There is a certain dynamism and egalitarianism built into modern industrial society. For “Industrial society is the only society ever to live by and rely on sustained and perpetual growth, on an expected and continuous improvement,” (Ernest) Gellner writes. Indeed its very legitimacy depends on its provision of economic growth:”Its favored mode of social control is … buying off social aggression with material enhancement; its greatest weakness is its inability to survive any temporary reduction of the social bribery fund, and to weather the loss of legitimacy which befalls it if the cornucopia becomes temporarily jammed and the flow falters.”

From Capitalism and the Jews by Jerry Z. Muller

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