The Affluent Society. Pdf

Utopia tends to generate a bad press - regarded as impracticable, perhaps nostalgic, or contradictory when visions of a perfect world cannot accommodate the change that is necessary to a free and self-organizing society. But people from diverse backgrounds are currently building a new society within the old, balancing literal and metaphorical utopianism, and demonstrating plural possibilities for alternative futures and types of settlement.

Traditional distinctions between the experiences of women and men are breaking down and being reconfigured in new, more complex ways. The long-established life expectancy gap between men and women appears to be closing in many affluent societies.