“Do you think the reactive approach to communism/socialism’s “collectivization” had an impact on this?”

I’m not sure what you mean by this… do you mean liberal (in the economic/classical sense) states have set out their policies in contrast to communism etc? If you look at the states which have done the best in terms of relieving inequality between sexes, poverty reduction, educating people to a very high skills level and being hugely competitive at the same time, its the scandinavian countries which have taken a ‘middle path’ between the two. They’ve actively avoided the worst aspects of rampant market capitalism and state capitalism (which the Soviet Union and today, China were/are).

Your last point is quite interesting and I obviously don’t really know myself. My opinion is probably that the media is very powerful and does effect people’s outlook and the general public discourse. Also, someone like me believes the economic/political trends of the past 30 years are a process of the redistribution of wealth, but rather than flowing from rich to poor as they began to following WW2, its been reversed back to its traditional course of poor to rich. The people who own media outlets are obviously not the poor, disposed etc, they’re individuals/small groups of people who are doing well in the current system and therefore wish to maintain it (they’d probably be somewhat crazy not to). The media DOES tow the line of their corporate owners… of all 260 or so editors on Rupert Murdoch’s dozens of local and national newspapers/tv news channels all over the world, every single one supported the Iraq war. Yes this is kind of off the point, but I guess I’m just trying to demonstrate that when certain individuals want to make a point through the media outlets they own, they can do so very effectively. There is too little space for the little guys with no money to make an impact… bar the internet which I’m pretty sure will become less free in years to come as private companies make greater inroads into its functioning.

Just to throw out some thoughts in my head:

Do you think the reactive approach to communism/socialism’s “collectivization” had an impact on this?

Media and/or political policy were mentioned as drives of this trend. I can’t help but wonder if the media and policy were driven by the public, or vice-versa. It’s hard to figure out which is the cause and which is the effect since both factors are constantly changing.