It all began with…
How does life compare now with when you were younger? Is it getting better?
We all have different priorities, interests and circumstances, so when and how we realise that change is happening can vary.
Politics and power
“It all began with Reagan”, Thom Hartmann sometimes says. And here in the UK it started a couple of years before that, when Maggie Thatcher became prime minister, though arguably Reagan led the way earlier when he was governor of California. Both espoused policies which made life better for the rich and worse for the rest of us, at a time when improvements in technology could and should have made life better for everyone.
Every generation and every individual has a point in time when they first perceive things as getting worse (or better). For example, Reagan crushed PATCO and Thatcher crushed the miners’ union, leading to a rise in inequality, which had a detrimental effect on the conditions of working people. While I noticed a switch to a ‘greed is good’ attitude under Thatcher, I was not sufficiently politically aware before her to immediately understand all the differences she made.
But really, it all started with the advent of agriculture. This enabled some people to store food and withhold it from others, giving them an economic advantage, which even the costs of protecting…