Thanks for providing that insight, Kevin. Your "flawed golden age" statement reminds me of history lessons about America in the post-Revolutionary-War era, when many people (perhaps even the majority of people) longed to be back under English rule because of the perceived security as well as the factor of wanting to maintain the status quo. They had good reason to complain, as the first new government that was attempted, under the Articles of Confederation, had fatal flaws. If the statesmen of the day hadn't gone back to the drawing board and created the Constitution, who knows what the American (and global) political landscape might look like today? Yet even under the second new government there was plenty of exploitation, dissatisfaction and yearning for the way things were.

Your statement also puts me in mind of the post-Civil-War Reconstruction era, where exploitation was worse than rampant.

No point here, just rumination about a couple of periods in US history that must have seemed worse to its contemporaries than what had gone before. Wonder what the Popes of those days had to say about those situations, if anything?