> why did it get going in earnest in the mid- to late-1970s
> and not ten or twenty years earlier?
Something in the water, I would suppose. POE.
Surely you don't mean to imply that the Capitalist Machine has only recently begun "in earnest" to apply technology and cunning to the task to separating you from your money?
Why did nuclear war only begin "in earnest" in the 40s, and not ten or twenty years earlier?
/jordan