The ethics of managing scarcity: approaches to economy and prudence in a consuming society |
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| Authors: | Ralph Clark Chandler |
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| Institution: | Professor of Public Affairs and Political Science , Western Michigan University , 49008, Kalamazoo, Michigan |
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| Abstract: | This essay analyzes our character as a people, and its interplay with dramatic changes in our society before and after the formal close of the American frontier in 1890. Many of our prized character traits actually work against the prosperity we seek in the current day. We have not yet come to terms with the greed that contaminates every level of social analysis in American history. Nor have we moderated our individualism, entrepreneurialism, and anti-statism, even as we lose the promise of an expanding and vibrant middle class. Our faith in a great destiny must now embrace public purposes, plans, and management as necessary and desirable facets of ordered liberty. I brought you into a plentiful land to enjoy its fruits and its good things. But when you came in you defiled my land, and made my heritage an abomination. Jeremiah 2:7 |
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