John

“In the 1960s, however, the empire of production began to come undone. Within another twenty years—thanks to permanently negative trade balances, a crushing defeat in Vietnam, oil shocks, “stagflation,” and the shredding of a moral consensus that could not withstand the successive assaults of Elvis Presley, “the pill,” and the counterculture, along with news reports that God had died—it had become defunct. In its place, according to Maier, there emerged a new “Empire of Consumption.” Just as the lunch-bucket-toting factory worker had symbolized the empire of production during its heyday, the teenager, daddy’s credit card in her blue jeans and headed to the mall, now emerged as the empire of consumption’s emblematic figure. The evil genius of the empire of production was Henry Ford. In the empire of consumption, Ford’s counterpart was Walt Disney.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

“The person passionate about what he or she is doing will outwork and outlast the guy motivated solely by making money.”
― Reid Hoffman, The Startup of You: Adapt to the Future, Invest in Yourself, and Transform Your Career

“Touring the United States in the 1830s, Alexis de Tocqueville, astute observer of the young Republic, noted the “feverish ardor” of its citizens to accumulate. Yet, even as the typical American “clutches at everything,” the Frenchman wrote, “he holds nothing fast, but soon loosens his grasp to pursue fresh gratifications.” However munificent his possessions, the American hungered for more, an obsession that filled him with “anxiety, fear, and regret, and keeps his mind in ceaseless trepidation.”2”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism

“Far more accurately than Jimmy Carter, Reagan understood what made Americans tick: They wanted self-gratification, not self-denial. Although always careful to embroider his speeches with inspirational homilies and testimonials to old-fashioned virtues, Reagan mainly indulged American self-indulgence.”
― Andrew J. Bacevich, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism