Well, the opportunities available for people to do so are becoming rarer. See my thread about the emergence of the new precariat class. (link at bottom)
Yes, people are capable of amazing, even monumental achievement but the fact is the opportunities available for people at the lowest end of the spectrum in the global economy for all practical intents and purposes make it so 99.9% have absolutely no chance of advancing to a higher class. The middle class is actually being pushed into poverty as private property and wealth become more and more concentrated among the tiny owning class of society.
As you and Bakunin both astutely pointed out the forces brought to bear by the social arrangement created by the machination of this class makes it far more likely that a worker making $12 an hour will accept a lower wage rather than demand the higher one of $13 because of fear of being replaced with another desperate soul who will work for $11 an hour. After all because of automation and extreme division of labor most jobs in the service industry can be done by anyone with a half hours training.
Individuals have therefore been rendered into exactly the type of throwaway products that they are engaged in selling rather than becoming fully actualized beings who can reach their full potential. Instead of thriving the lower classes are being stunted by an environment that provides inadequate resources for vitality. This dehumanizing and isolating effect atomizes society and perpetuates a system of economic repression. After all how can the individual stand against the very forces that built society's infrastructure?
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