I sometimes think we confuse economic wellbeing with moral and, dare I say it, tribal backbone.
We may be materially and economically better off now but are we not becoming feckless and self centred in the process? Was it not H Macmillan who was buried for daring to say that we'd never had it so good? That was shortly before the "swinging sixties" when most people didn't give a flying f**k beyond anything other than enjoying themselves. If the Victorians and Edwardians had thought that way, we would now have parity with Romania.
OK, the working classes in the mills, ironworks, factories and fields around us lived through hell; but if we had the same pioneering spirit mixed with human compassion, would we be wringing our hands over "credit crunch", falling US economy and the general World turmoil as we do now?
When a Nation looses identity with its military ethos, it's buggered.