I hear what you say which no doubt is ideologically driven. My point of view is simply based on my 2 stints of working in the USA and what we see in TV via Hollywood , the Soaps & Commercial TV only tells half the picture, the better half, with the rest kept out of sight/out of mind for the simple reason that the middle class Americans don't want t to watch it let alone go there.
The culture of Poverty has been tolerated/nurtured in America since slavery via the typical WASP blaming the victims to satisfy greed. There are black people there who's ancestors arrived in chains 250 years ago who are still living in poverty. Call it what you like......genetic/environmental/ethnic/curtural , but that wont solve the problem. The USA prides itself in exporting its ideology to 3rd world countries as if it were altruistic when in fact it is economic imperialism and then they close a blind eye to its own woes as if they dont exist
In the old days the Ghetto Kid stole the Cadillac and went for an hour joyride just to get a feel for The American Dream; nowadays, however they are likely to mug you in the street for your watch, iPhone & wallet so they can have a half day of drugged-up amnesia to escape the nightmare that they've been born into.
How did China take 800 million of its citizens out of abject poverty? We simply dont know because we simply dont like China and that, IMO, is where there is a lesson to be learnt about lifting people en-mass out of the Culture of Poverty whether we like the political system or not.
While the CCP restrictions on personal freedoms and human rights generally are repugnant , we , nevertheless, should consider what worked and what did not work for it rather than than summarily dismissing it altogether simply because it has a Communist Label. Just have a look in your own home and discover what you have with "Made in China" on it. You simply didn't reject these commodities at point of sale because they were made in China.
Similarly we should not summarily dismiss what China has done to break the Culture of Poverty but simply study it and then judge whether we can adapt it without compromising our values.
Does the use of our iPhone, for example , does not make us Communists...eh? I had a Tradie in last week ago who promptly photoed the job with his iPhone, made notes on materials & labour, used its calculator to do the sums, sent the data to his wife by email & before he left I had received the Quote @ $132/hour labour + parts (no doubt with a generous mark-up margin)
Does that make him a pro Communist Chinese sympathiser. On the contrary he is our best model of Capitalism in my suburb, IMO.
