The “clutching” and “nervously consulting” is essential here. It’s where it has stopped being a “harmless introspective process”.
Apart from that, I read “crystals” and “horoscopes” in a more metaphorical sense here.
Apart from that, I read “crystals” and “horoscopes” in a more metaphorical sense here.
The real enemy is the belief that value can be created from nothing, such that an economy of infinite growth can exist. Once you've exhausted all the externalities - exploiting people overseas, domestically, pillaging natural resources - you're left in a zero sum game.
It's in the same paragraph...
> I have a foreboding of an America in my children's or grandchildren's time — when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority