The conservative surge of 1980 created a change in social values which is now shaping the political landscape. Even though each individual has his own values, there is a set of group values which social decisions are aligned upon. The underlying premise of the social values changed.

The change primarily shows up in journalism, which seems to be the voice of the group values of society. Secondarily, it shows up in the expectations of those persons who have the altered values.

The most visible manifestation of the altered values is selfishness. There is now a premise and expectation that all social decisions should be built upon selfishness. Whoever has power and makes decisions should get all of the money and authority. Some benefit should then "trickle down" to lesser persons. Selfish persons do not let anything trickle down, because selfishness is that way. But the claim that it might is needed as a justification mechanism.

This is a change in social values, because the prior assumption was that everyone should benefit equally from social activity. The liberals called it "equal opportunity." Changing that assumption was getting rid of "eighty years of liberalism gone awry."

Why is selfishness a superior standard? Welfare was used as the primary example. "Welfare queens" were supposedly driving around in something equivalent to gold plated Cadillac's. The correction was for the haves to keep what they have and stop distributing it to those who do not deserve it. Worthiness was the test. Worthiness is a manifestation of selfishness.

There never was an honest discussion of the moral significance of selfishness, because such abstract moral values are not understood. The sin would end if the abstractions were understood. Awareness ends sin, when sufficiently increased.

We can look at the result as a reference for the significance of selfishness. The first thing to notice is that the selfishness prevents lesser persons from benefiting from social results. This force is the starting point of selfishness, so why wouldn't it be the end point. In other words, the trickle down theory is a fraud. Selfish persons do not allow lesser persons to benefit from their activity at the starting point, so why would they allow them to benefit at the end point? The claim of otherwise is a fraud used to justify the sin inherent in selfishness.

So why do moralists consider selfishness to be a sin? Because it destroys the unfortunate persons who are not controlling the power to decide who benefits and who loses from social activity. Supposedly, it is all about worthiness. But nothing could be more fraudulent. What is worthy about hording resources including social structures?

The argument of worthiness is based upon an implied, if not stated, ethic referred to as "social Darwinism." It means that the persons who acquire power are superior and therefore more worthy. Social interactions supposedly select for the more worthy persons to succeed.

The most obvious fraud of social Darwinism is that power acquired through force is destructive, which means sinful, not virtuous. But the pretense is that the sin part is just an aberration, and it does not apply to those who acquire their power through valid means. The workers pay the taxes, so they have no obligation to spend the taxes on misfits who have been selected out of the social process. Which means welfare and related schemes are injustices.

There are two false assumptions in this ideology. The worthiness is false, and the justification in isolating worthy from unworthy is false.

Worthiness indicates that some persons acquire their power through noble means. All power is ignoble, in part because it traces back to origins which are ignoble including wars and similar methods of stealing property and resources. But power is inherently ignoble, because there is nothing constructive which can be done with power. Authority is assumed to be necessary power, but it is not really supposed to be a form of power. Valid authority is supposed to be objectively defined, which requires created laws to define its use and purposes. Of course, an enforcement mechanism is required, and it is a form of power, but that little problem is an offshoot of sin which must be coped with by lesser sin. It doesn't convert power into virtue.

And then the second fact is that social existence creates an inherent interdependence which no power mongers can escape from. They don't build their own cars or clean their own latrines. So their artificial lines around excluded persons are arbitrary and unjustified.