Has the system finally cracked? Have the wealthy and powerful simply taken so much leaving the rest of us grasping at our very survival, easily manipulated into turning against other groups and even each other in an attempt to make sense of it all? Is society destined to destroy itself or descend into eternal servitude to our masters? How do we get out of this spiral of madness?
Rome didn’t treat it’s lower classes and actual slaves very well from the start, though. Nor did the rulers before them or the feudal splinter states after them. I’ve had an actual historian of Rome tell me point blank nobody has any idea why it started to decline. Historically, scholars have pointed at too much generosity with the privileges of citizenship and senatorial appointments of those from humble backgrounds.
I think it’s fair to say that usually the peasants know they’re being screwed. Very rarely, the aristocracy has been complacent enough it develops into an actual movement, but before the French revolution it always ends like the English peasant’s revolt: it’s crushed, and everything goes back to normal. It’s kind of weird it’s worked better since then, really.
(There was also more than one financial crisis in the Rome, but that’s neither here nor there)