Quotes from book
The Greening of America

The Greening of America
Charles A. Reich

The Greening of America is a 1970 book by Charles A. Reich. It is a paean to the counterculture of the 1960s and its values. Excerpts first appeared as an essay in the September 26, 1970 issue of The New Yorker. The book was originally published by Random House.

“What looks like a man is only a representation of a man who does what the organization requires. He (or it) does not run the machine; he tends it.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter V : Anatomy Of The Corporate State, p. 107

“This is the revolution of the new generation.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter I : The Coming American Revolution, p. 4
Context: There is a revolution coming. It will not be like revolutions of the past. It will originate with the individual and with culture, and it will change the political structure only as its final act. It will not require violence to succeed, and it cannot be successfully resisted by violence. It is now spreading with amazing rapidity, and already our laws, institutions and social structure are changing in consequence. It promises a higher reason, a more human community, and a new and liberated individual. Its ultimate creation will be a new and enduring wholeness and beauty — a renewed relationship of man to himself, to other men, to society, to nature, and to the land.
This is the revolution of the new generation.

“Nothing makes us angrier than the fear that some pleasure is being enjoyed by others but forever denied to us.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter X : Beyond Youth: Recovery Of Self, p. 279

“It is not the misuse of power that is evil; the very existence of power is an evil.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter V : Anatomy Of The Corporate State, p. 125

“Marx saw exploitation in terms of the rewards of human labor, but we can see it in terms of all the values of our society.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter VII : "It's Just Like Living", p. 186

“The American dream was not, at least at the beginning, a rags-to-riches type of narrow materialism.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter II : Consciousness I: Loss Of Reality, p. 22

“Perhaps the greatest and least visible form of impoverishment caused by the Corporate State is the destruction of community.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter VII : "It's Just Like Living", p. 181

“We do not see it because we can not afford to-because the truth is too explosive.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter X : Beyond Youth: Recovery Of Self, p. 287

“We seem to be living in a society that no one created and that no one wants.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter I : The Coming American Revolution, p. 10

“One of the most clearly marked trends for over twenty years has been the decline in civil liberties.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XI : Revolution By Consciousness, p. 301

“The corporate state is an immensely powerful machine, ordered, legalistic, rational, yet utterly out of human control, wholly and perfectly indifferent to any human values.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter V : Anatomy Of The Corporate State, p. 88

“The crucial fact to realize about all the powerful machinery of the Corporate State — its laws, structure, political system — is that it possesses no mind.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XI : Revolution By Consciousness, p. 305

“Thus we have the spectacle, still to be seen today, of the western rancher who accepts federal aid for his cattle operations and federal aid for his grazing requirements, but bitterly opposes all social programs that do not concern him, and the philosophy that lies behind them.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter III : The Failure Of Reform, p. 55

“No person's gain in wisdom is diminished by anyone else's gain.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XII : The Greening Of America, p. 383 ( See also: Vilfredo Pareto)

“Technology has deprived the family of almost all its functions.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter VII : "It's Just Like Living", p. 182

“there is every reason to fear that the State is growing ever more powerful, more autonomous, more indifferent to its own inhabitants.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XI : Revolution By Consciousness, p. 299

“The great crime of our time, says Vonnegut, was to do too much good secretly, too much harm openly.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter IV : Consciousness II, p. 78

“The presumed causes of Americas troubles can be summed up simply: the evils of unlimited competition, and abuses by those with economic power.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter III : The Failure Of Reform, p. 43

“Surely this new age is not a repudiation of, but a fulfillment of, the American dream. What were the machines for, unless to give man a new freedom to choose how he would live?”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter XII : The Greening Of America, p. 356

“The end result of this personal and public impoverishment is a hollow man.”

Charles A. Reich book The Greening of America

Source: The Greening of America (1970), Chapter VI : The Lost Self, p. 150

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