do it. They held their nose through the cruelty, the corruption, the crimes. But crash the economy? Now the alarms are going off.
When money is your god, greed becomes your guide.
Not truth.
Not justice.
Not love.
Not morality.
This moment isn’t about left or right. It’s not red vs. blue. It’s not one party or another.
This is about the system we live in. A system that doesn’t blink at cruelty, but gasps at collapsing profit margins. A system that will tolerate anything, except lost revenue.
This is the story of how a global empire was built - not on compassion, but on conquest. And what might still be possible, if we finally choose people over profit.
Act I: The Roaring 20’s – Party Like It’s About to Crash
Picture it: the 1920s. Jazz is hot, the stock market’s hotter, and everyone’s drunk on easy money and bootleg gin. Banks are handing out loans like Oprah hands out cars. Wall Street is an unregulated casino where greed wears a tuxedo, smokes cigars, and shouts “BUY!” from the rooftop.
Then….crash!
The stock market collapses, taking the global economy with it, and suddenly, people are lining up for bread, not profits.
The Great Depression wasn’t a tragic accident. It was the inevitable result of unchecked greed, corporate gambling, and a government that let the rich play God with the economy.
It wasn’t just a crash.
It was a warning.
Act II: Enter FDR with the New Deal (and Actual Plans)
Enter Franklin D. Roosevelt - your wise grandpa with a firm handshake, a sharp mind, and zero tolerance for Wall Street’s nonsense.
Unlike the do-nothing crowd before him, he shows up with a plan: the New Deal - a buffet of bold programs designed to get people back to work, rein in reckless banks, and maybe, just maybe, keep the country from collapsing into a real-life Mad Max sequel.
Social Security, public works programs and stronger unions all blossomed on the then-outrageous belief that government’s job wasn’t just to serve markets, but to serve people, and that government should actually help its citizens when they’re suffering.
And you know what? It worked.
Not a miracle. Not a utopia.
But a massive, necessary course correction.
The New Deal didn’t fix everything, but it stopped the bleeding and gave everyday Americans something they hadn’t had in a while: a fighting chance.
Act III: World War II – The Accidental Economic Saviour
But the real economic miracle came in the 1930’s in the form of war. Massive, global, industrialised war.
World War II kicked the U.S. economy into hyperdrive. Factories boomed. Unemployment vanished. Women went to work. The government basically said, “Here’s a blank check - build everything”. And build they did.
War didn’t just win battles. It won contracts.
America became the world’s arsenal. Then the world’s saviour. Then, conveniently, the world’s banker.
While Europe and Asia lay in rubble, the U.S. was selling bricks (and tanks) at a markup. War became a license to print money in the United States. America entered an era of booming prosperity, cashing in on catastrophe, and calling it recovery, building its golden age on the ashes of a world left in ruin.
Act IV: The Cold War – Capitalism’s Never-Ending Action Movie
After World War II, instead of scaling back, the U.S. said, “Let’s keep the war energy going - but, like, Cold.”
Cue decades of proxy wars, arms races, defence spending out the wazoo, and a booming military-industrial complex. (Thanks for the heads-up, Eisenhower. We ignored it.)
Meanwhile, all that New Deal idealism - the “help the least of us” vibe - started to fade into the background hum of profit margins and missile testing.
Act V: Reaganomics – The Great Unraveling
Fast forward to the 1980’s. Cue the synth music. Enter Ronald Reagan, stage right, with a Hollywood smile and a bold new vision for America.
His philosophy? Less government, more private enterprise. Deregulate the markets. Cut taxes - especially for the wealthy. And champion a new economic gospel: trickle-down economics.
The idea was that if you help those at the top, the benefits will eventually make their way to everyone else. In theory, it sounded promising. In practice? Most of the wealth stayed right where it started - at the top.
Reagan didn’t just scale back FDR’s reforms. He fundamentally reshaped the role of government from a tool to support the public, to a platform for boosting private power. It was marketed as empowerment, but for many, it marked the beginning of a long, slow unraveling of the social safety net.
Act VI: The Crash That Proved the Game Was Rigged
In 2008, the system finally cracked under the weight of its own greed. The housing market collapsed. Banks failed. Millions lost their jobs, homes, and retirement savings - through no fault of their own.
And what did the government do?
They bailed out the banks. The same ones who caused the crash.
The very institutions that gambled with people’s lives - packaged bad debt into “investment opportunities” and bet against the system they built - were deemed “too big to fail.”
The average person got austerity.
Wall Street got golden parachutes.
Even with a new president, full of hope and promise, the message was clear: When rich people break the economy, they get rescued. When poor people suffer, they get told to work harder.
The moment could’ve been a turning point. A chance to hold power accountable, to reinvest in people, to finally put guardrails back on greed. Instead, the system hit reset - and kept running the same program. Except this time, it was running hotter, riskier, and with even more wealth concentrated at the top.
The result?
A generation that came of age during a collapse, told to bootstrap their way through burnout, then hit again with a pandemic and inflation.
That’s not a glitch. That’s what happens when the economic system is designed to protect wealth, not people.
Epilogue: Capitalism - Clever Idea, Flawed Execution
Let’s be honest: capitalism, at its core, has some compelling ideas; innovation, competition, reward for hard work. On paper, it sounds like a system designed to bring out the best in us.
But somewhere along the way, the execution drifted, and instead of levelling the playing field, it quietly and consistently tilted it toward those who already have the most.
It’s not a meritocracy. It’s a monopoly, with better PR.
It’s why we fund endless wars but call universal healthcare “unrealistic.”
Why billionaires race to space while teachers buy their own classroom supplies.
Why we’re told the economy is “doing great”, even when our rent, wages, and mental health say otherwise.
Capitalism is indifferent to the human condition. It doesn’t care if your water is poisoned, your wages are stagnant, or your kid can’t afford insulin. In this system, profit outweighs people, and the only metric that matters is shareholder return.
And when money becomes the sole measure of value, we start to lose sight of what actually matters:
Community. Care. Dignity.
And the chance for everyone, not just a lucky few, to thrive.
So... What Now? What Could Better Actually Look Like?
Which brings us to today, when the cracks in the system are no longer subtle, and what may have once worked for most is now clearly failing many.
We have to do do better. We must build something better.
A system that believes in healthcare for all, because no one should die because they’re broke.
A system that offers tuition-free education, because knowledge should be a right, not a luxury.
A system that provides affordable housing, because shelter is not a speculative asset.
A system that fosters strong unions, because workers deserve power too.
A system that guarantees a living wage, because “working poor” should be an oxymoron.
Imagine a society that values people over profit. One built not on competition, but on compassion. Not on exploitation, but on equity. Not on fear, but on care.
Something more secure. More sustainable. More humane.
Imagine that.
This Isn’t About Left or Right. It’s About Forward.
The solution isn’t as simple as voting one party out and another one in. This isn’t just a political problem - it’s a cultural one. It’s about rethinking a mindset: that everything must be monetised, privatised, and turned into profit at any cost.
Maybe it’s time to stop treating human need as a burden, and corporate greed as a virtue, and finally create an economy that values people over profits. A society where compassion isn’t a side note - it’s part of the structure.
Call it post-capitalism.
Call it common sense.
Call it human decency 2.0.
But let’s stop pretending this war-fuelled, wealth-hoarding, burnout-generating version of capitalism is the best we can do.
Because it isn’t.
But if we have the courage, we can build something that is.