I've been living under various forms of burnout since the Dot Bomb around 2001. The big thing that changed vs 1990s optimism for the future is wealth inequality

I've been living under various forms of burnout since the Dot Bomb around 2001. The big thing that changed vs 1990s optimism for the future is wealth inequality. It would be interesting to build a graph of where an individual's productivity goes in the economy.. Say a person earns $100 per day at their job. They actually produced around $400, but that extra money gets skimmed by their employer to cover loss leaders, ads, leases, utilities, administrators, profit, etc. This is the US median individual income of $38,000 divided by (US GDP of $23 trillion divided by 135 million workers = $170,000) = 22% remaining. Then the worker's rent takes $25-50. Debts for education, a vehicle, etc take another $10-25. Utilities, food and other living expenses take the remainder until less than $10 is left. Play with the numbers all you want, at any job anywhere, and this fractionalization of productivity always plays out. So workers have to choose whether to spend the 2.5% of the productivity they get to keep ($10/$400) on saving it or spending it on recreation. We blame them for spending it on recreation. Why don't we ask where the other $390 went? This is the central crisis IMHO, and why I always place blame on the wealthy. Because they have the means to automate the busywork of the economy and free everyone from this exploitation that's been the daily lived reality for nearly all people for thousands of years. But they profit from it, so they never will. They can't, not because they're incapable, but because their attention is focused on ego-based goals. So they buy a yacht or build a rocket rather than building clean water infrastructure, free municipal solar power, mass transit, home hydroponic gardens, basically anything like solarpunk, and wokeism itself. That's why they demonize it. I think that enough young people have woken up post-pandemic that a shift is inevitable. Away from the centralized control of the wealthy to a distributed resource-based economy that takes capital out of the equation. Which will be some form of "your money's no good here", an homage to the Earth First! and Back to Basics movements of the 70s and early 80s during stagflation. Not that people don't want money, but that their basic needs are fulfilled enough that they don't need to work every day just to survive. The fact that sentence is laughable is maybe the great tragedy of our time. So I expect a huge backlash to that, and outlandish political maneuvers to do anything except help the average working person. And people will vote for the status quo candidates who promise security, over the ones that could help liberate them from the futility of the workaday world and a "retirement" bereft of savings.