> The United States is a child of the Industrial Revolution. Its godfather is capitalism and its guardian Providence, otherwise known as the “invisible hand.” Capitalism is an ideology because it is a source of principles and a means of justifying behavior; that is, it is something Americans believe in. It is a liberal ideology because it has always participated in positive attitudes toward progress, individualism, rationality, and nationalism. It is capitalism because its foundation is a capitalistic economic theory and because its standards of legitimacy are capitalistic. It was the public philosophy during the nineteenth century because it dominated all other sources of belief in the formulation of public … Continue reading >Theodore J. Lowi