Things have been getting better because of the efforts of our ancestors. Then their kids, the boomers took over. And now boomers are all we have left at the top. That's why things are failing.
The generational thing was more apt for slow moving civilizations. This paradigm is due to end very soon if it hasn't already, simply because everything changes so damn quickly and communication as well as networking is
completely different from what it used to be.
You no longer grow up and die with the people and in the environment that you'll spend your life with and in. So you have little chance to be fully oblivious
if you want to do something more productive than being a sheep.
At the end of the day we'll end up with sets of people that exclusively consume and "just live their lives", classes of people that live to work and solve problems, as well as people who do a bit of both.
And that's good enough. People who "just live their lives" provide data and cheap labour, while also increasing the total acquirable wealth of the doers. No need for any more than that precisely because of exponential progress.
Who cares if they need more space and more resources when we become much more efficient at creation and allocation.
Big systems can take a long time to fail. But when they do it's a process that can't be stopped. And then people look back and wonder, what went wrong? Why didn't anyone see it coming? Why did nobody do anything? Well it's because the parents of the boomers are dead that nobody did anything. Nobody could.
We have enough countries to not have to care about such issue. Even if Sanders became president
and had the ability to pass anything through congress, neither of which will happen, the productive class will simply leave and set up shop elsewhere.
The consumer class will eventually follow, because it can't get anything done by itself and won't be able to resist the desire of living where the magic happens. Needless to say, some of the people who foolishly voted to break things, without even understanding what they are doing, would suffer greatly from this in the short-term.
But in the long-term all you have to do is let this nonsense play out a few more times and watch even the dumbest of idiots on Tiktok spread anti-communism awareness memes.
Yeah, it looks bad if you're zoomed in on the now. But in reality it's just a learning process.
Think of humans more as a collective organism, you know you could do better but you're too lazy, arrogant, naive and stupid to actually do it until you fall flat on your ass a few times.
For the individual all that matters is being ahead of the game and not staying in any country that is about to go down the shitter. Wealthy people have been doing this forever, and more and more normal folks learn this over time.
Solve for communism.
In my country we pay at least 80% in taxes. In england the police are telling people to check their thinking for posts on facebook and twitter. We are almost there. How do you stop this?
We're not almost there, some countries look like they're getting there but there's a lot of lash back and it's not the entire world.
Provided you care enough to sacrifice your lifetime there are two ways. Change from within, change from without.
If you have a lot of leverage, e.g. because you're an Elon Musk, you can go into politics and media and start changing things because everybody respects you and knows that you know what the fuck you're talking about and doing.
If you're not, go to whichever country is most conducive to amassing wealth and solving significant problems. Go do it.
When that country is about to fail (e.g. if you're in the US and Sanders gets elected) you leave for the next best thing and keep going there.
Once you attain above leverage you may consider influencing culture and politics.
Academia is where the next generation of politicians and leaders of whatever stripes are made. This is not a minor thing, but in fact one of the biggest problems we have in the west today.
It is indeed not a minor thing. But I'm not very concerned because people can migrate.
Take that away and you've got a real problem. As long as countries can attract the top of the crop by changing policy there will always be a gradient of preferable vs undesirable policies, and that ultimately and over time is what will take us to proper capitalism.
I'd guess that the real issue is creating and maintaining a culture in which:
1.) Everybody understands that anybody can come to wealth with minimal tweaks to their lifestyle
2.) Everybody who doesn't choose to become wealthy understands its their choice and hence takes full responsibility and appreciation for their 'simpler' lifestyles
3.) People understand that the wealthy almost always merely solved problems that directly or indirectly impacted everyone and that they'll be happy to take your money to solve any resulting or new problems