THE consensus in Washington is clear: this is a perilous time for business bosses. Political pundits nod to a populist mood sweeping the Democratic Party, obliging Hillary Clinton—long feted as an ally on Wall Street—to denounce big firms making record profits while middle-class pay has stagnated. “Prosperity can’t just be for CEOs and hedge-fund managers,” the Democratic presidential candidate declared in a recent speech, expressing special dismay that the top 25 hedge-fund bosses make more money than all America’s kindergarten teachers combined (lines liable to warm the ears of her son-in-law, who runs a hedge fund).

Bosses feel under attack from the right, too. In vain, prominent CEOs and business lobbies have sought to save the Export-Import Bank, an 80-year-old federal agency that provides credit to exporters. It seems likely to close at the end of June, at least temporarily, after a critical mass of Republicans in Congress deemed its mission “corporate welfare”, siphoning money from taxpayers to a privileged handful of firms.

Populists describe a moment with loud historical echoes. In their telling, Americans may be a business-friendly bunch most of the time, but still they rise up when a crisis exposes a capitalist game rigged by a wealthy few. That theory is largely right. The country is both unusually business-minded and prone to ferocious debates about how capitalism should be organised and regulated. That record is explored by “American Enterprise”, an exhibition opening on July 1st at the National Museum of American History, part of the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, DC.

The exhibition is the Smithsonian’s first to focus on America’s business history. It asserts that commerce was, from earliest times, bound up with ideas of democracy and individual rights. Drawing on the Founding Fathers’ own words, the Smithsonian argues that most of them were at heart businessmen, and waged a war of independence in part to determine who would benefit from the staggering potential of their sparsely peopled, resource-rich homeland. As for the civil war, it had ill-concealed economic underpinnings. Slavery was not just wicked, it was lucrative: by 1860 the total capital that slave-holders had “invested” in captive human beings was three times larger than investment in manufacturing in the northern and southern states combined.

Americans have long stood out as unusually open to innovation, and unsentimental when local businesses or customs are swept aside. Evocative displays capture the excitement of the post-1945 boom years, when frozen meals liberated working wives or franchised restaurant and motel chains promised a highly mobile population a modern, standardised product wherever they were. The exhibition does not claim that capitalism has always been uncontroversial. It describes panics and economic crashes that buffeted America—a pioneering 19th-century board game on display, the “Game of Life”, features a square marked “Ruin”. The Smithsonian is candid about the country’s ambivalence over foreign trade. It cites George Washington’s prediction that “liberal and free commerce” would soon replace war as the main motor of international relations. At the same time it recalls later politicians rallying voters behind protectionism, and deepening economic depressions as tariffs bit.

Fairness good, opportunity better

The museum depicts moments when politicians, voters and consumers agreed that capitalism needed reform. But here modern-day populists should pay close attention. For the Smithsonian’s historians note that fairness, meaning a society without great gaps between rich and poor, has rarely mattered as much to Americans as ensuring opportunity for all. In contrast with much of Europe, socialism fizzled out as a force in America before the second world war. Nor was class identity ever very strong—it was “squashed by a rising standard of living”, suggests one of the exhibition’s curators, Peter Liebhold.

Modern populists would argue that the national mood is changing, precisely because living standards seem to have stalled for so many. Buttressing the case for intervention, they might note that Americans strongly support federal safety nets, such as Social Security pensions for the old, which were contentious when enacted as part of Roosevelt’s New Deal. Americans have also embraced FDR-era agencies that guarantee bank deposits or keep watch over investment firms. But lessons from history cut both ways. Even at the height of the Depression, Roosevelt had less luck with schemes that smacked of state planning. The Smithsonian owns a large emblem from the National Recovery Administration, established in 1933 to regulate production, prices and wages before losing the support of both industry and unions, and at last being declared unconstitutional by the Supreme Court.

History shows that Americans are reliably angered when they believe that businesses are harming the common good. That can involve cheating consumers by selling mislabelled or dangerous products (museum visitors can gasp at some lethal “Lawn Darts”, a banned toy that could pierce a child’s skull). Lots of voters think the common good is imperilled by crony capitalism or corrupt ties between business and politicians. The Smithsonian quotes the first President Roosevelt, Theodore, as he inveighed in 1902 against giant corporations suspected of fixing prices: “We draw the line at misconduct, not against wealth.”

Though there are pragmatic arguments for and against the Export-Import Bank, Republicans may be reading American history right: crony capitalism has long been a good target. For candidates like Mrs Clinton, the lessons of the past are harder. Voters resent the political influence of campaign donors (among them CEOs and hedge-fund managers). Yet still presidential candidates beg the rich for cash, ahead of an election set to shatter all spending records. Business bosses may take comfort. Their reputations wax and wane; politicians ply a trade that always looks grubby.