This was the last essay I completed.
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"A Problem of Nihilism: Essay 3"
In light of all that was going on back then, it might be easy to overlook
the reaction that followed. Alongside a "white flight" from cities to
suburbs came a white backlash against more progress in civil rights. For many,
that would be bound up with increased resentment of taxes (since paying taxes
is thought to subsidize "welfare"). And liberalized laws with more
lax social norms would encourage fears of a moral decline in society (as
mirrored in the abortion issue). Being conservative had suddenly become a cool
thing to be.
Another less familiar aspect of those times was conglomeration, in which
large companies sought to buy up other firms. In the antitrust laws, the goal
had been to try to keep a single business concern (a "trust") from
gaining a monopoly on the production of particular goods, such as steel. (And
so being able to set the prices.) In conglomeration, a large company would buy
smaller ones that produced goods other than those it did. Or two or more
companies would merge, with each making different kinds of goods. There was
thus no monopoly over one part of an economy. It did tend to be unproductive,
though. It rarely created new jobs -- or even "new wealth" -- but
merely increased the assets held by a larger enterprise. That was accumulating
capital for its own sake.
As companies sought to buy up more and more of what there was to own, they
drove out small businesses that lacked the resources to compete. The same thing
would happen in farming, as smallholders could not compete with large corporate
farms. So less actual competition would occur -- putting the lie to clichés
about "the free enterprise system" -- while fewer and fewer people
amassed more and more wealth. In time, they could gain a monopoly on
most of the financial assets of an economy. (And become "too big to
fail.") And aside from that, everyone else would have the same generic
choices at "their" local branches of supermarkets and supercenters.
A parallel occurred in the television industry as merchants found ways to
make money off the public airwaves. Previously, anyone who owned a television
could watch broadcasts for free, as was the case for radio listening. But with
cable TV, consumers would pay a fee for access to what seemed like a great
wealth of channels. It soon became clear, however, that the people in charge of such
things only had so much intelligence to go around. After a decade or so,
lethargy had set in. Viewers wound up with regurgitations of
"infotainment" and "reality TV." The result now looks so
bland and dismal that we could easily believe there was a conspiracy to try to
dull the senses to the point of muting all independent thought. (Or to induce
people to kill themselves.)