The Return of the 19th Century

A friend once told me that the wealthy elite didn't want to just "roll back" the New Deal, they wanted to roll back the entire 20th Century. His point was that all the social gains of the 20th Century were granted to us in order to combat global communism, and that with the collapse of communism the wealthy elite are going it take it all back.
I didn't fully appreciate his sentiments until recently.
The recent upsurge in global piracy seems strange and exotic in today's world, but in fact it is rather appropriate in the full context of national events.
Here is a list of trends which show the 21st Century is going to look a lot more like the 19th Century than the 20th Century.