To modern ears, an executive call for a politics of thrift, moderate privation, cooperation between neighbors, and adjusting to (rather than mastering) circumstances sounds a bit tinny. So long have we been enjoined to consume our way out of economic crises, to buy more and spend more in order to stimulate manufactories to produce more and thus hire more, that the very notion that a sitting president might encourage us to do less of any of these things is kind of a shock. But Carter meant it. He wanted people to wear sweaters.
