" Today this key component of revolution—the gap between what people want, and indeed expect, and what they get—is being played out in the United States and many states in Europe during a new age of mounting scarcity, declining wages, joblessness, government-imposed “austerity” measures, and assaults on civil liberties. The rising living standards experienced by the American working class in the 1950s have been in precipitous decline since the 1970s. "

― Chris Hedges , Wages of Rebellion: The Moral Imperative of Revolt