Indeed, and the article is right in saying there isn't really a way out. Humanity paints itself into these kinds of corners fairly frequently over the course of history: entrenched systems where many suffer, but where too many powerful people benefit for it to be able to change.

Traditionally, the solution has been violent revolution. That's really the only way to (for example) tell 66% of Americans that their biggest asset that they've spent a lifetime saving for and investing in is now worthless because trust us, everyone is better off when housing isn't an investment.

But America is in a strange place in human development. There are enough bread and circuses in the form of cheap Netflix, cell phones, and food supply where even the totally destitute just don't have the desire to grab a pitchfork and physically march to their capital building. (And I would argue that January 6 was more of a social-media-fueled livestream event than any kind of attempt at coherent political change.)

Plus, suburban sprawl and the isolated, car-based lifestyle we've cultivated in the past century means that even if you wanted to get a group of like-minded revolutionaries together and march, how would you even physically do that? How does a poor person in suburban Tulsa even meet 20 like-minded people, and where would they go to express their displeasure physically? Once they got there, where would they all park?