Time & Perspective Quote by Robert Orben

Orben lands the joke like a slapstick econ lecture: he takes a reverent civic ideal, "true democracy", and pins it to the least noble force imaginable - prices spiraling out of control. The punchline works because it borrows the moral glow of political equality and reveals a grim parody of it: inflation doesn't level society by lifting people up; it flattens distinctions by making everything unaffordable.

The subtext is a suspicion that American talk about democracy often drifts into marketing language. We celebrate "access" and "choice" as if theyre rights, not shopping options. Orben flips that consumerist civic religion against itself. When "luxuries and necessities are selling at the same price", its not a utopia where everyone gets steak and silk; its a panic where bread starts to feel like jewelry. Equality arrives, but as a shared anxiety.

As an entertainer from the postwar-to-TV era, Orben is speaking from a tradition of mainstream humor that smuggles critique into an easy laugh. Inflation was a recurring public fear in the 1970s and again in later waves; it hits ordinary people in small, relentless ways. The line captures that lived experience: you dont need a chart to understand the insult of paying premium prices for basic life. The joke also needles the comfortable: luxuries becoming "normal" was once a sign of prosperity; here, necessities becoming "luxury-priced" is the inversion. Thats why it sticks - its funny because it feels like reportage.