"Government initiatives I approve of are commercialism. Government initiatives I disapprove of are socialism."
Nothing new here.
Kinda goes with the myth of the American frontier. We like to think that the West was tamed by rugged individuals living by their gumption and wits free from government intervention and regulation. The reality is that the federal government had more to do with western territories than anywhere else. This is due to the relative weakness of local institutions and they were dependent on Federal forces. It was through Western expansion that Federal power grew because so much of nation was directly dependent on it for security, protection, services, and the acquisition of land.
A simple way to illustrate the power of the Land Office, a critical branch of this process and the Dept of the Interior, is to show the land the US government surveyed, platted and in most cases sold.
So much for the rugged individual and lack of government regulation. In fact, this ties very much into the early conversation of people moving west, offering a release to social pressures. This was directly facilitated by the US government in an intentional manner.
Furthermore, it offered the US government a constant supply of 'outside threats' to the American people in the form of the Indian Wars and Mexican-American War who stood in the way of Manifest Destiny. The creation of an 'US vs. Them' mentality is a an effective tool of creating social cohesion. If the people are focused on warfare as a nation against others, they will think about class warfare less. After that ran out? Well, Spain, the Caribbean, WWI, WWII and the Cold War provided an excellent selection of threats and enemies.
That all said and done, this is just my thinking and in no way am I a learned scholar on the subject, just an enthusiastic amateur with a cynical slant.
