Will the Recession Curb Materialism?

“That the Great Recession could bring hope for a major recalibration—a resetting of all the clocks—is not surprising. Unfortunately, though, it’s not happening in any meaningful way.” The New York Times magazine examines the idea that through our current recession, a more substantial and less materialistic culture will be born: “What came out of the combined experience of the Great Depression and World War II—broad measures of quality-of-life equalization like a sharply progressive tax policy with rates on the wealthy unimaginable today, the G.I. Bill, government-subsidized home mortgages for veterans—permitted the easier, less-frenzied middle class family life that older Americans remember from the 1950s and ’60s and that younger Americans dream of. In other words, it wasn’t individual families that reformed themselves after the crucible of the Depression. It was our society.”