The chaos and unpredictability of today's economy and the conscious "ignoring" of any efforts to objectively question the causality or purpose of our social system seems to be a "retreat from reason", why so much "want in the midst of plenty?" Don't ask!

There is also plenty of reason to be pessimistic about the state of the union and the instability of the job world Americans now face, small wonder that economists and sociologists prefer to look at our present world as the result of quantum mechanics...rather than regarding the present state of our world as the effect of its anterior state and as a cause of the one to follow. Science, and the laws of cause and effect have indeed "fled the scene." "Heil, status quo!"