Word: wealth
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...plaid skirt, which asserts the wearer's class superiority and gender inferiority. Preppie culture has always been patriarchal. Thorstein Veblen, who coined the phrase "conspicuous consumption" at the turn of the century, contended that the leisure class woman's function was to display-her male keeper's wealth. "The high heel, the skirt...and the general disregard of the wearer's comfort which is an obvious feature of all civilized women's apparel" suggested to Veblen that "the woman is still in theory the economic dependent of the man." Despite changes since Veblen's day, uncomfortable skirts and high heels...
...preppy fashion pervade Harvard. This vogue would be harmless if it were nothing more than an unsightly Public Display of Affectation. But Prep implies that some of us are more equal than others--by virtue not of intrinsic merit but of money. America must reconcile this obvious inequality of wealth with its professed democratic ideals by dispelling the myth that differences in income reflect personal merit...
...peculiar and expensive manners, customs and attire, a pattern emerges. If they can convince the rest of us that their peculiar whims constitute good taste, they succeed in creating the impression that they are superior. Giving status to preppy fashions sported by the rich helps legitimize their wealth, however they may have obtained...
With this broad outlook, all men are latent billionaires because of world resources and advanced technology. The problem is allocation of this wealth. Fuller feels current institutions prevent people from living like kings. He believes the establishment's faith in the Malthusian theory of searcity has led to wars and wasteful stockpiling of arms. Fuller tries to dispatch these doomsday beliefs so that mankind will work together. If fear of poverty is dispelled, cooperation and efficient coexistence are inevitable...
...ordered the dismissal of 8,000 government employees for corruption and inefficiency. He also accused ten prominent citizens, including an ex-Prime Minister, a former top intelligence officer and an army general, of amassing a total of $142 million through abuses of power, and forced them to donate their wealth to the state's public welfare fund. More recently he ordered a purge of the country's judiciary, with 37 sackings and a series of demotions and transfers...