But this is _because_ the system has failed them. For example, I have a lower quality of life than my father despite going to university and being a senior engineer in some huge companies - just because the cost of housing has increased astronomically and we now have to pay back student loans too.
He had a house, family and car at 25. I'm over 30 and can't afford even a car (mainly due to the lack of parking and high fuel prices make it not worthwhile). And I know lots of people who far worse off than I am, those who have been able to progress mostly inherited property from their family.
When people see that working hard gets them nowhere, and those who inherit wealth and prestige are far better off, they lose faith in the system and support radical change.
I don't deny that people have real reasons for wanting radical change. But they should know that the overwhelming likelihood is that overthrowing the system is going to lead to a system that is much less just and far more corrupt.
The problem is that the centrist impulse to avoid breaking anything that "works" has been successfully exploited to prevent effective action to address a large number of real problems. At some point, people sense the bullshit and it starts to be rational to pick revolution to escape the trap. A big thing revolution has going for it is that it's a way to break out of local maxima and eliminate path dependent problems (by backtracking and picking a different path).
Sensing bullshit doesn't imply that it is rational to start a revolution.
> But the statistical likelihood is extremely small.
My point is the "statistical likelihood" could be even smaller under the status quo.
> You'd have all the baggage from the civil war you triggered and the shocking loss of faith from corrupted revolutionary leadership, etc etc.
Also what "revolution" is has a tendency to be redefined downward, but rebutted based on the most hyperbolic versions.
> Sensing bullshit doesn't imply that it is rational to start a revolution.
The second cleverest kind of trap is the kind that convinces you it's best not escape.
You and your fellow revolutionaries take your chances at finding out whether you are actually more competent at running a society than your predecessors. The table stakes are anywhere between a peaceful legislative change and a few million lives.
I think that there's more people out there that think they can execute a competent revolution than there actually are.
Take a law firm, or most any similar hierarchical structure. You have someone at the top making the big bucks, with x junior's under them who all want to be at the top one day earning the big bucks. Once trained and experienced, most eventually move up. Maybe the same law firm, maybe they start their own. They then get x juniors to train under them, who rise up and who then get x juniors, who rise up, etc. At some point, you have more than enough lawyers and can't continue growing exponentially and expect the same level of prestige and compensation. Market saturation. But, we keep on going anyway, because that's how we've been collectively trained and it's ingrained in everything. Truly systemic to the point we are blind to it and wonder what's wrong. We've built a system of many systems all with an N+1 query problem and trying to come up with workarounds instead of fixing the poorly designed query in order to become performant again.
I just want to point out that these systems you mention are all changeable within the larger democratic/market system without a revolution. It might be hard, but lots of things are hard and still get done.
Was there some point in history when each professor only taught one PhD student, or did each professor teach 2 students and the number of universities doubled every 5 years?
Similarly, for how long have the number of lawyers been exponentially growing? Shakespeare wrote "let's kill all the lawyers" in 1591, and fortunately people didn't take that suggestion seriously, so presumably we've had 400 years of exponential growth.
If there was one lawyer in 1591, and it takes 10 years for a junior to become a senior lawyer and start training the next generation, then there should be 2^40 lawyers right now. (That assumes that each lawyer lives forever, so the actual number won't be over one trillion, but still).
In fact, many successful countries already have a Wealth Tax, so it isn't such a radical idea[0], but I would argue that the tax rate for such a tax should be equal to the equivalent tax rate that the median citizen pays, as a percentage of their wealth. For example, in the US, the median household pays about $10k in taxes per year, and has a net worth of about $120k. That means that an equivalent Wealth Tax rate would be about 8% per year (with maybe a tax free allowance on the first $10 million).
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wealth_tax#Current_examples
The first is mostly an American problem, the second can be solved by living in slightly less desirable areas, where you can have houses for much, much less. Those areas require a car, but those aren't super expensive unless you have to have a Tesla - and the car you can get will be better, safer, more fuel effecient and more comfortable to drive than the car your parents drove.
Your opportunities for entertainment are much, much better, more likely to suit your tastes specifically and far more convinient.
Electronics and communication is so much better that you cannot compare it in any meaningful sense.
So yes, your life is much, much better and the system didn't fail you, except in a few specific cases which we can and should remidy.
When my mum was a little girl she could draw on the inside of the windows in winter because the window panes were only a single layer of glass. Today I have central heating and triple layer panes that barely feel cold in freezing temperatures.
I'm unconvinced you have a lower quality of life than your father if you factor in everything. You're a senior engineer at huge companies, so presumably you're earning something like at least US$150k, plus stock. You're (presumably) living in a Tier 1 city (SF, NYC) or close (Seattle area, Boston), which gives you access to world-class intellect, employment opportunities, arts, music, etc. You apparently do not actually need a car to get around. You have instantly accessible information about any subject you want, at any depth you want from questionably accurate blogs to survey-level Wikipedia to academic papers. You've been able to continue working during a global pandemic, and you could probably work from anywhere in the world. You have access to inexpensive transportation and can be pretty much anywhere in the world in less than 24 hours. You've (presumably) been the beneficiary of a vaccine safely deployed to millions of people for free within a year after discovery of a completely novel virus. There's never been a better time to be a minority in the US' history, and if you're majority, you get to benefit from all kinds of diverse cultures, foods, etc. in your major city that.
I'm guessing your father didn't have his car, house, and family in a Tier 1 city, and there are opportunities for you in affordable locations. Of course, you'd have to have a car in those more affordable locations, which maybe you'd find troublesome. Your location would probably be more of a monoculture. You don't have to research ideas in physical media in a library. You wouldn't have all the medical advances. Etc.
So yes, housing is expensive, but you could make different choices and have your father's lifestyle. In fact, at a senior engineer's income I expect you could do much better if you just limit quality of life to house, car, and family.
I don't see violent revolution likely to improve matters, either. Tier 1 cities have always been expensive and always will be. But you can see a lot of examples where violent revolution makes things worse.
But mainly I just want financial security - to own a home (to avoid the constant worry of suddenly having to move) and have some promise of retirement.
Consider talking to a mortgage broker and looking at houses. I never would have done it if my wife hadn't forced my hand. I ended up being able to afford it. And i was content to rent, but she wouldn't have it.
In the US, I struggled with having the banks accept self-employment income.
What people overstate is how broken it is. The gold standard was a bad idea but the next step wasn't a moneyless system. It was just a slightly better money system. Whatever follows next will simply continue that trend. My personal bet is negative interest rates on cash and therefore a 0% inflation target. [0]
The alternative to the USD as global reserve currency isn't the yuan, it's a bancor style system [1].
What we might see in the future is the growing importance of IMF special drawing rights [2].
None of these ideas involve adopting a completely foreign system.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tendency_of_the_rate_of_profit... "capitalist production could not be an everlasting form of production since in the end the profit principle itself would suffer a breakdown." has no significance if capitalism can represent negative profit
Yes! An absurdly large proportion of people on the left and right believe that "the system" (capitalism, industry, democracy, power, whathaveyou) is broken and only radical or revolutionary change can make the world better.
But, as a radical centrist, social-capitalist and believer in visionary incrementalism — I totally disagree. I'm super glad to live in this timeline.