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Energy and the new class. [Assault of ''new breed'' of American on established institutions]

Journal Article · · Energy Dly.; (United States)
OSTI ID:5494412

The bounty of the US is taken for granted by its population. Nowhere is this misvaluation of a society and its benefits more evident than in the energy industries. But energy represents a tool by which society can be shaped; a device by which the standared of living and the very nature of the national lifestyle can be controlled, modified, amplified, or reduced. Two examples examined to show how energy shapes social order and human life are the women's movement and the desire to live in the Sunbelt. Five phenomena are then examined to point out the desire to restrain the nation's rampant pursuit of a higher standard of living, as opposed to the more subjective and seemingly more desirable goal of a better quality of life: the civil rights movement; the environmental movement; the Vietnam War; the Watergate scandal; and the assumption that prosperity at today's level is irreducible, concrete, and not subject to diminution. The ''new class'' is essentially made up of those educated in the liberal arts, divorced from an understanding of the mechanics of free-enterprise institutions and of the sicences. The antagonistic view of the new class of corporations and its assault on established institutions are noted. Energy companies are frustrated in telling their story, but the story that must be told is not the story of how excellently the energy sector has performed, but the story of how a new breed of Americans is seeking to remake America in its own image without the rest being aware of what is going on. (MCW)

OSTI ID:
5494412
Journal Information:
Energy Dly.; (United States), Journal Name: Energy Dly.; (United States) Vol. 7:49; ISSN ENDAD
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English