> We (the US) had a very successful, carefully designed system

The idea that it was "very successful" basically comes from ignoring things like the Civil War, and the idea that it was "carefully designed" comes from building a fiction around the output and ignoring the process that actually produced it (in no small part aided by people viewing the after-the-drafting sales campaign of the Federalist Papers as if it reflected a real coherent rationale that went into building the system rather than a marketing campaign developed for a particular audience for an existing product.)

Interesting to see the Federalist papers as a PR campaign.

the current us capitalist system is essentially a post-civil war system... considering the us started as a wartorn backwater in 1860 and wound up as the dominant nation in world by 1950 says something.