[noelwelsh]

Modern societies are supposed to be organised for the benefit of all in society (broadly speaking; obviously there are cases when different people have desires that cannot be reconciled). This is why the government usually sponsors education, for example. All of society benefits from an educated population and hence all of society contributes to the cost of that education. This seems to have been lost in the US (and, increasingly, the UK) and is, I think, the root cause of the problems. I believe the start of the problem was the rise of neo-liberalism, holding the market and competition above all else.

[realusername]

I think personally that the main problems in the developed world were globalisation + large scale automation, it completely destroyed the power the average worker had, and power directly means money.

Inflation is only low because better technology and bigger markets are now available which automatically makes everything cheaper to make, but even that isn't enough to compensate the loss of power of the middle class.

[oldsklgdfth]

I tend to agree with that. Globalization has acted in very interesting ways. I wonder how it will affect the standard of living on a global scale. My guess is that it will have a normalizing effect.

[qubax]

> Modern societies are supposed to be organised for the benefit of all in society

That's a nice sentiment to hold, but that's simply not true. All societies are formed by the elite for the benefit of the elite. If others benefit in the endeavor, it's simply an accidental side effect.

Industrialized human society is no different than the industrial animal farm. The industrial animal farm doesn't exist for the benefit of the animals. It exists for the benefit of the people who own, run or rule the farm.

> This is why the government usually sponsors education, for example.

Modern education system in the US and UK and everywhere was created to indoctrinate the students into a particular belief system of the elite, produce future factory workers and to keep child labor from competing against adult laborers. It was one part to serve as innoculation against "wrongthink", one part to produce factory workers who can read simple instructions and to remove labor supply ( child labor ) from a society which couldn't produce enough jobs for its adults. A reason for the constant increase in education demands from jobs is simply because there aren't enough jobs to go around. A solution is to keep successive generations longer and longer in school and out of the work force. But a side effect of this is that students are indebted more and more. And debt is slavery as adam smith pointed out.

> I believe the start of the problem was the rise of neo-liberalism, holding the market and competition above all else.

The problem predates neoliberalism. Neoliberalism ( and neoconservativism ) is just national industrialism writ large ( international ). It's the natural progression from national industrialization of the past 200 years.