Insights from the past (mine and the US's) on economics

I found the following note-cards, containing thoughts written down in 2005 after conversations with one Major Lamoreaux, a psychologist who was also helping me through some of the difficulties of doing medicine in a theatre of war (Iraq). They include a few thoughts on the development of ideas about government in which income is taxed and then used for the benefit of society as a whole (i.e. to create public goods like roads, bridges, and a stable health-care system):

'Before 1933, government was largely a tool of business and the wealthy, and the structure of society allowed for the suppression and neglect of the working class.

Early liberals moved government toward being an arbiter between business/industry and labor [i.e. working people, those who sweat away supporting industrial society directly, rather than managing or coming up with entrepreneurial ideas]. Government moved away from encouraging the distribution of wealth (and [perhaps] even redistribution by excessive taxation of the lower classes?) in favor of the wealthy, toward redistribution in favor of those in need, to a limited extent, and toward more balanced distribution overall.

...[An idea that also greatly expanded its hold during the period was] distribution of resources/income toward services on behalf of the whole of society, which services benefit that society as a whole (and as a collection of individuals) far more than any individual expenditures can. This last [change in the nature of government involvement in income and spending] is the basis of social democracy.'

The sections in brackets are words I've added to clarify the original writing, which occupied two sides of a three-by-five note card. This was when I was first thinking systematically about political philosophy and policy of this sort*. Thoughts? Is there something to be objected to, hear? Is this really Social Democracy, which is (or was, in those days) farther to the left, or just American Liberalism?

*I wouldn't get scared by the term 'redistribution,' which in this context is used to mean any policy that encourages wealth to accumulate toward one end of society or another--it starts out referring to a government gamed by the Gilded Age rich to grab most of the riches themselves, then seems to move toward describing the modest to marked progressive taxation (i.e. the rich pay a somewhat higher percentage of their income), as well as even-handed economic regulation, that characterized the mid-twentieth century, and which played a role in encouraging good incomes with significant but not excessive taxation for the middle class, and enough cash to government to take care of the elderly to some extent, pay for our military and security (9-10% of the economy in peace time at certain points, in those days), and do things like regulating food safety and clean air.