The true and only heaven - Christopher Lasch

Can we continue to believe in progress? In this
sobering analysis of the Western human
condition, Christopher Lasch seeks the answer in a history of the struggle between two ideas: one
is the idea of progress - an idea driven by the
conviction that human desire is insatiable and
requires ever larger production forces. Opposing this materialist view is the idea that condemns a boundless appetite for more and better goods and
distrusts "improvements" that only
feed desire. Tracing the opposition to the idea
of progress from Rousseau through Montesquieu to Carlyle, Max Weber and G.D.H. Cole, Lasch finds
much that is desirable in a turn toward moral
conservatism, toward a lower-middle-class
culture that features egalitarianism,
workmanship and loyalty, and recognizes the
danger of resentment of the material goods of
others.