Today, however, there is no such sense of unease with our super-abundance because this kind of moral understanding has much withered. In a secularized culture, God has ceased to be a player in regulating our desires and, besides, his regulation, such as it is, has ceased to be moral and has become only therapeutic. The restraints, therefore are gone. Capitalism has no internal logic or morality which will place limits on the abundance and surfeit which it produces. As a result, in the rough-and-tumble scramble for success, our markets are flooded with far more goods, far more choices, than we actually need. If there is to be restraint it has to come from those who are the beneficiaries of such plenty, but we suffer from none of the introspection and doubt the Dutch exhibited in wondering what a moral use of life would look like. America, as a result, has become a paradise of unlimited, endless consumption, where desire now substitutes for the moral norms which were once there. A...