But behind the public relief, the loss really happened. Another significant program at a major health facility which treats all income levels of the population has been eliminated. The reason is not absence of need, but the apparent inability of our present society, despite its ever increasing nominal wealth, to support many things we consider to be of public value. Those of us who monitor such events in metropolitan Richmond have become accustomed to this particular form of bad news. It seems so strange.
People believe that the society is getting wealthier and wealthier.
But below the surface, we seem to be suffering a continuing depletion of common life. The society is, we say, in the clutch of Economic Inevitability. All of us are wrestling with its firm grasp in one form or another. It is a wild and strange time. When the boom settles and the changes which have occurred are laid bare, we wonder what we will see.