>If the system is squeezing every ounce of your labor out and you're only seeing a small return on it, what's keeping you motivated?
But by any metric you choose these things were worse in the past. We didn't have safety nets for the elderly. You worked in a factory and not only were the wages bad but the work was dangerous. I don't see how these variables explain the problem now since they had a worse value in the past.
In periods of increasing wealth inequality, I'd expect less class mobility and increased anxiety and hopelessness.
Combine that anxiety with climate change, political gridlock, loss of privilege, a sense that retirement will never happen, and generally feeling like your parents generation had it better... I can see why people might check out. All these things seem so systemically inevitable.
Where? In the US?
Post-WW2 saw the rest of the world blown to bits, and the US and USSR being the only two powers left standing. Incomes shot through the roof for the average USA-ian because everyone else who could have done cheap labor was dead or busy rebuilding.
Pre World Wars there was plenty of deep, deep poverty in the US, and there was much labor unrest (e.g. the Pullman Strike, etc.) because of it.
Isn't everyone feeling this? Maybe men are feeling the ways that others have felt for a long time?
I agree that the loss of privilege is definitely happening, which is honestly a good thing imo, but I'd tie this back to greater cultural unease about one's economic future more than anything else. Most of the folks I know are in their 30s and don't believe they'll ever retire.
If the system is squeezing every ounce of your labor out and you're only seeing a small return on it, what's keeping you motivated?