Steven Malanga has an article over at City-Journal called “Whatever Happened to the Work Ethic?”

http://tiny.cc/vuNIg

His thesis is that free market capitalism in America, and the prosperity it brought to Americans, did not occur in a vaccuum.

The economy went hand-in-hand with a culture, one rooted in the Protestant work ethic and the virtues of thrift, hard work, integrity, delay of gratification, and patient self-improvement. Schools based their curriculums around the teaching of these virtues. The McGuffey Reader (4th) included a cautionary tale called “The Consequences of Idleness.” Ben Franklin’s aphorisms on work and thrift and moderation were taught, memorized and extolled. Horatio Alger somehow managed to sell 200 million books (in a nation of about 40 million) about rags-to-riches heroes. Milton Bradley, just 24 years old in 1860, came up with a game called “The Checkered Game of Life” (which looked a lot like a checker-board, hence the name), which emphasized the relationship between character and wealth. The game was an instant success.

One loathes to admit it but the capturing of the culture by the leftists starting in the 1960s was a master stroke, probably THE master stroke. And there’s a reason weevils like Ayers want to go after the kiddies’ minds. Because it works.

Unfortunately for conservatives and libertarians, capturing the culture is the work of at least one generation, sometimes two. At this juncture it appears we may not have that much time. We all know that
the progressives’ lie, that the good life can be enjoyed perpetually without effort or traditional morality, eventually implodes on itself … what we are concerned about is what the collateral damage will be.

But this is not a one-front (political) war. If there is to be any recovery of anything good, it will require telling, re-telling, and re-telling again, in the culture and in the schools.