No country likes to look poverty full in the face, but in America there is a special reluctance to do do. Since the Puritans, Americans have associated wealth with blessing and poverty with curse. According to capitalist ideology, poverty is less a social problem than a series of individual failures. A prosperous middle class showed, until recently, that hard work paid off.

But since 2008 the American middle class has lost its footing. Unaccountability, powerlessness, and the loss of control over one’s own destiny are sapping the morale of people still in work, not to mention those out of it. Those who work for government are “devastated by the capital’s stasis, conformity and corruption”.

The frightening thing is that the postwar consensus, in which business, labor and government worked together to guarantee a growing economy, full employment and political stability has been “unwound”. The social compact is now like “Paradise Lost”. The old institutions don’t work, and the void is now filled by “the default force in American life – organised money”. It’s all about “greed and civic irresponsibility”. (Adapted from a review of “The Unwinding: An Inner History of the New America,” by George Packer (Faber) in the August edition of “Prospect” magazine).

Those who espouse Epicureanism have to face the fact the they are in a tiny minority – in fact all those with any common sense are as well. As we edge back into poverty of pocket and spirit, back into the conservative nirvana of sub-feudal deference and household servants, let us enjoy friendship, good conversation, laughter and wine, (if climate change lets us), in beautiful gardens. Clearly, religion has failed the majority of us, as has political leadership and institutions. God has proved over the years that he cannot help us, but we can help ourselves.