Politically, this is as bad as it gets. Morally, however, there was worse to come. Can't Take it With You . Where old Mr. Vanderhoff is good and gracious for the joy of it, Old-Man Potter is nasty for its own sake. Prior Capra villains had purpose, whether money, power or a new order.
Potter is evil with no goal or reason for being that way.
Political and financial empire-building are subsumed into greed, ill will and blind destructiveness. This evil is so complete that the villain's conversion isn't contemplated. Even the intervention of the people is insufficient to save the hero, whose despair puts him beyond help from human agency. It's true that George's friends and beneficiaries come together to make good the building and loan's shortfall, but that only addresses his superficial and immediate problem. Capra's group of socially conscious films of the '30s reflected a reasonably coherent fear of the intensifying class conflict, fascism and militarism that seemed then to be overtaking the world.