was the american dream, of liberty and justice for all, hijacked by mammon?

Question

the founding fathers realised the obvious, that tyranny was inevitable with overwealth - they tried their best to limit fortunes to justice, by prohibiting entail & primogeniture, fixing clergy salaries, warning against the corporation - they believed that wealth concentration wd kill the republic, as did several presidents - democracy = people power, which is subverted if wealth/power is not just, is not proportional to work - work is democratically spread, wealth must be too, for justice, nonviolence, love of the republic, survival

people's concept of justice, grasp of the allimportance of justice, was [far] too woolly for vigilance, the price of democracy, safety, happiness, peace

justice [=peace, happiness, democracy, capitalism for all] is equal pay for equal work - we can quantify pay - when we can correctly define & quantify work, we will get justice, happiness, everything good we are missing out on

ppl said: liberty! freedom to get limitlessly rich!

Answer 1

The key phrase is "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness". The trouble is that, as Franklin said, "the constitution guarantees the pursuit of happiness, but you have to catch it yourself". And "happiness is mainly a state of mind, and only incidentally conditioned by outside forces of circumstance" (P Yogananda) which people, in general, do not know. Hence the problem. They look outside, to the world, for happiness and then grumble when it isn't there, not in Sears and JC Penney, not in Washington, and not on the trees of Pennsylvania nor the skyscrapers of Manhattan either.

Answer 2

No it was Mohamed Atta who hijacked the American Dream.

Answer 3

Exactly right. $$$ rules.