Mass society, mass production

Modernity really got going during the early nineteenth century.

The first railroad came through Concord in 1839. Thoreau could see what it would lead to: the breaking down of boundedness and groundedness, a human domain of experience that would be, for all intents and purposes, limitless. Most viewed it as progressive; Thoreau saw it as problematic.

Mass production dates to about two hundred years ago. Seeing the widgets rolling off the line at a breathless pace, astute people had a sense of what it would lead to: attics full of stuff, garages filled with crap, oceans clogged with effluence.

https://press.uchicago.edu/ucp/books/book/chicago/C/bo44254507.html