When I grew up, most of the adults were from that "Greatest Generation". Some of them were great, and others were drunken jagoffs who beat their wives and children, and of course nothing was said about that back in those days. The people who resisted the Civil Rights, Women's Rights, and Gay Rights movements were from that generation. They used the N-word unironically. The leaders who sent Boomers to die face down in a rice paddy in a no-win war were from that generation. Incidentally, the Boomers didn't get parades when they got home, they got spit on. The cops who threw kids through plate glass windows at the 1968 DNC in Chicago were from that generation. I'm not saying that they were worse than people alive now, but they were no better. Watch an episode of All in the Family, and let Archie Bunker remind you not to romanticize the past.

“men must grudge money, for riches hinder wisdom.” I think that you misunderstand the full implications of that quotation. That attitude led to Samuria holding money and people who used it in such low regard that they didn't pay their bills. If a merchant or tradesmen complained about it they would find out how well that Samurai's katana would cut their abdomen. The Samurai are fascinating and very romantic, but they were essentially armed goons who bullied the rest of the population, and there was no shame to that at all. A rigid caste system where the top tier are warriors sucks if you are not one of them. Knights and serfs? Same thing.