What is it about business that makes us laugh - when things go wrong, which they do all the time (why, I still wish I knew) then we need to laugh.
I don't feel that there is anything deep in the political culture that prevents "educating the masses. " I'm old enough to recall vividly the high level of culture, general and political, among first-generation working people during the Great Depression. Workers' education was lively and effective, union-based - mostly the vigorous rising labor movement, reviving from the ashes of the 1920s. I've often seen independent and impressive initiatives in working-class and poor and deprived communities today.