I don't get it. All Leftists - and nearly-all who self-identify as being on the Right - seem obsessed by materialism (economics and politics) and completely and utterly ignore what very-obviously-to-me seems to be The Problem: I mean alienation.
Alienation is a convenient term for the cut-offness of modern life, its perceived meaninglessness, its purposelessness; the nihilism and despair which is - or at least seems (very obviously) to me - to be everywhere and near-universal...
Very obviously (to me), it is not lack of stuff that is the main problem for modern people; but that it all adds-up to nothing - and nothing they do add-up to anything.
(Take a look at modern Western people - and compare their situation with people elsewhere and at any point in history - and you would not jump straight to the conclusion that we are being oppressed by lack of stuff.)
Thoreau remarked that the mass of Men lead lives of quiet desperation - He was right; but apparently Men nowadays are utterly unaware of the fact; or else assume that their quiet desperation is due to lack of stuff...
