Also a surprising number of people in the US believe that poverty is a moral failure of some sort. I never actually understood this.
If you grow up middle class or better then it’s pretty much impossible to make good decisions and end up poor. The incorrect “moral failure” mindset comes from projecting this belief onto people who grew up in poverty and never had a chance.
That seems like a tautology. “Didn’t end up poor? Of course you didn’t, you made all good decisions. Ended up poor? Must have been those dumbass decisions you made.”
A lot of what people take as "morals" is actually good economic sense wrapped up within a moral code, and even those who advocate it in that form can still sniff out the good sense from it.
Strip away the morality (as we should) and the "good" behaviour is supported strongly by research, as this[1], from the left leaning Brookings Institute, shows:
> poor children are more likely to make bad decisions that lead them to drop out of school, become teen parents, join gangs and break the law.
> Let politicians, schoolteachers and administrators, community leaders, ministers and parents drill into children the message that in a free society, they enter adulthood with three major responsibilities: at least finish high school, get a full-time job and wait until age 21 to get married and have children.
> Our research shows that of American adults who followed these three simple rules, only about 2 percent are in poverty and nearly 75 percent have joined the middle class
By cutting out those bits from the whole piece it makes it sound overly harsh but still, let's not throw out the baby from the conservative's bathwater.
[1] https://www.brookings.edu/opinions/three-simple-rules-poor-t...
Yep, there's a marriage in the US between business and religion that seems contradictory until you realize that these people believe the "invisible hand" of the market is God.
Who? I’ve never met anyone who believes that.
You'll see the above quote very frequently in any discussion about class and wealth in the US. It's a glib strawman that makes those writing it feel intellectually superior to and condescending to their targets at the same time. Until those on the various sides of ideological divides actually try to understand each other instead of coming up with smug strawman models that diminish the other side's agency, the conflict will continue. Thing is, there are some who benefit from this endless conflict and it is in their best interest to see it continue. They're usually not the ones posting quotes like above as they sit on the sidelines, only occasionally tossing in an ideological grenade or two should any side start gaining the upper hand.
I don't know how much of that theory remains true with American protestants today.