bility remained, however, that a willingness to make sacrifices on behalf of some higher cause itself served an important human need, one that would be systematically thwarted in the age of abundance.

The attraction of progressive ideology, at least in its liberal version, thus turns out to be its greatest weakness: its rejection of a heroic conception of life. The concept of progress can be defended against intelligent criticism only by postulating an indefinite expansion of desires, a steady rise in the general standard of comfort, and the incorporation of the masses into the culture of abundance. It is only in this form that the idea of progress has survived the rigors of the twentieth century. More extravagant versions of the progressive faith, premised on the perfectibility of human nature—on the unrealized power of reason or love—collapsed a long time ago; but the liberal version has proved surprisingly resistant to the shocks to easy optimism administered in rapid succession by twentieth-century events.

Liberalism was never utopian, unless the democratization of consumption is itself a utopian ideal. It made no difficult demands on human nature. It presupposed nothing more strenuous in the way of motivation than intelligent self-interest. Horace Kallen spoke for most liberals when he deplored the "stupidity of the lordly men who are moved by self‐ interest, but not of the enlightened variety," in whose minds the worker therefore "ceases to figure as a consumer at all." He could still assume that a combination of governmental coercion and rational persuasion would either bring these unenlightened employers to their senses or lead to their replacement by a more intelligent class of employers. It was obvious to him, just as it had been obvious to Adam Smith, that almost everyone had a stake in increased productivity, higher wages, shorter hours of work, and a more creative use of leisure. Capitalism had "raised the general standard of living,... transformed scarcity into abundance, awakening wants where none had been before, multiplying few into many, bringing more and more varied goods to more people at lower prices, so that what had been formerly, if at all, available only to a few

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