From "Scientific America" Ewen quotes, "Factory industrialism as producing the accoutrements of a 'democracy,' one 'which invites every man to enhance his own comfort and status'" (187). This statement clarifies how "mass production, according to this outlook, was investing individuals with tools of identity" (Ewen 187). In the case of the 'nay,' Ewen argues that the workers "laboring in many of the factories, however, industrial conditions systematically trampled upon their individuality and personhood" (187). He clearly emphasizes how this monotonous work environment has affected the workers negatively, like the loss of their personal individualism. Ewen gives the impression that this affects the middle class most deeply because of the importance of having an individual identity.
Finally, he moves on to describe the two perceptions of social reality. Ewen illustrates, how "the new industrial reality" created "two distinct ways of apprehending the very question of status and class" (187). Ewen makes it clear that class is understood to be "focused on the social relations of power which dominated and shaped the modern, industrial mode of production" (187). He also acknowledges the other perception of social reality, consumption. Ewen states, "American society-gave rise to a notion of class defined, almost exclusively by patterns of consumption" (187). Ewen offers a good description and emphasis on how the new norm has exploited the middle class and the effects on the wealth of an individual. Ewen .
understands that "conflict between those who profited from the increasingly mechanized and consolidated means of production, and those whose lives, labors, and energies were being consumed in service" (187). This statement further extends Ewen's point, he does so to stress the negative effects of consumerism on their class status and personal identity.
