Sounds like a nation of drones. It used to be that one's compensation for being an American drone was the freedom to live in one's own house, in one's own quirky way, in a clean and safe community in which your children had the chance to be happier, richer drones than you. But working stiffs can't afford houses now, fewer communities are clean, none are safe, and your kid's prospects are worse. But you're only as independent as your credit rating. Pay them as little as they'll tolerate and give them no say in anything, because that's what's most efficient and profitable.
Money is the absolute standard.
Freedom, and the dignity and well-being of one's fellow creatures, simply don't figure in the basic formula. This may seem a fairly harsh way to state the rules America now lives by. But if I sound radical, it's not from doing a lot of reading in some cozy university, then dashing off to dispense opinion as a prima donna of the alternative press. I learned about drones by droning. A year has 52 weeks.