I'm worried too about the growing segmentation, even atomization of nearly all developed societies and it's not just something to blame libertarians or laissez faire conservatives for. In Germany, society's magna charta agreement is on the wane. When I went to school in the sixties and seventies, anything but visiting a public school was pretty much unthinkable, if you went to a private school you were regarded as someone not smart enough to make it in a public school. They were called "idiot schools". By now we have reached a point where people in upper middle class circles give you a wary look if you tell them that your kids visit a public school. The thought of their children being confronted with anything of what they consider out of the ordinary gives them nightmares. I never wanted my kids to grow up in a world where they believe that everybody's dad is either a banker, an attorney, a dentist or a medical doctor. And my son visits a school with a large immigrant percentage of students who sometimes give him a hard time for his overt rock star and androgynous look. Baggies don't appreciate snakeskin cowboy boots, a red leather jacket and ample mascara on a guy. But I would not want him in an artificial secluded environment where none of that happens.
Society is segregating more and more and I believe - my pet theory - it has to do with an unusually long period of stability and peace which seems to breed the development and encroachment of classes as money inevitably goes where it already is (in my book also the reason for the uneven allocation of wealth as societies mature, be it in the US, which saw the last war on its mainland territory 140 years ago, or in Europe where we've had the longest period of peace and stability ever since 1945). Lost wars or bloody revolutions are a great way to reset a society's composition, but of course neither can be a recipe to combat mounting segreagation within populations. I haven't come up with a smart idea yet what else would work though.
Other examples of the "common good fabric" falling apart are growing reluctance to allow mass vaccinations (where left-leaning liberals are more to blame than conservatives) or the mounting opposition (again not a conservative thing) against any type of large-scale infrastructure project, may it be a high speed train terminal, an additional airport landing strip, a power plant or a storage facility for nuclear waste. Everybody in Germany seems to yell "not in my backyard, put it somewhere else or better not build it at all". That is no way to develop and sustain a society and its infrastructure (I hate to say it, my American friends, I've visited your country a good many times in the last thirty years and your infrastructure has overall severely declined, the highways around a wealthy urban area such as Boston are in a state that would put many a Third World Country to shame). I wonder if a gargantuan project such as the Hoover Dam could still be tackled and finished anywhere in the US today? Certainly not in Germany and there is a point where environmental awareness/conservationism turns into a flatout witchhunt against industry and infrastructure projects. But we can't all be investment bankers and attorney - the UK is currently learning the hard way what a monoculture of financial services and turning a blind eye to the deindustrialisation of a nation (or even supporting it) can lead to.
Uwe
