That's a romantic notion. As you age, you notice just how many people want what's yours, and as you're hit up constantly for your things, by institutions and individuals, because there's a lot of parasites out there at all levels. There wasn't this time when people were honest. Honest people were honest, and dishonest people are not. There's lots of both.

At a younger age you haven't been aware of exploitation as much and still may trust a few people.

The point I made about the propaganda wasn't about your politics, its just that the media is full of that mindset constantly, and with internet communication you can see real-time issues going on, which you didn't really have access to before. So you sort of had to experience exploitation to be aware of it, now you can see it on a global scale.

Does everyone exploit everyone? At different levels. Most of it is people wanting what's yours, but others may just want your time, emotional support, whatever. There's passive benign exploitation, such as someone enjoying your humor or personality and spending time with you, or someone manipulating you for free drinks in a bar to take advantage of your generosity or sexual interest, to someone playing around with loan paperwork on a car you just bought to screw you over financially.

So to get back on track from whatever old man trainwreck I was on, people aren't any more exploitive than they were before, it's just easier to be aware of it at a younger age, and anyone remembering fondly back to some "magical" time where it didn't happen, are just people that either never had it happen to them, or remained naïve for a very long time.