"There may be some backward countries where the mass of the people are on a subsistence level and where, as an aftermath of wars or partial crop failures, the standard of living has to be drastically reduced, but this certainly is not the case in our prosperous nations"
About this Quote
The cold comfort of “prosperous nations” is doing a lot of ideological work here. Charles E. Wilson, the corporate statesman best known for steering General Motors and then serving as Eisenhower’s defense secretary, offers a sentence that sounds humane on its face and quietly locks the door behind it. He concedes that deprivation exists, but only “backward countries” suffer it - and even then, it’s framed as an unfortunate exception caused by war or weather, not by power, policy, or extraction. Scarcity becomes a natural disaster, not a political choice.
The intent is managerial reassurance: whatever belt-tightening might be proposed at home, the speaker preemptively rejects the idea that modern industrial society should tolerate real sacrifice. That’s a rhetorical firewall for consumer capitalism. By defining austerity as something that happens elsewhere, to other people, he positions the American standard of living not as contingent but as an entitlement of development itself.
The subtext is also geopolitical. In the early Cold War, “prosperity” wasn’t just an economic condition; it was propaganda, a proof-of-system against Soviet claims. Wilson’s language divides the world into competent modernity and pitiable laggards, a hierarchy that flatters the home audience while rationalizing U.S. leadership abroad. It’s a business worldview dressed up as common sense: the market delivers abundance here; instability explains hardship there.
What makes the line effective is its casual certainty. The word “certainly” doesn’t argue; it asserts. That confidence is the point - a refusal to imagine that “prosperous” societies can be fragile, or that their comfort might be implicated in someone else’s subsistence.
The intent is managerial reassurance: whatever belt-tightening might be proposed at home, the speaker preemptively rejects the idea that modern industrial society should tolerate real sacrifice. That’s a rhetorical firewall for consumer capitalism. By defining austerity as something that happens elsewhere, to other people, he positions the American standard of living not as contingent but as an entitlement of development itself.
The subtext is also geopolitical. In the early Cold War, “prosperity” wasn’t just an economic condition; it was propaganda, a proof-of-system against Soviet claims. Wilson’s language divides the world into competent modernity and pitiable laggards, a hierarchy that flatters the home audience while rationalizing U.S. leadership abroad. It’s a business worldview dressed up as common sense: the market delivers abundance here; instability explains hardship there.
What makes the line effective is its casual certainty. The word “certainly” doesn’t argue; it asserts. That confidence is the point - a refusal to imagine that “prosperous” societies can be fragile, or that their comfort might be implicated in someone else’s subsistence.
Quote Details
| Topic | Equality |
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