The beauty of insurance was that the market freedom that liberals embraced, or so they argued, mitigated the very hazards that capitalism and economic growth created. By insuring the future productive capacity of a worker, the market could offload risk onto life insurance companies. The companies, in turn, by investing the money they amassed from premiums, could create new capital necessary for the economic growth that provided individual opportunities—and new risks. Much of this capital went into western farm mortgages, which, along with government subsidies, fueled the tremendous expansion
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