(12-18-2022, 03:19 PM)erdna3 Wrote: That makes sense...though wasn't 3T supposed to be "personally enjoyable" on a smaller scale, the issues being more with institutions and social-fabric?
If one was well off, then one could enjoy a hedonistic era that depended upon cheap services in restaurants, lodging, amusement parks, and shopping. Gasoline may have been expensive, but restaurant meals were cheap. There were recent college grads doing such work as waiters, salesclerks, bartenders, cooks, cleaners, and greeters for lack of better alternatives. Smart kids were told in the 1960's and 1970's, "Whatever you do do not go to work in a factory". Yes, the factories started laying off in large numbers -- but the factory was always the most reliable route out of poverty, and the sorts of jobs that flourished in the last 3T offered the deadest of dead ends. There was nothing to learn, and no wealth to create aside from real estate. Interest rates were brutal, so housing costs soared because there was no building except of 'luxury' real estate or that connected to the service economy.
As with any 3T (see also the 1920's) it was a great time for hedonism -- if one could afford it. Entertainment was as good as ever -- if mostly mindless. This was a time of severe alienation if one had a low-paying service job that underpinned the hedonism. Yes, there was religion that offered exactly what every economic exploiter has always offered -- pie in the sky if you comply as proof of faith in the System.
One aspect of a 4T is a demise of the hedonism and superstition (fundamentalist "Christianity" is more typically a wealth cult than it is a religion of service and morality, as shown in Fundamentalist support for Donald Trump). This downfall of mindless faith and hedonism itself creates a malaise because people come to the recognition that the fake prophets are preaching only for their gain and that hedonism is empty and that "luxurious" means "overpriced". Financial scams in the latter years of a 3T, especially the speculative boom that devours wealth more than it creates it and has the backing of right-wing politicians, bring mass ruin. Think of the shopping malls and amusement parks that have closed down. Think of the golf courses that went bankrupt because people could no longer afford to play golf.
Unlike the last 3T which began with a more protracted economic meltdown that forced major political reforms because the economic elites could no longer buy the political process, this time the economic meltdown was less severe. The dark side of the lesser severity was that those already rich could buy the political process and restore crony capitalism on an even bigger scale. Competition fades, so plutocrats can gouge by restraining supply. The plutocrats buy politicians who make clear that they believe that no human suffering can ever be in excess on behalf of the power, indulgence, and gain of those elites. The billionaires get richer, and the rest of us are ensured that even if e vote for an opposition to this, that such will be ineffective.
When the rich decide that the non-rich need a stake in the system so that they will not goldbrick or (worse) rebel, then things will get better.It may be up to the rich-and-powerful.
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not the convinced Nazi or the dedicated Communist but instead the people for whom the distinction between fact and fiction, true and false, no longer exists -- Hannah Arendt.