> Most business owners I know started their business because they saw a need for something and they wanted to deliver what was needed. Financial success is important because it allows their organization to continue functioning but it's hardly the top motivator for business owners I've spoken with.
I disagree. Capitalism is used in political rhetoric in the US, more than it is in (mainland) Europe.
I don't think that this statement can be compared with "terrible teeth" or "French smell", because those things are globally seen as bad, while having a strong pride of financial success is neither in Europe nor in the US seen as bad per se. I think financial success is simply used as a universal measure of success in the US, because capitalism as a philosophical, social and political thing had it's strongest development in the US and UK.
Another thing that added to this is Marx criticism. Now, I don't talk about political communism, but the criticisms that liberals and capitalists tend to agree with, while the broad society (by that I mean people who simply never studied economy or philosophy), but know that communism emerged from this criticism of capitalism don't want to be associated with it. The meaning of socialism and communism vary a lot depending on the country you live in. That is because in the US it sometimes nearly synonymous to "enemy dictatorship", these the term the term might in Europe be used for a totalitarian system, but also as the resistance to such a thing, as in Nazi-Germany. It might be about not making everything about money, but also many other things. Every country in Europe has another history. In some you can make a communist party that even company owners would vote, while in others nobody would vote for such a party.
I think it's also not fair to make such statements about the whole US, but depending on the society you live in success always means financial success. If you live in London, maybe in a banking district this is surely more true than if you live in another part of the city or somewhere else.
With the US it is really hard, especially for Europeans the US can be a hard way to look at, because it is considered one country and since you can only hear a certain amount about it, even if you are very interested into the country. The chance that you for example hear Ron Paul saying that someone who dies because he cannot afford a surgery can be proud of supporting his country or something like that is more likely than many other things.
For many people especially in big cities, no matter where on the planet capitalism, liberalism and democracy bind together and others see socialism, liberalism and democracy as one thing, while others see that as impossible.
This was really political, but the way these terms relate can also change how you define success. But that's not all, cause there are different reasons for wanting to be financially successful. If you live in the US it might be that you just want your children to be able to go to college. So even if this is the only reason you might for someone from Europe, where you can study cheaply or even for free, look really focused on monetary success.
The difference between the states and cities in the US should really be considered in making such comments, but when people talk about another country they tend to talk about the political elite of a country and in the US it appears to be focused on financial success and parties that reject such rhetoric aren't usually considered. As a European you often don't even know that there are other parties that people are able to vote for.
Basically the reasons are about nonces. That's why Europeans think US people are super capitalist and US people tend to think Europeans are super socialist. None of these statements is true, even if I strongly agree that US people seem to take more pride in having companies making money, just like other countries take pride in making great wine or whatever.
Often such things look kinda like a religion to outsiders. You know, like capitalism where the market is your god and everyone tries to please it, but you cannot really control it and it is hard to see what the outcome is and the capitalists are like "You should not try to control it, because it knows best", basically like "Don't try to play god" and no matter who you are you are, capitalist, socialist, communist, republican or democrat, everyone thinks when your party finally wins everything will be amazing, people will finally see the truth and everyone will be living together nicely. Socialists think everyone will share everything and capitalists that everyone will be rich and only pay for good companies and it will all somehow work out, with only minor bad happenings.
I don't think it's that way and that people might be better off not caring about things like other people's definition of success, especially not when it's a generalization, but also not of individuals, because it is incredibly easy to be wrong about it. I think we should try to not lose trust that humans, as social (in biological terms), as long as they are sane generally tend to measure success also from a social perspective (see various foundations), even if they of course also are able to forget about it. And of course power corrupts that sanity, be it power through money or power through a political position. I guess that's why democracies are neither perfect nor evil.