The point I'm making here was well understood in the post-WWII era. Here's the cartoon version: "Meet King Joe".[1] The more serious version, "Despotism".[2] The hard sell version, "How to lose what we have."[3] All of these were produced for industrial companies.
It's worth understanding how this was viewed by the generation that won WWII.
[1] https://archive.org/details/MeetKing1949
wow!! thank you for bringing up these videos.
seems also then the american elite lost the way -- engaging in financial engineering rather than actual production.