(FORTUNE Magazine) – DON'T DOFF your designer dinner jacket just yet, but be warned: The long, glittery banquet may be coming to a close, the waiters serving the final candied course. The watchwords of the Eighties -- make big bucks, borrow, spend, and flaunt -- have not disappeared. But new conceits are creeping into the social lexicon, notions like save, nurture, and share. Is greed dead? No, not really. It is -- and probably always will be -- alive and well in Washington, on Wall Street, even among certain citizens of Small Town U.S.A. But evidence suggests that the great decade-long national binge is beginning to leave a funny taste in the mouth and that America is searching for a more balanced diet. The conspicuous consumption, cold careerism, and self-centered spirit that made up so much of business as usual in the Eighties now come across as a bit tacky at best, ruinous at worst. Ivan Boesky, the arbitrager who told an applauding Berkeley university audience in 1985 that ''greed is healthy,'' now has time to contemplate ethics at the Lompoc federal prison camp in California. Former House Speaker Jim Wright and Democratic whip Tony Coelho have forfeited the positions they loved, tainted by allegations that they bent the rules to enrich themselves. Michael Milken, high priest of junk bonds and recipient of a $550 million pay package in 1987, has been indicted and let go by his firm. Leona Helmsley, self-styled queen, ends up on trial as a tax cheat of regal proportions. The forces of reform, moderation, and probity appear to be gaining ground. Rudolph Giuliani, who as federal prosecutor helped bust Boesky, Milken, and assorted mobsters, is running for mayor of New York City -- and doing well in the polls. The press voices outrage at exorbitant executive salaries and investment banking fees, and the public takes up the cry. Jack Kemp vows to clean up an influence-peddling mess at the Department of Housing and Urban Development inherited from the oh-so-fun Reagan years, vowing that future subsidies will help the ''needy, not the greedy.'' None of these developments point, ipso facto, to a nascent epidemic of piety and altruism. ''Conscience,'' as H. L. Mencken observed, ''is the inner voice that warns us someone may be looking.'' But as the high and mighty tremble and topple, the rest of us are pulling back from the excesses of the Eighties. We ) are buying more temperately, saving more deliberately, and borrowing more prudently. Three out of four working Americans age 25 to 49 would like ''to see our country return to a simpler lifestyle, with less emphasis on material success,'' according to a poll by Research & Forecasts for Chivas Regal, a Seagram brand. Phony nostalgia? Perhaps a little. But look at the trends: The growth of real per capita consumer spending is down from around 3.5% a year in the mid-Eighties to 1.9% last year. The savings rate bottomed out at 3.2% of disposable personal income in 1987 and has trended slowly upward ever since, reaching 5.2% recently. The growth of per capita consumer debt is down from 9.2% in 1985 to 3.2% last year. The ''national mood,'' never easy to chart in a country of 249 million, doesn't necessarily change with the passing of a decade or the arrival of a new President. But George Bush does seem to have given voice to a widespread yearning for a shift toward values that aren't calibrated in BMWs, Burberrys, and beach houses. ''We are not the sum of our possessions,'' he said at his inauguration. ''We cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger bank account. We must hope to give them a sense of what it means to be a loyal friend; a loving parent; a citizen who leaves his home, his neighborhood, and town better than he found it.'' THE AMERICAN FAMILY, sundered, maligned, and neglected for so many years, is edging back toward center stage. Marriage remains popular, the divorce rate hasn't budged since 1986, and the birth rate is rising. For many harried parents, the workaholic ethic of the Eighties has begun to fray some, abraded by a growing desire to spend more time with the kids. When the Chivas Regal poll asked working Americans to identify the most important indicator of success, 62% said ''a happy family life.'' Only 10% said ''earning a lot of money.'' Across America, volunteerism is thriving. The Gallup organization reports that the proportion of adult Americans devoting time to ''charity or social service activities'' has grown steadily over the past decade, reaching 39% in 1987, the latest year for which figures are available. Call it a vindication of Reaganomics (a sign that the government can't do everything) or a repudiation of Reaganomics (a sign that the government isn't doing enough). What is incontestable is that helping has become hip, especially among college students and young professionals, groups recently notorious for their selfishness. The Campus Outreach Opportunity League (COOL), founded five years ago to encourage community service, now advises volunteer organizations at 550 colleges and universities. We can see a modest trend away from the lemming parade of the best business and law graduates heading to high-paying, high-pressure jobs at big-name firms. A few are launching nonprofit organizations to aid the poor, the ill, and the illiterate. ''There is a reawakening of the need for public commitment in this country,'' asserts Michael Brown, Harvard College '84, Harvard Law '88. ''It's the end of the 'me decade' and the beginning of the 'we decade.' '' Brown, 28, is a co-founder of City Year, a Boston ''urban peace corps'' run primarily by young professionals and backed by $760,000 in corporate and individual donations. Public service, a concept that not too long ago seemed as anachronistic as pillbox hats and Apollo moon missions, is making a comeback. Federal legislators have introduced no fewer than nine bills calling for government funding of youth service programs. President Bush recently announced his own plan, Youth Engaged in Service to America, or, in the inevitable snappy acronym, YES to America. The proposal for young people age 5 to 25 will be part of the broader Points of Light Initiative, a $25-million-a-year plan to promote community service. The Bush program, says Charles Moskos, a Northwestern University sociologist and author of A Call to Civic Service, ''is sort of unfocused, but at least it's the first time a President has spoken like that since John Kennedy.'' George Bush, to paraphrase Lloyd Bentsen, is no John Kennedy. But clearly there is more than just hot air to the ''new breeze'' Bush claims is blowing through America. What's going on? THE MANIFEST contradictions of the decade now ending are finally catching up with us, argues Rosabeth Moss Kanter, Harvard business professor and author of When Giants Learn to Dance, a book about management and careers in the Nineties: ''The Eighties were a time of incredible prosperity for some but also a time when average family income was flat, when our infrastructure was crumbling and our educational system was deteriorating. It's not surprising that people in the Nineties are waking up.'' Waking up may entail a measure of guilt. Says Ginny Blissert, formerly a New York investment banker: ''When you live in the lap of luxury and you walk to work past people living in such poverty, you begin to feel that any little thing you can do must somehow make a difference.'' Blissert is now a student at Northwestern's Kellogg School of Management, where she serves as a co-chair of Business With a Heart, a student-run community services program. The undulations of the economy in the past two years have persuaded at least some of us that money is a fickle friend. While the October 1987 stock market crash didn't turn out to be the apocalypse many predicted, it did knock a lot of giddiness and hubris out of the system. Following on the heels of the crash, the slowing appreciation of house prices and the job insecurity brought on by takeovers, restructuring, and foreign competition have been enough to send people in search of firmer foundations for their lives. ''Tie your self- esteem too narrowly to your paycheck and you'll be in trouble,'' observes Laurence Shames, author of a new book titled The Hunger for More: Searching for Values in an Age of Greed. It may be too that greed or at least hyperconspicuous consumption has, like many fashions, simply worn itself out. Popular culture no longer glorifies to quite the same extent the acquisitiveness and chicanery of what Thorstein Veblen called the ''pecuniary life.'' Dynasty has gone off the air, and Dallas has fallen in the ratings. Shows that emphasize home, hearth, and children -- Cosby and The Wonder Years -- are thriving. ''People don't want to look like they're living too well,'' argues Ash DeLorenzo, who bears the title trend director at BrainReserve Inc., a New York market consulting firm. Big splurges, such as flashy imported cars and fur coats, are out, he says. Little indulgences -- gourmet ice cream, premium vodka, and manicures, for example -- are in. American society, in the view of historian Arthur Schlesinger Jr., oscillates in 30-year cycles between periods where private pursuits and self- interest predominate (the Roaring Twenties, the Eisenhower Years, the Money Society of the 1980s) and periods where activism and common purpose prevail (the Progressive Era at the beginning of the century, the New Deal, the New Frontier of the early 1960s). ''There has been a kind of cyclical rhythm,'' Schlesinger says, ''moving from the belief that having everyone make a fast buck for himself was the best way to save the nation to the notion that public service was the best way.'' The society avidly pursues personal wealth until, with our oft-chronicled propensity for excess, we burn ourselves out. Then the cycle turns, and we pursue commonwealth. SOCIAL CRITICS can exaggerate the extremes, and may well have done so with the greediness of the Eighties. To begin with, most Americans can't afford to be seriously spendthrift. A study by the Conference Board and the Census Bureau found that only 28.9% of all American households have discretionary income, defined as the money left in the family kitty after taxes and basic everyday expenditures. But those who do have discretionary income have been anything but discreet. The icon of the Eighties, as raised up by the media, is the young urban professional -- the term yuppie first became widespread in 1983. By now we're all numbingly familiar with the habits and appurtenances of the species -- their $90 running shoes, $900 briefcases, and $900,000 condos. It's easy to forget how few of these folks there really are. ''Only 0.3% of Americans are both younger than age 40 and earn more than $75,000 per year,'' American Demographics magazine pointed out last year. Still, as the most conspicuous members of the baby-boom generation, yuppies have had a disproportionate impact on society. They have seemed to embody the aspirations of the 78 million Americans born between 1946 and 1964, a generation that has powered the social movements of the past three decades, whether activism, narcissism, careerism, or materialism. What made the generation that sought nirvana in the Sixties turn to mammon in the Eighties? James Burke, the thoughtful former chief executive of Johnson & Johnson, believes the answer lies in the double failures of the Vietnam war and the Great Society initiatives: ''A lot of people may have said, 'The hell with that. I don't want to go to war, and I'm not going to worry about the social problems either.' '' Subsequent developments in the public realm, from Watergate to Contragate, only strengthened that resolve. Douglas LaBier, a Washington psychoanalyst who directs an effort called the Project on Adult Lives, describes the evolution -- or failure to evolve -- of the boomers' thinking: ''The yuppies are direct descendants of the hippies. Among them you find a lot of cynicism and despair over the inability of idealism to coalesce into any kind of social change or political leadership.'' LaBier interviewed 220 professionals age 25 to 47 for his 1986 book, Modern Madness: The Hidden Link Between Work and Emotional Conflict. His subjects, seemingly healthy people, were often troubled by the values they encountered on the job -- as reflected in dishonesty, infighting, and self-aggrandizement. Sometimes, says LaBier, they sought an elusive solace in materialism, going on shopping sprees in an attempt to cure depression or to find some sort of fulfillment. LaBier believes that much of Eighties greed was motivated by fear, by pervasive anxiety about falling behind economically. For many of the younger boomers, the decade was a time of slipping living standards. From 1979 to 1987 median real family income in households headed by people 25 to 34 declined 6.4%, reports the Census Bureau. Back then some of these sliding boomers plunged into debt just to stay even. They bought fancy objets to fool the neighbors -- and themselves. ''Eighties greed,'' writes author Shames, ''was a nervous, twitchy, looking-over-the-shoulder-while-running-full- speed-ahead sort of affair.'' The boomers are moving into middle age, and at least in the near term, their economic situation is likely to improve. This could provide the breathing room they need to embrace new, less frenetic pursuits. More and more of them are getting married, moving to the suburbs, raising kids -- in short, settling down. A Rolling Stone survey of boomers last year found that 92% had or wanted to have children. Says Peter Meola, 33, a Seagram marketing vice president: ''Home life and family have become much more important among the people I associate with. Now it's not so much, 'Let's go to that new restaurant,' or 'Let's see the latest movie,' but, 'Let's get together with our friends and their kids and have a barbecue.' '' As the boomers age, predicts Edward Yardeni, chief economist at Prudential-Bache Securities, they will earn more and save more. He thinks they could help boost America's savings rate to 10% over the next five years, a view that other economists find overly optimistic.

Arthur Schlesinger also has great expectations for the older boomers, those born between 1946 and 1957. As they rise to positions of leadership, he predicts, they will bring with them the heady idealism they soaked up during their youth in the Sixties. Critics accuse Democrat stalwart Schlesinger of romanticizing the Sixties: While that turbulent decade did see tremendous advances for minorities and women, it was also a time of assassination, war, and drug abuse. Still, the emotional pull of that era is intense. When the opinion research firm Yankelovich Clancy Shulman asked people in their 30s for their attitudes on the Sixties, 61% viewed it as a constructive period and 51% said they missed the sense of community that existed then. Maria Foscarinis, a former Wall Street lawyer, carries the banner of the Sixties with her in her new job as director of the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty. Foscarinis, 33, has an impeccable yuppie resume. A graduate of Barnard College and Columbia Law School, she clerked for a federal judge, then joined Sullivan & Cromwell, an elite New York firm. Says she: ''That's what you're supposed to do if you want to be successful.'' Foscarinis found the work, which included defending an investment bank embroiled in an insider-trading scandal, intellectually stimulating but not particularly fulfilling. ''At the end of the day there's something missing,'' she says. She yearned for a job that would actively advance her ideals -- Sixties ideals, as she sees them -- ''about how the world should be.'' So in 1985 she took a pay cut from $70,000 to $10,000 a year and opened the Washington, D.C., office of the National Coalition for the Homeless. Since then, the coalition has successfully championed the cause of the homeless in the courts and Congress. In June, Foscarinis left the coalition to start her own organization, one that will focus more broadly on poverty. NOT MANY PEOPLE are prepared to rearrange their lives so completely, but many well-paid professionals are making more subtle changes. ''People are not giving up material goods,'' observes Douglas LaBier, ''but there's more of a letting go of the need to acquire. The desire to have, to get, to possess becomes more in balance with the other aspects of life.'' Consider the example of Christopher Noon, 39, a Chicago-area developer who donates large amounts of his time and income to Habitat for Humanity International, a Georgia-based organization that builds houses for poor families and counts among its volunteers Jimmy Carter. Says Noon: ''The reason we're here on earth is not just to earn money and drive a BMW.'' Boston psychotherapist Steven Berglas similarly sees a growing realization that the Eighties' symbols of success -- a prestigious and time-consuming job, a six-figure salary, and an abundance of material possessions -- is incomplete: ''People are saying, 'I've got money and I've got power, but it's worthless unless I can be happy.' You can only collect so many bottles of Pouilly-Fuisse, and then it becomes grape juice.'' In increasing numbers, says * Berglas, his patients are discovering the joy of helping the community -- and becoming part of it -- through charitable activities. Employers may want to pick up on the trend: In the Nineties sponsoring volunteer efforts and giving to charity may prove a valuable way to win the good will of the troops. Some 45% of the respondents to the Chivas Regal poll said they would be more loyal to their company if they knew it donated money to a public service cause. MBA students active in Northwestern's Business With a Heart program say that when they hunt for jobs on graduation, they will seek out firms that do pro bono work. Observes Shirley Keller, a senior official at Volunteer -- The National Center, an information clearinghouse for charitable activities: ''It's just beginning to dawn on some companies that community service can be good for productivity, morale, and loyalty.'' COMPANIES HAVE an even bigger lesson to learn for the less greedy Nineties: the increasing importance of the family. You can count on the baby-boomers to force the issue of family vs. work onto the corporate agenda. Fully 73% of all women age 25 to 34 now work for pay, as do half of all women with babies under a year old. For them and their husbands, child care, flexible hours, and job sharing are pressing concerns. Says Dana Friedman, co-president of the New York-based Families and Work Institute: ''People have no choice but to bring these problems to the workplace.'' When Tod Grantham, 33, a Silicon Valley technical manager with a working wife and baby daughter, went looking for a new job, he had strict criteria: Anybody he would work for had to provide child care, flex-time, and ''an understanding that the family was not to be secondary.'' He received several offers, including one that would have paid $5,000 a year more than the post he ultimately accepted at Oracle Corp., a computer software company in Belmont, California, that met his standards. ''The more progressive companies realize that there are families out there that were getting shortchanged,'' says Grantham. ''They're starting to pay more attention to home life.'' Pushing this change in attitude, says Grantham, are yuppies with children. Well, there they go again, once more at the forefront of social change. As Grantham points out, families, unlike companies, aren't all that susceptible to hostile takeovers or leveraged buyouts. ''A family,'' he says, ''has got a lot more longevity to it, and it's not something you want to ignore for the sake of another fast buck.'' As social philosophies go, that's a few light years away from the notion that greed is healthy, and a good deal more salubrious. If greed isn't dead, it certainly is hurting.

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