Presented without further comment.

"The present age of contentment will come to an end only when and if the adverse developments that it fosters challenge the sense of comfortable well-being." As well as a strong and successful political appeal to the discontented who now don't bother to vote in national elections, Mr. Galbraith sees three plausible possibilities for change to happen. "They are: widespread economic disaster, adverse military action that is associated with international misadventure, and eruption of an angry underclass."

He continues: "All could, in fact, come together. A deep recession could cause stronger discontent in the areas of urban disaster in the aftermath of some military misadventure in which, in the nature of the modern armed forces, the unfortunate were disproportionately engaged. This could, indeed, be at grave cost to contentment."


-- Review, The Culture of Contentment, 1992