Capitalism is an effervescent elixir. People clamor to catch a lift upward on the latest bubble even though deep down, most know there is only air beneath them. Stocks, tech valuations, real-estate speculation — it’s not the stuff of the economy that really matters, but rather, the timely exit from each overvalued market. A few people win, most lose, and the victors tend to be those already advantaged by their class position. Nevertheless, we suppress that knowledge, because facing the truth is too painful. It’s nice to have something to hope, and to work, for.

[...] there might be an alternate ending to this story. Recently, twenty thousand Google workers around the world walked off the job for a few hours. Spurred by anger at the multimillion-dollar payouts given to high-level executives accused of sexual harassment, the global organizing effort came together in under a week. Some of the San Francisco contingent expressed solidarity with the city’s striking Marriott workers, a marked disavowal of the industry’s typical hyper-individualism. If tech workers keep traveling down this road, and manage to elicit class consciousness in America’s white-collar professionals — a cause long thought to be hopeless — now that would be a true innovation.