Today seems like yesterday
One of the main reasons for the American revolution was the hope that citizens at the time would be able to achieve the oppertunity of private and free enterprise. This was one of Democracies great promises. Many Americans had enormous dreams to open businesses of their own which would support them and their family. After awhile many Americans began to realize that these thoughts weren't as easy to achieve as imagined.
"Private industrial fortunes were being built, in large measure, through the crushing and absorbing of small-scale enterprises. With this, many among the middle class saw their own fortunes diminishing, their prospects dim. Though most among them struggled to maintain the appearance of doing well and some held stubbornly to a gospel of wealth--looking to captains of industry as models for emulation--a widening circle of middle-class life was beset by chafing anxiety."(Ewen, PR. pg. 42)
Does this sound familiar? People who are facing economic troubles pretending that nothing is wrong and spending beyond their limits. Our current economic situation is not much different today than that of a century ago. People today are living on credit and are to affraid or ashamed to cut back in times of crisis.
"Private industrial fortunes were being built, in large measure, through the crushing and absorbing of small-scale enterprises. With this, many among the middle class saw their own fortunes diminishing, their prospects dim. Though most among them struggled to maintain the appearance of doing well and some held stubbornly to a gospel of wealth--looking to captains of industry as models for emulation--a widening circle of middle-class life was beset by chafing anxiety."(Ewen, PR. pg. 42)
Does this sound familiar? People who are facing economic troubles pretending that nothing is wrong and spending beyond their limits. Our current economic situation is not much different today than that of a century ago. People today are living on credit and are to affraid or ashamed to cut back in times of crisis.
posted by Dan McC at 10:45 AM
1 Comments:
The comparison is apt. We can see the parallels between today and the extremes of the Gilded Age. Those excesses resulted in a progressive movement for reform and the emergence of a corporate public relations lobby to counter the charges of the muck-raking reformers. Will we witness the same kind of battle over the "truth" of our political and economic system today?
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