".. . the sense of deep despair that leads even the government to appoint a minister for suicide prevention and civil society to report in depth on unheard-of levels of loneliness and isolation…" Working class people everywhere know the truth about their own lives , but as Orwell's character Winston Smith observes in " 1984 " they lack general ideas.
Marx explained long ago that the ruling ideas are the ideas of the ruling class. He hardly meant that progressive SOCIALIST ideas do not have a chance and therefore progressive social change is impossible. That would be plain absurd.
Until they become mass parties socialist parties have the educational role of spreading generalizing scientific ideas about the capitalist economic order to the best and brightest working class individuals. The rest absorb these ideas almost by osmosis in pre-revolutionary times.
I think the German working class was far better educated at the turn of the 20th century . They were far more generally literate and scientifically literate than many American high school and college graduates today. Back then a socialist press ( with the help of many European Jews ) was thriving. And those dastardly " immigrants " brought their advanced thinking into the USA. As seen in Upton Sinclair's classic " The Jungle ".
In today's USA nobody will get any dangerous " socialist " notions from radio , TV, and the movies. Nor from Christian evangelical preachers of the " Gospel of Wealth " : Jesus wants you to be rich !
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