American life has once again been greatly changed by the new age of science and technology since the Second World War. Everything has speeded up to a tremendous rate. Information is immediate; nobody has to wait to hear any news. There is a television set in every house. There is instant printing. A computer can hold more than a million facts in its memory. It speeds up every operation because it can immediately record, remember facts and produce new information that it combines with these facts.
In the meantime, there are many new problems in American society. Because of the complex way of life, people are no longer the happy, self-reliant free people that they were when they were pioneers, when they were conquering the new land. Now people are becoming more pessimistic. Very often they are lonely. Doctors are trying hard to help people find ways that they can be happy again. Often efficiency replaces good quality. There are cases where new factories are being put up and beautiful old trees are being cut down. There was a village where all the big trees were going to be cut down for a new factory. The people in the town all went and put their chairs around each tree. They sat in those chairs and would not move. So when the machines came to cut the trees, they would have to cut off the people"s legs first. In this way they were able to stop the machines. But more often than not the good land is being spoiled in the interests of technology and industry.
We still have two classes of people. Too much money is still in the hands of too few people. The rich capitalists no longer wear black hats and striped trousers. They have faces that nobody knows because now they are called the multinational corporations. They are the great faceless companies like General Motors, General Fords, United States Steel. There are no longer any faces like Mr. Rockefeller or Mr. Ford. They have become faceless forces, which control our government and the money. The poorest class is still mostly made up of black people, minority people, Spanish speaking Americans, and the poorest people have not benefited from the new age of science and technology. So Americans are no longer the happy, carefree people that once were. What does the sentence "Often efficiency replaces good quality" (Para. 2) mean