i’m more and more convinced that we’ll look back at the 1920-1989 years as an island of tumultuous progress, not unlike 1789-1815. For about 70 years, Western middle classes decided it was in their best interest to agitate the working classes into providing better conditions for everyone; and the working classes saw that as the best way to improve their lot.
Since the fall of Soviet power, we’ve reverted to the jungle of “every man for himself”. The working-class people who did manage to improve, have decided it’s time to roll up the drawbridge to avoid the even-poorer from repeating the journey and potentially compete with them. The middle classes are lost in a dream of jet-setting techno-progress that has no regards for people left behind. Our rulers have an easy life, pitting poor versus poor and tricking us into making the wrong choices for the right reasons.
I honestly can’t see a way out. We thought the internet would take down barriers, but now it’s actually forcing us in tiny little bubbles. Personal freedoms and Socialism have always been uneasy bedfellows, but one cannot go anywhere without the other; likewise, middle classes and working classes cannot hope to significantly change anything on their own, because our rulers will exploit for their own gain any movement that might emerge (brexit, tea party / trumpism, M5S etc). We need a vision of the future that can be sold to people with little hope.
