To support your suggestion, look at the decline of benefit societies, fraternal orders, clubs and the like. Things that have impacted them are: threat from broa

To support your suggestion, look at the decline of benefit societies, fraternal orders, clubs and the like. Things that have impacted them are: threat from broad anti-discrimination penalty powers; displacement of things like aid/insurance with government programs that are more widely available but administered by distant, impersonal bureaucracies; a general American "anti-exclusivity" attitude; stricter enforcement of separation of church and state issues. I'm not necessarily suggesting we should go back, after all those changes were made for good reasons. But it could be that those changes also had serious negative effects that have to be factored into social planning. On the other hand, I could be mixing up cause and effect.