Unbearable inequality fueled the 2011 London riots as social revolutions

Evidence

Even as Apple’s ascension appeared to ratify the claims of second-modernity individuals, the streets of London told the grim legacy of a three-decade experiment in economic growth through exclusion. One week after the rioting, an article by sociologist Saskia Sassen in the Daily Beast observed that “if there’s one underlying condition, it has to do with the unemployment and bitter poverty among people who desire to be part of the middle class and who are keenly aware of the sharp inequality between themselves and their country’s wealthy elite. These are in many ways social revolutions with a small ‘r,’ protests against social conditions that have become unbearable.” — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 131

Categorization

• XREF: The juxtaposition of Apple’s triumph with London’s riots echoes the book’s argument about second-modernity individualism masking structural exclusion. — connects to: Britain’s 2011 riots and Occupy shared a common origin in economic inequality — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 132; Riots’ social-media coordination and retail destruction hinted at nascent class consciousness; The near-simultaneous 2011 protests revealed a shared deep crisis of neoliberal capitalism — Arthur Borriello and Anton Jäger, The Populist Moment: The Left After the…, 88

Broader Connections

• Britain’s 2011 riots and Occupy shared a common origin in economic inequality #corroborates (0.92) — Shoshana Zuboff, The Age of Surveillance Capitalism, 132