A Better Life in an Affluent Society

Contemporary society is preoccupied with wealth. There is no need here to distinguish between capitalism and communism. It is a well-known fact that the great declared objective of Soviet economic planning is "to attain and to surpass the American standard of life."Every country employs statisticians to compute the annual increase in its national wealth. If the increase is substantial, the government prides itself on it; if it is small, the opposition finds in it a grievance capable of rallying public opinion behind it. In democratic countries, the political organizations that are most firmly entrenched are the ones that seek to advance the pretensions of one group for a larger share of the national wealth, and those that seek to defend the present share of a group against such pretensions. Public affairs consist to a large extent of pleadings and pressures concerning the division of wealth, and to some extent of more technical discussions concerning its increase

Political science · Sociology · Economic Theory and Institutions · Post-Communist Economic and Political Transition · Russia and Soviet political economy